Seattle Historical Sites

Summary for 12359 Lake City WAY / Parcel ID 8822900810 / Inv # DPR043

Historic Name: Lake City Branch, Seattle First National Bank Common Name: Lake City Mini Park Utility Building Style: Modern Neighborhood: North District Built By: Year Built: 1949   Significance This building was originally constructed in 1949 as the vault for a Seattle First National Bank Building, which was subsequently enlarged in 1957. Designed by the architect John W. Maloney, the 1949 brick bank building was one of about ten or twelve buildings of the same design that were constructed for Seattle First National Bank in the 1940s and 1950s. It showed a transitional design between the earlier Neoclassical style bank and more recent, International style buildings. Its location would have provided banking services to the growing number of retail and commercial businesses operating in the burgeoning Lake City neighborhood after the Second World War. With its drive-thru banking facilities, the branch was intended to serve a clientele arriving by automobile from a much broader geographic area than the immediate vicinity. John Maloney was a Seattle architect who is known to have designed a number of religious, commercial, educational and institutional buildings during his career. Included among these are Seattle University’s 1941 Neo-Gothic Administration Building as well as numerous Catholic churches and school buildings. At the time of the bank’s construction, the City of Seattle had yet to annex the unincorporated neighborhood in the northeast corner of the city. Since 1891, the city’s northern limits had been set at 85th Street between 8th Avenue NW and 15th Avenue NE, then considered a great distance from the center of town in Pioneer Square. Twenty years later, the city had annexed Ballard on the west and portions of Ravenna and Laurelhurst on the east. Over the next thirty years, the city’s population shifted further to the north and to the northeast, pushing into the unincorporated areas. This eventually resulted in further annexations by the city of these neighborhoods, including Lake City in 1954. The later 1940s and early 1950s had brought a building boom to Lake City as veterans of the Second World War built new homes, however the area was without many city services. The 1949 bank building replaced a 1940 grocery store, which housed the Cook Bros. Super Market. While the building featured a motor banking facility, there was little parking available on the corner site. In the late 1970s, Seattle First National Bank constructed a new bank building on a large parcel located across the street diagonally, which included a large parking lot. In 1979, the Department of Parks and Recreation acquired the former bank property for development of the Lake City Mini Park. Most of the structure was demolished to create open space, however the entrance arch facing Lake City Way was retained as well as the bank vault for use as a utility/storage building. This building is significant for its association with the development of the Lake City neighborhood.   Appearance Completed in 1949, this small utilitarian building occupies a midpoint site along the southern margin of a small park located at the southwest corner of Lake City Way NE and NE 125th Street. The bank’s arched entrance surround remains on the eastern edge of the park and serves as a gateway. A low concrete wall surrounds the park, which also features a fountain at the northwest corner. Originally constructed as a bank vault, this one-story flat roof structure has a rectangular plan and adjoins the building to the south. The east and north elevations present blank walls, while the west elevation has a single entrance door within a recessed opening near the northern end. The structure supports one end of a concrete frame shelter with a shallow gable roof, which covers the center portion of the park. Graffiti mars the stucco exterior of the building, which retains little physical integrity as a result of the creation of the park in the late 1970s.

Detail for 12359 Lake City WAY / Parcel ID 8822900810 / Inv # DPR043

Status: Yes - Inventory Classication: Building District Status: Cladding(s): Concrete, Stucco Foundation(s): Concrete - Poured Roof Type(s): Flat Roof Material(s): Unknown Building Type: Commercial/Trade - Financial Institution Plan: Rectangular Structural System: Concrete - Poured No. of Stories: one Unit Theme(s): Commerce Integrity Changes to Plan: Extensive Changes to Original Cladding: Extensive Major Bibliographic References King County Property Record Card (c. 1938-1972), Washington State Archives. Polk's Seattle Directories, 1890-1996. Ochsner, Jeffrey Karl, ed. Shaping Seattle Architecture, A Historical Guide to the Architects. Seattle: University of Washington Press, 1994.

Photo collection for 12359 Lake City WAY / Parcel ID 8822900810 / Inv # DPR043

Photo taken Nov 03, 2000