Tacoma’s Old City Hall begins reopening process as initial tenant list shapes up
AI-generated summary reviewed by our newsroom.
- Old City Hall redevelopment opens first phase later this year.
- SheWorks to offer separate coworking and half-day childcare morning and afternoon.
- Phase 2 at OCH adds amenities; eight leases completed, several suites still available.
A longtime high-profile redevelopment project of a Tacoma icon is finally coming back to life.
Tacoma’s historic Old City Hall, 625 Commerce St., has been under restoration, renovation and rehabilitation since early this decade, and is now landing leases with businesses and beginning its phased reopening.
Tacoma developer Eli Moreno of Surge Co. is leading the redevelopment. He told The News Tribune via email Thursday that “After years of intensive structural upgrades and restoration, one of Tacoma’s most iconic historic buildings has officially reopened.”
But don’t rush downtown to take a look inside just yet.
While some of the areas in the site’s Phase 1 are open, “the building is not yet open to the general public,” he wrote in the project update.
“A grand opening is anticipated later this summer or early fall,” he added.
The update noted that “Floor 2 is now open, with Floors 3 and 4 expected to be fully operational late summer/fall.”
Phase 2 will include floors 1 and 5 along with rooftop event space.
‘Designed for women in many seasons of life’
A recent news release from the site’s leasing agent, Lee & Associates Commercial Real Estate Services, unveiled the site’s first publicly announced new tenant: SheWorks, a coworking and childcare community business.
SheWorks is set to open its first location on the fourth floor of Old City Hall this fall.
The coworking/childcare space will occupy 5,644 square feet in the building with the two sides of the business in separate spaces, according to Ashley Whitney, SheWorks founder.
“I think there might be a misconception when you think about coworking and child care, that it’s all in one space,” Whitney told The News Tribune in a phone interview Wednesday. “It will be entirely separate, and that is intentional. And if you’re not a parent, you can still come in and work and have privacy.”
SheWorks’ website states that the daycare will operate with half-day four-hour morning or afternoon sessions, for clients to use as needed.
“We will have drop-in options,” Whitney said. “You can come as little as two days a week with your little one, or as many as five days a week. What makes us also a little bit different from a traditional child-care facility is we’re not full-time care.”
SheWorks will feature flexible coworking memberships, private offices, conference rooms and collaborative work areas, along with the integrated childcare services.
Whitney and Paddy Kay Lei of Bonney Lake are SheWorks’ co-founders who met at a local networking event. Lei owns Paddy Kay Designs, a custom-gift business.
“SheWorks was designed for women in many seasons of life, not just mothers,” Lei said in a statement. “I moved to Washington in 2022 with no connections and had to create community from scratch. As a child of immigrants, belonging was something I searched for most of my life, and finding it here has been life-changing. This is the space I personally need as we prepare to grow our own family without family nearby.”
Whitney, whose five-year-old son will also utilize the new child-care space, told The News Tribune that “There have been so many times our own service could have come as a benefit to me personally.”
Whitney said she’d been kicking around the idea for SheWorks for around two years. After a layoff in the tech industry, she described juggling job interviews along with child care.
The idea really kicked in after a friend brought her daughter over to help keep her son company as she helped Whitney prepare for another interview.
“I was like, ‘We need this. This needs to exist. I don’t really care for tech anymore. It doesn’t feel like it’s even going anywhere. So why don’t we just completely pivot?’ ”
“And we’ve not looked back,” she added.
Harrison Laird and John Bauder, partners at Lee & Associates, represented the landlord and Briana Hickey of Neil Walter Company represented the tenant.
Other new Old City Hall tenants
The overhaul of Old City Hall dates back through the pandemic years and has always been planned in phases. Phase 2, with a projected 2028 completion, will include a fitness center with locker rooms and showers, secure bike storage, conference rooms, a restaurant and coffee shop.
Apartment units also are scheduled for the next phase of the project, Moreno told The News Tribune on Thursday.
Maria Lee, media representative for the City of Tacoma, told The News Tribune in response to questions that “Residential housing — specifically affordable housing — is a key requirement of the redevelopment agreement.”
The site is slated to bring 14 new units, with half required to be affordable to households earning 60 percent or less of the area median income per the city’s public benefit agreement for the site.
Lee noted that large-scale adaptive reuse projects such as Old City Hall “typically utilize a phased construction and occupancy approach.”
As the project’s current focus is on the lower levels (floors 2-4) for commercial and office tenants, she added that “several are approaching Temporary Occupancy in the near term.”
The latest news about the site is a long way from some type of New Year’s Eve 2021 celebration at the site, first envisioned by Moreno pre-pandemic. Along the way, pandemic delays, seismic retrofitting, clocktower bell removal and other changes to bring the building up to code have taken longer than anticipated.
In 2024, Moreno told The News Tribune via email that the building’s steel reinforcement/seismic bracing had been “a massive undertaking.”
In his update sent to The News Tribune, he stated that “The core of our project has been a comprehensive seismic retrofit designed to stabilize the building’s original unreinforced masonry.”
The building, which dates back to the 1890s, “was constructed at a time when earthquake resilience was not yet understood. The Surge team installed 300 micropiles beneath the foundation, anchoring three massive steel support frames that now reinforce the structure and protect it against seismic activity,” he wrote.
Alongside these upgrades, he added, “the building has been outfitted with entirely new mechanical, electrical and elevator systems, bringing it fully into the 21st century while honoring its historic character.”
In 2023, The News Tribune reported that an LLC led by Moreno purchased the nearby Spark Park garage, 745 Commerce St., for secured parking for Old City Hall.
Whitney recalled meeting Moreno during her initial walk-through.
“When we met with Eli, that was just the cherry on top of the sundae because he immediately just saw the vision,” she said. “And that was the first time a building owner actually walked the space with us, then stood in front of us and said, ‘Tacoma needs this. You need to be here.’ ”
According to Lee & Associates’ release, eight leases have been completed with several suites still available, ranging from around 132 square feet to around 2,000 square feet “and cater to a variety of office, creative, and boutique commercial uses.”
In a list the leasing agency provided to The News Tribune, other tenants include:
Yeti Films and Anomalous Pictures
Alderstone Wealth Management & Partners
For Whitney, the wait has been worth it.
“We’ve actually been able to take people into this space already, and everybody gets so emotional because it is just this living, breathing gem that nobody’s had access to for years.
“It feels so special, even just to walk in.”
