A Nalley Valley architectural gem eyes a second act. It was once home to a casket company

The pickles and potato chips are ancient history. The same goes for the famed chili and all the other pantry staples — from canned soups to peanut butter and tubs of mayonnaise — that helped give Tacoma’s Nalley Valley its name.

But more than a decade after the company Marcus Nalley founded in 1918 closed up shop, one building — which predated the non-perishable food giant’s emergence in Tacoma and was originally used for a far more somber entrepreneurial endeavor — continues to give the area its storied, industrial feel.

Speed past the Nalley Valley, as most people do, and you can miss it: the towering brick facade of the Willamette Building cutting a figure across the gaping ravine. Constructed in 1907, long before the Interstate sliced Tacoma in two, the testament to the city’s blue-collar roots has provided a distinct sense of place in a part of town that, through hard work and sweat, has helped to define the Tacoma we know today.

Now, the developer who purchased the Willamette Building in 2018 for $6 million, Mike Bartlett, has designs on slowly returning the property to its former glory — while also finding new, exciting uses for one of Tacoma’s most recognizable, if often overlooked, architectural gems.

In the short term, Bartlett said he envisions a renovated and historically preserved Willamette Building that’s home to businesses and what he describes as “maker spaces” geared toward creative types and local artists.

Eventually, Bartlett said he’d also like to develop a collection of live-work spaces in the building — though he acknowledges the last item on his wish list, housing, would require a significant city zoning change.

Most pertinent to this column?

Bartlett, the founder and CEO of Horizon Investments — a development company also responsible for the Brewery Blocks downtown — said that placing the Willamette Building on the Tacoma Register of Historic Places would go a long way toward making the restoration possible.

The city’s Landmarks Preservation Committee is scheduled to take public comment on the pending nomination April 12.

“If we get a designation, we can apply for federal tax credits of 20% of what we spend on renovations, and then we also can apply for the City of Tacoma’s historic property tax abatement,” said Bartlett, who told me Horizon plans to open 15 “maker space” units by early next year on the second floor of the building.

“In this interesting, higher interest rate environment, those tools are helpful in making the thing work,” Bartlett said.

Separate from the potential tax breaks, financial incentives and building code flexibility — all of which accompany an official historical designation from the city and provide dollars-and-cents motivation for Bartlett and his team — it’s surprising the Willamette Building isn’t already on the city’s list of historical places.

Designed by Frederick Heath, the architect responsible for Stadium High School, Lincoln High School, Tacoma’s Pythian Temple and a host of other notable local buildings (as well as Paradise Inn at Mount Rainier), the Willamette Building certainly seems to meet the city’s criteria for historical designation — and then some.

According to local historian Michael Sullivan, who submitted the Tacoma Register of Historic Places nomination on its behalf, the Willamette Building we know today was actually constructed in three “distinct” phases.

In 1908, the four-story mid-rise at the heart of the property Heath designed opened as the home of the Willamette Casket Company, which for a short time produced exactly what the business’ name implies. In subsequent years, the building’s main use transitioned to the booming furniture business, as it became the long-time home to the highly successful Gregory Manufacturing Company and, eventually, F. S. Harmon and Company, after the furniture maker’s departure from downtown. Along the way, an annex and other notable features, including a new mezzanine, were added to the property.

Sullivan described the Willamette Building as “a masterpiece of early 20th Century brick masonry,” and said the role it played in Tacoma’s development was just as important.

“It’s a textbook narrative of Tacoma’s furniture industry. Everything kind of plays out there in that building,” said Sullivan, noting that furniture made in Tacoma was shipped across the country, aided by the Prairie Line rail tracks nearby.

“God, during the glory days, there were like 700 employees in that building,” Sullivan said. “It was a big, honking operation.”

Today, of course, much has changed, but that’s not to say the Willamette is void of life.

While many of the main building’s windows have long been covered in plywood — an eyesore Bartlett says will begin to be remedied in the coming months as $700,000 in historically accurate wooden windows are installed as part of Horizon Partner’s renovation work — the building is home to an array of manufacturing and light-industrial businesses.

There’s a glove company that’s been there since the 1960s, Bartlett said, and a budding golf shoe company, among other businesses he counts as tenants.

Still, Bartlett can’t help but picture an even better and higher use for the historic property.

If the city’s Landmarks Preservation Commission recommends the Willamette Building for inclusion in Tacoma’s list of historic places — and the City Council eventually agrees — it will open a world of possibilities, he said.

“I just think these old buildings have a soul that the new-school construction doesn’t have,” said Bartlett. “I’m very excited about it, because I can visualize what it’s going to look like.”

According to Reuben McKnight, Tacoma’s Landmarks Preservation officer, that’s precisely the purpose of the city’s historic preservation efforts.

At a time when historic preservation has become increasingly contentious — underscoring an ideological divide between those who seek to protect the places that make Tacoma unique and those pushing for the city to grow and evolve — McKnight said that the Willamette Building’s nomination to Tacoma’s list of historic places, and the resources it could provide to a willing developer, present a chance to achieve both goals.

“Obviously, cities are going through a lot of challenges these days, and there are a lot of policy questions about, ‘How do we get the future we want?’” McKnight said.

“In this particular case, buildings like this really offer opportunities to take a structure that might not be being utilized to its fullest potential, and provides tools and incentives to bring the building back into service.”