Just shy of its sixth Birthday, The Octopus Bar (2109 N 45th St) will lock up for the last time at the little Jules Verne-themed building they carved out of the old Wallingford Pizza House building on 45th Street. Fortunately, while they’re losing their lease on the building, they’re planning to take their theme just down the block to the old Iron Bull building on the corner of 45th and Bagley.
This came as a surprise to me. Last I spoke with co-owner Liza Danger, the plan was to continue to operate The Octopus in its present location, and to open a new bar, The Tailgate, in the location just down the block, where the Iron Bull (and Goldie’s before that) used to sit. As I understood it, The Octopus’ lease gave them “first right of refusal” on purchasing the property they sat on, and they had no plans to go anywhere.
This, of course, presented problems for the owners of the old Guild 45th Property. In 2017, Wagner / Cuban, the holding company that owned Landmark Theater chain, abruptly closed the Guild and sold the Landmark theater chain to the Cohen Media Group the following year. However, it retained the Seattle Landmark properties (which also includes the Seven Gables Theater in the University District). Since then, they have been trying to sell them, but are hampered by the fact that the Octopus Bar sits between the two 45th Street properties.
But then this showed up on the Octopus’ Facebook page:
Join us (between now and) Monday for our LAST DAY OF OPERATION in the current location of The Octopus Bar.
Never fear! We are deeeeep into the process of construction at our new location at 2121 N 45th St — the space where The Iron Bull once stood — and while this is bittersweet, it’s also a chance for us to do bigger and better things with our friends, colleagues and community and continue our legacy in our city!
So please, join us for a toast this Monday (all day!) and wish us good luck as we launch forward into this new adventure!
I spoke with Liza, who told me that they discovered just after Halloween that they did not have the right of first refusal (it sounds like there was some significant lawyering leading up to that result), and their lease is up, so they’re out!
“We’re moving next door, where we’re going to make a bigger and more amazing Octopus, hopefully before our sixth anniversary on January 25th,” she told me. “The most uncomfortable part right now is displacing 14 employees who actually give a sh*t about hospitality and this community and this city.” (Along those lines, their Facebook page adds “Through this transition: if you need a guest bartender, help throwing a holiday party where you need a cocktail/bartender, know a catering gig, want some good company, a hand in your kitchen: consider reaching out to any of our staff or email [email protected] with leads.”
“At the end of the day, we ultimately care about our community and the culture of Seattle. We raised over $150,000 for nine different local charities through events at the Octopus last year, and my goal is to make that $500,000 in the first year of Octopus 2.0.” The first partner will be Special Olympics Washington.
What this means for the Guild 45th property is unclear. Liza says that she has been in conversations with the building owners, and hopes to renovate and re-open the easternmost “pink” building as a music venue. “The sky’s the limit, we can turn it into whatever we want if they’re willing.” I’m sure this presents an unpleasant future for some (noise and late night crowds), but I think it would inject some much needed life and culture into the heart of our community.
However, a barrier to selling the pair of Guild properties (which was recently re-zoned to allow for a five-story building, making it a tasty morsel for a developer) has been the Octopus sitting in between, breaking up the opportunity for a single, large building. Presumably, the existing owner, Gita Stephan, recognizes the value her property possesses and must be considering whether to sell. If she did, we might quickly see all three buildings replaced with the standard “first floor retail, condos above” development like the Smith & Burns building down the street. I have not been able to reach either Gita or Wagner / Cuban for comment.
Notably, though, the marquee lights were flipped on at the Guild 45th and graffiti scrubbed from doors just this past week.
Unfortunately, this past week’s cleanup doesn’t mean that much is about to change. I spoke with Alex Nikitenko of Homecare Contractors, the company hired to maintain the property, and he said simply that they were “trying to figure out what to do with the property.”
Alex wasn’t sure exactly what would happen, but it sounded like all options (except re-opening as the Landmark movie theater) were open. “We’re open to talking to local groups and would like to talk to the neighborhood about it. But also, yes, if a buyer came along, we’d look at that.” In the meantime, there’s a leak in the roof that needs repair, and it needs basic maintenance to keep their options open. Hiring professionals, like Fort Wayne Roof Repair, can ensure the roof is fixed properly and maintained effectively. And that’s all.
Whatever happens, it has to be a step up from the litter and graffiti magnet the decrepit, unoccupied properties have become, right in the village core.
Thanks for the investigative reporting! It will be nice when that block’s storefronts are fully occupied, whether in a new development or reusing the existing buildings.
Awesome that the Octopus might add another stage to Wallingford. Would love to see it be designed in a way that is kid friendly.
Thanks for info. Will Octopus move their decorations from in front of bar? ( c re c)
Thanks Jordan. Great info. But do octupuses slither?
It’s unfortunate that the landlords determined that the best course was to let the buildings run down and
THEN do something with them. But this has been the rule of thumb for years. I would be happy to see a law that required landlords to make best use of properties or be subject to higher taxes. Letting storefronts sit boarded up for years while they wait for a better return for their ‘shareholders’ (and writing down the interval as a loss against taxes) is disgusting.
That kind of rule would only be fair if the city can process permits faster. It’s pretty common for properties in Seattle to sit for a year even if the owner is actively trying to do something, due to licensing and permitting issues. Restaurants can have “coming soon” forever because of that.
…or sit unchanged for decades, as is the case for most already-zoned-for-growth property owners along 45th.
A primary complaint about MHA was that instead of incentivizing development of underutilized properties already zoned for growth, the City created new capacity that took the pressure off of encouraging development along arterials FIRST, before expanding capacity deeper into the formerly SF zones. Not wise or forward-thinking…
Sounds like you might be advocating for a land value tax. This is a tax system that taxes the value of the land only, and not the buildings that sit on the land.
By taxing a vacant lot the same as the tall building next door, this system gives property owners a greater incentive to keep their property in productive use rather than waiting for the best possible sale offer to come in.
I would be curious how to make music venue viable at this location. It’s too big for bars+small local acts type of operation, so it has to aim something bigger. What would be the right angle? The right niche? Something the nearby university students will attend? Or something for the 30-something tech workers living in Stone Way condos? Or something of higher profile people around Seattle will attend, like Neptune?
This is sad. For almost 6 years, the Octopus has been the only sign of life amid the desolation of what used to tbe the heart of Wallingford. The theaters were the anchor. The neon, the lines around the block. A limited run of a Peter O’Toole movie, “The Stunt Man” went national because of the raves from Wallingford. No more I guess.
With the closing of the Octopus, we lose another vibrant business to the the insatiable need to monetize every aspect of our lives. In the meantime, we will gain another vacant property and more arguments about zoning before the inevitable “condo/too expensive empty retail” development. At least the new owner can look across a gloomy 45th street to see the CVS facade that retains the last bits of what was the Moon Temple (where Harry worked for over 50 years, but that just another story).
So hat’s off to Liza for not giving up. Kudos to her for taking care of her employees and for all the money she has raised for local charities. I am sure the Tailgate will be a wonderful addition to a neighborhood in transition. Her enthusiasm shows: a music venue? Why not? Look at the Neptune reborn. How about reopening a theater? Amazon is producing movies now. Why not screen test them in Wallingford like The Stunt man? Build it and we will come.
But no. Just a few years of emptiness, a kaleidoscope of orange needles and graffitti, with only the “Find It and Fix It’ app to vent our primordial angst at what our community has become. It hits us, as Jordan says, “right in the village core.”
From neon to nothing. With apologies to Mr Thomas, the time has come to ‘Rage, rage against the dying of the light.”
The new owner can look across 45th and also see Murphy’s, TNT, and the Seamonster, all of which are pretty lively.
The condo on Stone Way has made the business of many restaurants and bars in that stretch feasible. More condo is needed to add more business to Wallingford.
Then there is the issue of lack of offices in Wallingford. Many restaurants tried lunch service on 45th and couldn’t sustain it, because there is nobody working nearby. So you need to add office space also if you want to support the businesses even more.
Wallingford is less dense than U-district, Fremont, and Ballard. That’s why it can’t sustain the restaurants and music venues the same way.
Yes, and this is the definition of a “Residential Urban Village” – an area that is predominantly residential in nature with insufficient jobs to sustain the population, i.e. folks typically leave the neighborhood in order to work.
The natural differences between “Urban Center”, “Urban Hub” and “Residential Urban Village” were pretty much completely ignored by our last City Council, especially Johnson, ignoring nearly 30 years of prior data and planning efforts to try to encourage the powers-that-be holding most of our commercial development capacity to do something with it! Missed opportunity.
Instead, the City treated Wallingford in the same manner as our denser neighbors of Fremont, Ballard, and the U-District, which are Urban Hubs and Urban Centers. Wallingford growth has traditionally exceeded established growth targets for decades… but how to encourage growth along 45th?
Here is the Landmark Nomination Application for the Guild 45th filed back in 2016. My understanding is that it was denied. Great historical review and pictures:
http://www.seattle.gov/Documents/Departments/Neighborhoods/HistoricPreservation/Landmarks/CurrentNominations/LPBCurrentNom_Guild45thTheatre.pdf
The Octopus was valuable for several reasons among them are the grace of the owners and the staff, the people who drink, eat and celebrate there, who share stories and give generously to charities and those who supply everything and don’t complain about the stairs, the marvelous sign and decor and the warmth that we all shared. And what of a new five story building in the East German architecture that our city council and mayor favor so much that will soon turn our neighborhood into the likes of Ballard,The U District, West Seattle and increasingly Phinney Ridge and Greenwood those buildings that are not affordable and certainly not attractive. Perhaps the politicians and developers might consider what the word heart means.
Sad to see the Guild (apparently) disappearing altogether as a movie venue. I lamented about the initial “surprise” closing back in 2017 in this piece: https://denofcinema.com/last-picture-show/
We are big fans of Liza and the Octopus Bar and look forward to reconvening at the old Iron Bull building as soon as Octopus is up and running again. I miss the activity and buzz on this street and don’t look forward to a future, sterile Wallingford of chain retail shops. I wonder if the Justice Department decision to end the Paramount consent decrees a couple of days ago, which I understand means a movie studio can once again own a movie theater, may open up new potential owners (like Amazon! Hint, Hint.)