That is good news. What a great day it will be for Tacoma once that building is alive once again.

Can I have the elk head?

Yay! Those of us in the neighborhood can hardly wait … no more cars driving down that elegant stairway waiting to be restored to its former beauty.

I’ve been living with a dream of great expectations for this building. To wake up one morning and discover them a reality will be a miracle and a bright day for Tacoma and preservation.

Hill Top Guy, in the old days on Pacific you could get a lot of…oh never mind.

Crenshaw cracks me up. He obviously wants good things for the people of Tacoma, he’s just got a healthy dose of irreverent skepticism.

Having lived half my life, and all of my adult life in Tacoma I have to say that what I want from Tacoma is very simple. I want it to be diverse. I want it to be inclusive. I want it to be empowering. I want it to be creative and unique. I want to embrace the great things of its past and merge them with the hope that I’m sure we all have for the future. I’ve had the privilege of residing in several of America’s great cities and have found Tacoma to be unique amongst them. I will stand up for the underdog and I’ll try to be honest with the readers. I pull no punches, but Tacoma is worthy of someone who will fight for her. You are either with me or you are against me, wait, that has already been said…

I don’t like negativity just for the sake of negativity (been guilty of that myself enough times). But Crenshaw cracks me up too, and I think his opinions are a more than worthy addition to the mix. I hope 133 continues to be a discussion forum for all viewpoints and characters. I’d hate to see it become a one-dimensional cheerleading forum. And I like having people like Crenshaw and RR around to keep things a little off-kilter.

I’ve been out of the loop for a while – We’re still talking McMenamins, right? I ran into someone from Lake Oswego at Vin Grotto the other day. He described with great enthusiam all the McMenamin locations and how they are each tailored to the structure on which they are base. I can’t wait to see what’s in store for the Elks.

I’ve had the pleasure of frequenting a number of the McMenamins facilities, some of them frequently. I must say they know what they are doing and they do it well. The most recent one is the old Spar in Olympia. The McMenimins took it over and rehabilitated a business that was probably headed into bankruptcy. The Spar was a venerable institution, to be sure, but you can’t just rest on your laurels. I believe that the McMenimins would have preferred a larger venue than the Spar and the Elks has the potential of being a show piece for them and for downtown Tacoma. If they do their normal brew pub, movie theater, cafe, pool hall thing I think it will be the hottest spot in downtown. Get this, at the Centralia operation, The Olympia Club, on Wednesday night you get a burger, a movie, and a beer for ten bucks. Now that is something downtown Tacoma needs. Good food, good beer, good times, and a place that is frequented by people from all walks of life. McMenimins may just bring out the best of Tacoma. You’ve got to love this northwest business. I thought that the old Mecca in downtown was going to be like a faux McMenimins, but from what I hear now it will become a sports bar and condos, no movie theater, maybe they know the McMenimins are on the way to doing something with the Elks.

Also I would like to formally accuse Crenshaw of being a clever pseudonym invented by an established exit133 commenter for the purposes of Ben Franklin-esque self-on-self arguments.

Perhaps the wall being contemplated at the Historical Society Museum could simply be transfered to the Spanish Steps, not sure how the Museum will make a buck off of this but perhaps it could lead to one of Tacoma’s tunnels and divert people to the museum., that or they could find them working in a Chinese sweat shop.

Glad to see they are doing something with this. Back in the good old days I used to sit in my apartment up the hill and watch the junkies climb in and out the windows up top. Was always curious how they got up there? I’m excited to see this place cleaned up!

Low income artist live-in lofts will never happen in downtown. Maybe 10 or 15 years ago the Elks could have become such a project. But not to worry, artists are after all creative. What needs to be done is to explore new neighborhoods in Tacoma to see which of those would have the potential of becoming a “starving artists district”. I know this is becoming more difficult as time goes by and the purchase and rental prices continue to go up. One thing about artists, they have always been forced out of the districts they create. It is also true that artists will find a way. Poor artists unite, you will determine which neighborhood in Tacoma will become gentrified in the future.

Strangely enough, I’ve just become involved in a project that might very well result in low-income artist lofts in the downtown area. It will not be the Elks building, but it has the potential to be very cool and pretty much what an impoverished artist would want. I will not go into the details, but as things solidify and commitments are made I’ll let more of the details out of the bag. Sometimes you think things are impossible and you just have to look a bit more closely and talk with the right people.

My artist loft is my new garage. Heck in our new home Ms. Darcy even gets a her own painting studio!

Maybe someday we’ll sell enough art to purchase real pseudonyms.

The Olympic Club in Centralia is real treasure. Indeed, downtown Centralia has many charms and great potential. People wonder about artist lofts in Tacoma and I’d suggest that Centralia would be a great place for an artist to work. Modest rents, interesting spaces and a fairly active arts community down in Lewis County. Tacoma is a great town in its own right, but it really is headed in a direction that will make it difficult for the low income people in the arts to really make a go of it. Centralia and Chehalis may prove to be the promised land. Centralia is great, half way between Portland and Seattle an artist can take advantage of a number of markets. Looking to buy a house for less then 100k, Centralia is the place. Just needs a few more interesting people and a bit more diversity.

Continuing the digression re artists’ lofts: I think it would be great if the folks at Artspace Projects, Inc. came in and set anchor somewhere. There’s a real community in their TK Lofts on the edge of Pioneer Square. Everytime I visit there I wish there was something similar in Tacoma. Cren, I wish you success on whatever it is you’re working on.

St. Edwards is on the NE corner of the Lake. (North of Juanita and south of Bothell). Bastyr College is located right next to the park.. so you could go to McMennamins and then over to the college for some naturopathy and massage.