Seattle's El Corazon, site of Pearl Jam's first show, could be demolished
By Daniel DeMay, SeattlePI
The venue where Pearl Jam played its very first show -- under the name Mookie Blaylock -- may soon go the way of the buffalo, as they say. Or maybe just the way of so many aging Seattle buildings.
A demolition permit application was filed in January to raze the two-story building currently home to El Corazon and The Funhouse at 109 Eastlake Avenue East just south of REI.
The property owner listed on the permit application, Dana Sims, did not return phone calls and an email from SeattlePI, but architect John Serkland, the applicant on the permit, confirmed that plans were in place to demolish the building housing El Corazon, though perhaps not immediately.
"As far as I know, it's not going to be demolished until the ground is sold," Serkland said, meaning the building wouldn't be razed until the property was sold.
Serkland said he didn't know what was planned for the site beyond demolition.
A Daily Journal of Commerce story shared on the Vanishing Seattle Facebook page reported a 44-story tower planned to go up south of REI, but records indicate that is on the other side of Stewart Street.
Property records with the King County Assessor's Office indicated the lot including El Corazon was appraised at $5.28 million.
Formerly called Graceland, The Off Ramp Cafe, Sub-Zero, and Cafe Au Go Go, the El Corazon club has been a music venue and/or bar in Seattle since 1910, according to El Corazon's website.
But the club gained notoriety during the grunge years, as The Off Ramp, where bands such as Pearl Jam, Nirvana, Soundgarden, Mudhoney and Alice In Chains had early shows and tried out material before taking it on the road.
"When it was The Off Ramp, that's when it was in its glory days," said Marco Collins, a longtime Seattle disc jockey who helped break many bands from the grunge era when he worked at 107.7 The End. Collins, who is now a DJ at KEXP, was friends with many of the bands whose music he played on the radio back in the '90s, including Kurt Cobain and Courtney Love.
He recalled a PJ Harvey show at The Off Ramp Cafe in 1992 when Cobain and Love showed up in the club for the show.
"It was madness that Kurt and Courtney were there because they just came in by themselves," Collins said. They had come without any security.
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At a tribute to Chris Cornell in 2017, KEXP DJ Riz Rollins recalled meeting Cornell in the bathroom of The Off Ramp.
"Dude was fi-ine!" Rollins said of Cornell, who was likely there for the first Pearl Jam show in 1990.
But the club was never known for being a great place to play or to see music. It was infamous for years for having a pole, possibly supporting the second floor, that was right in front of the stage.
The building, constructed in part prior to 1895, has undergone two major remodels and expansions over the years, leaving little of the original structure intact, according to documents filed with the demolition permit application.
An assessment by The Johnson Partnership found that the building did not meet any of the criteria for it to be named a City of Seattle Landmark.
Another well-known Seattle venue, the Showbox at the Market, is under consideration for such status after a developer filed plans last July to raze the 79-year-old club and build a tower of luxury apartments in its place. But Seattle music lovers came out in droves to oppose the plans and the City Council temporarily expanded the Pike Place Historic district to include the building. Historic Seattle has since taken the lead on a push to get the city to consider giving the building landmark status, which could at least preserve part or all of the building's facade.
Further details about the planned development in place of El Corazon weren't immediately available.
An update ...
Venue Owner Says There Are "No Plans" to Demolish El Corazon
https://www.thestranger.com/slog/2019/02/15/38973374/there-are-no-plans-to-demolish-el-corazon
There's a rumor floating around town right now that El Corazon, an old nightclub next to I-5 on the edge of South Lake Union, is slated to be demolished and replaced with a tower. The Seattle PI just reported this about the venue:
But the venue's owners tell me this is incorrect. Dana Sims, the talent buyer and an owner of the venue, said the new tower is planned for across the street at 1370 Stewart Avenue. The venue is at 109 Eastlake.
"There are no plans to demolish El Corazon and put a new tower in its place," Sims said.
El Corazon has gone through a number of different names but was most notable when it was called The Off Ramp and hosted some of the most important early shows of the Grunge era, including shows from Pearl Jam, Alice in Chains, Mudhoney, and Nirvana. When those bands were playing the club it was surrounded by the empty parking lots of South Lake Union. That neighborhood has been transformed by a battalion of glassy towers from Amazon and other tech companies. Despite all of this rampant growth, it looks like the venue is safe from destruction, at least for now.
Seattle nightclub El Corazon, site of Pearl Jam's first show, is definitely getting demolished
By Daniel DeMay, SeattlePI
Updated 12:57 pm PDT, Friday, May 3, 2019The 120-year-old building that houses Seattle's El Corazon, where Pearl Jam played its first ever live shows under the name Mookie Blaylock, will be demolished in favor of two residential towers.
A brief post on a Department of Neighborhoods blog confirmed the plans and said El Corazon and the Funhouse would move into the new building once it is complete, though it was unclear how developers would make it reasonable for a nightclub to coexist in a residential building.
SeattlePI first reported the story in February, after city records showed an application on file for a demolition permit (that has since been issued). Multiple calls and emails to the owner of the nightclub, Dana Sims, were not returned, but the architect named on filings confirmed that the building would be demolished once the property was sold.
Sims, however, did speak with a reporter at The Stranger at the time, and unequivocally denied that there were any plans to demolish the building.
"There are no plans to demolish El Corazon and put a new tower in its place," Sims told The Stranger.
Oddly, while Sims is named in permit filings as the owner, property records with King County show it is owned by Eastlake East Associates, LLC, a property investment LLC headed by Pete Sikov, a well-known local real estate developer.
The lot including El Corazon was appraised last year at $5.28 million by the county.
Sims again did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
Vancouver-based Arbutus Properties will develop the new residential towers, according to Friday's post. The firm is already in the process of developing another lot across Stewart Street from the nightclub, where a 44-story tower is set to go up.
A consultant working on the project for Arbutus didn't immediately respond to a call and email seeking further details on the project.
Formerly called Graceland, The Off Ramp Cafe, Sub-Zero, and Cafe Au Go Go, the El Corazon club has been a music venue and/or bar in Seattle since 1910, according to El Corazon's website.
But the club gained notoriety during the grunge years, as The Off Ramp, where bands such as Pearl Jam, Nirvana, Soundgarden, Mudhoney and Alice In Chains had early shows and tried out material before taking it on the road.
At a tribute to Chris Cornell in 2017, KEXP DJ Riz Rollins recalled meeting Cornell in the bathroom of The Off Ramp.
"Dude was fi-ine!" Rollins said of Cornell, who was likely there for the first Pearl Jam show in 1990.
But the club was never known for being a great place to play or to see music. It was infamous for years for having a pole, possibly supporting the second floor, that was right in front of the stage.
Constructed in part prior to 1895, the building has undergone two major remodels and expansions over the years, leaving little of the original structure intact, according to documents filed with the demolition permit application.
An assessment by The Johnson Partnership found that the building did not meet any of the criteria for it to be named a City of Seattle Landmark.
Another well-known Seattle venue, the Showbox at the Market, is under consideration for such status after a developer filed plans last July to raze the 79-year-old club and build a tower of luxury apartments in its place. But Seattle music lovers came out in droves to oppose the plans and the City Council temporarily expanded the Pike Place Historic district to include the building. Historic Seattle has since taken the lead on a push to get the city to consider giving the building landmark status, which could at least preserve part or all of the building's facade.
Just this week, it came out that the building's owners and city officials were close to an agreement that would stay the fate of the Showbox for another six months while they seek alternatives to developing the site.
2012 Missoula (9/30) 2013 Chicago (7/19) Pittsburgh (10/11) Buffalo (10/12) Baltimore (10/27) Dallas (11/15)
2014 Austin (10/12) Memphis (10/14) St. Paul (10/19) Milwaukee (10/20) Denver (10/22)
2016 Ft. Lauderdale (4/8) Miami (4/9) Hampton (4/18) Philly (4/28,4/29) NY (5/1,5/2) 2018 Seattle (8/10) Missoula (8/13) 2022 Nashville (9/16)
E.V. - 2008 Berkeley (4/8) 2012 Austin (11/9,11/12)
Temple of the Dog - 2016 Upper Darby
If you really want to be a musical city start copying New Orleans. If they wanted to actually designate these buildings as such it wouldnt take this long