West Seattle Blog… | REAL ESTATE: West Seattle Junction’s city-landmark Campbell Building up for sale

(Undated photo from landmark-nomination document)

Five years after local preservation advocates got two buildings in the heart of the West Seattle Junction designated as city landmarks, one of them is up for sale – the Campbell Building on the northeast corner of California/Alaska. A check of commercial real-estate listings shows the century-old brick-clad building went on the market Thursday for an asking price of $6 million. It’s a mixed-use building, with apartments and offices over business spaces, including the three currently occupied by Cupcake Royale, City Mouse, and Shanghai Hair Studio. Landmark designation does not necessarily guarantee preservation of a building; the listing for this one notes, “NC3P-95 Zoning allows a significant development opportunity for one of the most important corners in the Junction.” By vote of the city Landmarks Board in April 2017, the exterior of the building was declared a landmark, but not the interior; elsewhere in the city – Capitol Hill, for example – redevelopment projects have preserved historic facades at the bottom of new buildings. As reported in our 2017 coverage of the Campbell Building designation, the building’s been owned by the same family for almost 80 years, and they did not object to the designation. (Here’s the city document on the building’s landmark status.)