Seattle Historical Sites

Plat: Mapel’s Addition, Block: 3, Lot: Portion

Architect: Howard A. Tonsager

This building has been significantly altered over time. On the other hand, the architectural vocabulary of the initial design established the basic elements of the main façade in the final version. Howard A. Tonsager, an architect from Kraft Foods’ Central Engineering Department in Chicago designed the original building as the Seattle sales branch for Kraft Foods in 1952. The building, which included double-hung windows on the main façade, was completed in 1953. The contractor was John M. Sellen Construction Company. In 1967, Seattle architects Shavey and Schmidt designed a small addition at the north end of the original main facade for Aronson Hardware.

By 1980, a final office addition to the south completed the rectangle. CDG Connell Design Group was responsible for the last addition, commissioned by the Pepsi Bottling Group. The regular rows of rectangular openings, which occurred in the original façade design, were replicated in the final façade design. In addition, the original façade was also clad in brick over a concrete base. On the other hand, the original design was more subtle in the manner in which various sections of the building were set back from each other.

The building is sited along Denver Street mid-block between S Dawson and S Lucile Street.  Its main brick clad façade faces west along Denver Avenue South. Currently, it is more or less rectangular in plan, although the rectangular shape is really the result of a succession of additions between 1953 and 1980. The original plan was a truncated L-shape, with a smaller projecting office wing on the north side of the elevation. The larger portion of the building, basically rectangular in plan, included cooler rooms to the north, as well as a dry storage area. To the south, there was a service area, what appears to have been a loading dock, framed by wing walls, as well a large ramp. The service area, framed by wing walls, remains. The main façade now includes two wings separated by a slightly recessed entry. The south wing includes thirteen contiguous window openings set in brick frames and over a concrete base. The north wing has more discrete groupings of openings: a northern pair of openings, set away from the next two pairs of openings (to the south), which, in turn are followed by a group of four contiguous openings.