Cadillac Hotel Ground Breaking

Historic Seattle is excited - and considerably relieved - to announce the start of rehabilitation of the 1889 Cadillac Hotel in the Pioneer Square Historic District.

Mayor Greg Nickels officiated at a groundbreaking ceremony on Tuesday, July 6.

In 2001, the Cadillac Hotel building was severely damaged by the Nisqually earthquake and slated for demolition. After determining that rehabilitation was feasible, Historic Seattle purchase the property in 2002 and embarked on a nearly two-year planning and financing effort. With closings on a low-interest City loan in June and construction loan and tax credit equity investment from KeyBank and Key Community Development Corporation in July, the project was ready to go to construction.

The Rafn Company is serving as general contractor for the $4.5M rehabilitation of the building to house the expanded Klondike Gold Rush National Historical Park, one of Seattle's premier heritage destinations. The upper floors will also be leased to NPS for offices for its regional support staff.

The rehabilitation work includes repair and restoration of the exterior masonry walls, seismic reinforcement consisting of steel brace frames on the east, west, and south elevations, parapet reconstruction, wall ties, additional roof and floor sheathing, and new interior shear and load bearing framing. In addition, the building will get a new roof, skylights, and storefront windows and doors, and the existing wood frame windows will be restored. The property will be fully improved to current building, life safety, and energy code requirements. The work is expected to be complete in August 2005.

Historic Seattle extends thanks to its members and to donors to the Save the Buildings Campaign. In addition, we would like to thank the project financial partners who include Goodman Financial Services, Impact Capital, 4 Culture, City of Seattle Office of Economic Development, KeyBank and Key Community Development Corporation, and the South Downtown Foundation.

We gratefully acknowledge the hard work of our talented development team:

Architect: Stickney Murphy Romine Architects
Structural Engineer: Coughlin Porter Lundeen
Mechanical Engineer: Sider & Byers
Electrical Engineer: Atkinson & Associates
Project Consultants: Tory Laughlin Taylor (financing) and Catapult Community
Developers, Michael Trower (construction management.)