Here’s a scoop: historic Tacoma news building converted to industrial event venue
Ruby and George Chambers do not destroy.
In an homage to its newsroom origins, the couple resurrected 704 Opera Alley late last year as The Press Room, a two-level event venue with very Tacoma ties.
The turn-of-the-century building served as the printing hub for The News Tribune and The Tacoma Ledger until the ‘70s, after which it sat derelict until the Chambers bought it in 2005. In early 2019, David and Linda Dagley proposed developing the 7,200-square-foot space into a venue where their Jonz Catering, open in South Tacoma since 2007, would be the exclusive food provider.
“I very much can sit and imagine the decades and decades of information and words that came out of here,” David Dagley told The News Tribune during a recent visit. “To think of the dissemination of information from here, to think of this room’s effect on people’s opinions — they took the time to keep all those elements of history, and you can just feel it.”
The couple has added their personal touch to the space in the form of off-the-wall finds that beeline with their irreverent approach to events. A s’mores bar is a classic Jonz offering, as is the converted ambulance bar setup they call “Thirst Responders.”
“We tried to create areas where, within an event, people can break away as a small group,” said David Dagley, adding, “We’ve just tried to let the space be itself.”
The Press Room hosted a handful of events last winter, before the pandemic crumbled any couple’s hopes of celebrating the wedding of their dreams, or a nonprofit an important gala.
Kriston McDonough attended one of those events, a Christmas party hosted by her fiance Nicholas Andrews’ law firm, whose offices are across the street. They were freshly engaged, but having been together for eight years, wedding preparation wasn’t yet on the mind.
“Immediately upon walking into the space, I said, ‘This is where we’re gonna get married’ — and I hadn’t even gone past the little entryway,” McDonough told The News Tribune.
She loved the food and the service, the “coolest thing” bar, the exposed brick and concrete.
“I was just in awe of the beautiful, industrial-type backdrop, but it was still just a gorgeous space. And then you look over and there’s this grand staircase. There’s so many different aspects rolled into one,” she said. “We did not want to go anywhere else.”
They signed a contract for an August 2020 date, anticipating about 150 guests, which the venue cordially postponed until next summer.
COVID-19 restrictions mean that, for now, The Press Room can host only small gatherings. Jonz (pronounced “Jones”) is ready.
A $1,000 wedding package includes an officiant and ceremony space for no more than 30 people, per state mandate, with music and gift bags. The bride and groom receive a bouquet and boutonniere, as well as access to the in-house dressing rooms. Couples who book a reception within the next two years will catch a $1,000 discount, nullifying the cost of the prequel. Thanks also to recent state allowances for restricted-capacity weddings, Jonz can now facilitate a proper reception with food.
Most existing clients, like McDonough and Andrews, have pushed their celebrations to 2021, the Dagleys said, though a few are holding onto their late-fall and early-winter dates.
A TACOMA VENUE
Located on Opera Alley off 7th Street, you are first greeted by a mural, painted by Tacoma-based watercolorist Karen Luke Fildes. Soft orange flowers envelope a typewriter overseen by French actress Sarah Bernhardt — who is thought to have performed in Tacoma’s theaters in the early 20th century — looking ethereal.
If you’ve visited Devil’s Reef, Jason and Robyn Alexander’s tiki getaway, you’ll recognize the entryway. Turn right to enter The Press Room, its high ceilings, some of which exist under the 7th Street sidewalk, laced with rusted beams and irreplaceable wooden bones.
Parts of the freight elevator have been transformed into other accents — rails twisted into sconces, the doors repurposed into a long bar that anchors the main room. Endearingly uneven, you can still see the block white letters for each floor: “1st Floor, Mezzanine, Basement.”
“We just decided, ‘Well, let’s just start ripping it apart,’” said Ruby Chambers. Her husband loves to build things; together, their approach to renovations always starts with preservation.
“That’s what makes our buildings so special, is that it’s us,” Ruby Chambers told The News Tribune this month. “It’s got soul, it’s got heart. You look around and you go, ‘This surface product doesn’t look like Home Depot stuff. I wonder where they got it.’ Well, maybe it used to be the hardwood floor.”
GENERATIONS OF TACOMA HISTORY
Charlie Rice, a former columnist, editor and page designer, remembers traversing those floors in the 1960s. He worked at the paper out of college until retiring at age 59.
“We didn’t have all those barriers between the desks like they do in these days,” he said. “You could see all across the room and see out the windows. There were always conversations, sometimes about a story and sometimes just BS.”
The publishers and managers kept their offices on one half of the second floor, he recalled when reached by phone in September. There was a tube, like the ones at drive-through bank tellers, for typewritten stories to be funneled down to the composing room on the first floor, home to the advertising and circulation departments.
The newsmen (and most of them were men, save for the “women’s department,” off in the corner creating “the society section”) calculated the weather themselves, said Rice. They would trek across the building to the restroom, climb a ladder to the roof and gauge the rainfall.
Tour the venue with the Dagleys or the Chambers, and you’re wont to become as fascinated by this history as they are.
“I want them to connect to the building, with the history, but to really enjoy the whimsy,” said David Dagley.
The elevator-door bar begs to be leaned on. An offshoot room downstairs is prepped for old friends or quiet meetings with lounge chairs and mood lighting. Upstairs, there’s room for more tables and a perch overlooking the party. Another dressing room awaits jittery preparations, with Linda Dagley’s mother’s wedding shoes from 1956 affixed to the wall.
It feels very lived in.
OPERA ALLEY
Much of the polychromatic strip off 7th Street has been renovated by the Chambers, who first invested in the Passages building across the street from The Press Room in the early 2000s.
They splashed the boring beige facades with golden yellow, brick red and lime green. With the help of Blaine Johnson, also a former News Tribune staffer, and a couple other partners, they lobbied the city to adopt the Opera Alley name, nodding to nearby theaters and a long-gone stretch of bordellos that ran south to what is now the University of Washington-Tacoma.
“It had this really colorful ring to it,” Johnson said in an interview this month. “Without that name change, you don’t establish an intriguing identity. ‘There’s a section of Court C.’ Well, that doesn’t resonate. This is the historic theater district. You’re looking for labels that somebody can be immediately intrigued by.”
Since then, mused Johnson, the strip has attracted the likes of Honda, which filmed a commercial here in 2011, and California’s Sunset Magazine.
“You go from something that was really blighted to something that was among the most colorful attributes in the South Sound,” he said.
After the Opera Alley marquee went up a few years ago, The Press Room was, perhaps, the final brush stroke of this 20-year painting.
For McDonough, all of these complementary details assured her it was the preeminent choice for their big day.
Logistically, they will be able to host everything — ceremony downstairs, cocktail hour upstairs, dinner down and dancing up — all under one roof, keeping it simple for guests. Jonz handles the food, and the “accommodating, flexible” venue supplies chairs, tables, linens, you name it. For the wedding party, they don’t have to go elsewhere to get ready, and Opera Alley makes a darling photo booth.
THE PRESS ROOM
▪ 704 Opera Alley, Tacoma, 253-327-1564, info@pressroomevents.com
▪ For more information on event packages, contact Linda Troeh, lindat@pressroomevents.com
This story was originally published September 27, 2020 at 9:05 AM.