Bed Bath & Begone

To wrap up this store, here's a new angle on this building, from diagonally across the 3rd and Virginia intersection. As you can see here, at the time of these pictures the column sign was starting to fall apart, which I had assumed was a precursor to it being removed, but instead it was strapped back together and is still there today.

Looking back at this, I have to say that I'm not particularly surprised this store closed. Downtown Seattle is an odd location for a store like this, a place that makes most of its money selling big things that can't be conveniently brought home without a car -- and if you were driving to a store, I don't know why you'd go to a downtown location where you'll get stuck in traffic and have to pay for parking. While downtown is booming with new residential buildings (there's even a 40ish-story fancy condo tower currently under construction on what used to be a parking lot just out of frame to the left), the businesses that are successful in this part of the city are largely ones that cater to people arriving on foot, something that certainly doesn't describe Bed Bath and Beyond. Adding to that, I'm sure rents for businesses are crazy high in downtown just as they are for residential properties, in addition to other less direct costs associated with running a business in what can be a less-than-great part of the city. What I'm trying to say is, the real surprise here is how long this weird store lasted, not that it closed!

Coming up tomorrow -- a new format for my posts!