This store opened in July 2012 as one of the first three City Targets (Target's short-lived branding for their first smaller-format urban stores, though I'll note that this store is quite a bit larger than newer urban Targets like
the Ballard one), though the building's history goes back much further than that. This store is built into the base of the Newmark Tower, a condo building built in 1991 (and which happens to be one of the ugliest major buildings in downtown Seattle). The space that Target occupies was originally home to the Pike Plaza mall, an early attempt at an urban mall that included a large movie theater but no other major tenants, and which, from everything I've seen, was a major disaster. This part of the city was not exactly a place that anyone would want to be back in the 90s, and the mall never took off. Most of the interior portion of the mall was quickly converted to office space for Washington Mutual, and stayed as such probably until 2008 when WaMu collapsed. A few exterior tenants did stay until Target moved in, but the dead state of this space can be seen in
old Street View.
So glad to find this blog post! I was talking to a Target employee recently and we wondering what used to be in the Target space.There's an odd ramp in the back room and we were wondering about its placement. Do you know what the name of the movie theater was? And do you know what was on that corner before the Newmark Tower? I worked in many different places downtown 89-90, but can't recall what was there. I do remember the divey but delicious teriyaki place across the street! Thanks so much :)
ReplyDeleteGlad you enjoyed it! I wonder if that ramp is related to the weird super low ceiling in the media section on the top floor. (Or at least it used to be the media section -- I shop at this store regularly, but normally just the grocery section, so I don't remember if the top floor still has the same departments.) The movie theater was at the opposite end of the top floor, and according to this was known as the Newmark Cinemas. Before Newmark, at least the Pike St end of the block was home to the downtown JCPenney, in a much nicer building than this. Since the Newmark opened in 1991, Penney's may well have been gone by 1989-90.
DeleteThanks for your reply! Oh I love seeing that photo of the Penney's - before my time in Seattle, I guess since I don't recognize it. I work in that Target sometimes (as a third party merchandiser); maybe I'll snoop around and see if I can find any architectural ghosts of the theater.
ReplyDelete