The newest duo of developers eyeing downtown Tacoma’s historic Elks Temple first tried and failed to buy the nearby Old City Hall.
Grace Pleasants, a Tacoma developer, and her development partner, Rick Moses of California, say they first focused their energies on the building at 625 Commerce St.
That building was scheduled for conversion to condominiums, but that plan ran aground when two office tenants declined to give up their favorable leases and leave the building without considerable compensation.
Pleasants and Moses said they thought they could solve the office issue and convert the old building with the Italianate clock tower into residential units. The owners, Stratford Co., declined their offer.
Thwarted on Old City Hall project, they turned their energies to the nearby Elks Temple at 565 Broadway.
They now plan to buy the temple and the lots adjacent to it, resell the temple to Portland’s McMenamins for use as a brew pub hotel and build a five-story apartment building with a ground floor grocery story on the next door lots. Under their plan, the City of Tacoma would build a five-story garage as the foundation for the apartment and retail building.
John Gillie, The News Tribune
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