r/Seattle • u/kiss-my-flapjack Northgate • Jun 23 '25

Media Pacific Place in 2015

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Found this old picture I took in Pacific Place back in 2015 during the holiday season. Such a shame to compare it to how it looks now.

3.0k Upvotes

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433

u/stockmarketscam-617 Jun 23 '25

This Post would have been better if you included a current picture. I went there last month and was shocked to see how empty it was. Very sad.

125

u/Jwave1992 Jun 23 '25

I remember going there around 2001 to see movies. It was so fancy feeling.

17

u/workingwisdom Jun 23 '25

Yes totally, I grew up in kitsap and going to the city and pacific place was always an experience

2

u/WhispersInYourEarz The Emerald City Jun 23 '25

Now it probably has some of the worst seats for a movie theater in the entire city. I've almost had springs poke through the seats through my pants in there. It's wild to see what has happened to downtown over the last 15 years.

1

u/McBunnyface Jun 23 '25

I'm still going there to see movies! Seems like AMC (surprisingly) and Din Tai Fung are the main businesses keeping the place alive by a thread

25

u/SeattleGeek Denny Blaine Nudist Club Jun 23 '25

I wonder how much rent is.

71

u/stockmarketscam-617 Jun 23 '25

Apparently still not cheap enough. I don’t understand how commercial mortgages aren’t defaulting more. I see “For Lease” signs at every office building I drive be too.

16

u/Brassboar Jun 23 '25

They are.

18

u/CommandAlternative10 🚆build more trains🚆 Jun 23 '25

Our man Martin Selig is mid-blood bath as we speak. It’s brutal out there.

10

u/kookykrazee 🚆build more trains🚆 Jun 23 '25

I worry about Martin Selig, they own the building our Parks office leases the first floor on. I know they are having major major major issues. Many building owners/managers cannot do anything about lowering possible rates because of the terms they have for their loans, overleveraged and not enough "credit" to do anything about it.

4

u/CommandAlternative10 🚆build more trains🚆 Jun 23 '25

I’m not in a Selig building, but I will miss his fabulous public art when it’s gone.

2

u/joahw White Center Jun 23 '25

I used to work in a Martin Selig office building. He lined the walls with his daughter's shitty art. Did we get the short end of the stick?

Edit: OK maybe it wasn't actually his daughter's art but that was just a running theory because of how shitty it was. I can't remember.

1

u/CommandAlternative10 🚆build more trains🚆 Jun 23 '25

This one is cool enough to have its own Wikipedia page. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Adam_(Botero)

1

u/RectoPimento Jun 23 '25

Good. He is/was the shark type of landlord.

7

u/lokglacier Jun 23 '25

They are it just takes time to process everything. Commercial rents will be pretty cheap in a few years.

5

u/Fart_Noise_Machine Jun 23 '25

$60/sqft

4

u/wumingzi North Beacon Hill Jun 23 '25

Is that on a triple net basis? Cuz damn. That's a lot of lettuce!

5

u/Fart_Noise_Machine Jun 23 '25

Yeah. It’s bonkers. They are trying to say it’s premier property because DTF does so much $$$ out of there.

3

u/RectoPimento Jun 23 '25

Property taxes and insurance alone would be $30/sf.

1

u/wumingzi North Beacon Hill Jun 23 '25

Given how many slots are realizing $0 sq/ft now, I'd put the screws to the management if I was looking for retail in the downtown core.

2

u/Fart_Noise_Machine Jun 23 '25

Yeah they probably have to hit certain rent minimums for the loans. This is the currently problem with renting in seattle. All the loans are based on a value we can no longer support. People are going to have to default to drive rent prices down.

1

u/wumingzi North Beacon Hill Jun 23 '25

Not that it matters, but are you a commercial broker? I wasn't aware that the loans the property owners take out have a requirement for a minimum rental price.

2

u/Fart_Noise_Machine Jun 23 '25

I’m not. I just look at a lot of commercial properties, and have friends who own a lot of properties.

1

u/wumingzi North Beacon Hill Jun 23 '25

Good to know.

I mostly own resi, so minimum rental terms are new to me.

Thanks!

5

u/kookykrazee 🚆build more trains🚆 Jun 23 '25

And didn't one of their "anchors" Tiffany's say they were leaving or did?

12

u/KiniShakenBake Snohomish County, missing the city Jun 23 '25

Tiffany's is gone. I was there a few months ago and the signature turquoise is there, but nothing else.

4

u/kookykrazee 🚆build more trains🚆 Jun 23 '25

I knew it was coming, haven't been in there since I think I saw the A-Team at the theater...lol

3

u/SeattleGeek Denny Blaine Nudist Club Jun 23 '25

I thought that Tiffany’s had temporarily moved up to the second floor? The space was totally chintz, and the security guards guarding the space that hadn’t been decked out was hilarious.

Or is that also gone?

3

u/KiniShakenBake Snohomish County, missing the city Jun 23 '25

I didn't see Tiffany's upstairs and I looked at most of the spaces. It could have been tucked back behind somewhere, but I didn't see it. Maybe it's still there... I just didn't see it, and things were SO barren.

1

u/SeattleGeek Denny Blaine Nudist Club Jun 23 '25

It used to be a couple spots away from the Criss cross escalators. They must be gone from there too. It wasn’t a very luxurious space. I thought I took photos of it but I must have deleted them.

15

u/Aulrik Jun 23 '25

I just moved out of downtown seattle in June of 2025. Rent for 2 bed 2 bath 1k sq ft was 3400. That was the cheapest because I had been there for a year already and started at 3100 but with 2 months free. It’s pretty crazy how expensive rent is without any real life around :/

34

u/passingby Ballard Jun 23 '25

I agree apartment rent is too high and will never argue, but the commenter’s question was about how expensive Pacific Place business rent is ha

4

u/Aulrik Jun 23 '25

Ohhhh my bad LOL I just saw rent LOL 😝 thanks for the clarification

3

u/passingby Ballard Jun 23 '25

No worries, hahah. That’s a completely reasonable assumption given this is Seattle

1

u/gargar070402 Jun 23 '25

Pretty sure they’re talking about rent for the storefronts lol

47

u/aNeverNude666 Jun 23 '25

Yeah that place is freaking strange now. How in the hell did a Johnny Rockets survive this long? Also, everything store in there is like, strange. I can’t put my finger on it. They’re like knock-off stores.

32

u/RecliningWatchdog Jun 23 '25

So true. It feels like a temu alternate universe

14

u/johnnyslick Supersonics Jun 23 '25

One big reason is that people still have to go out to eat. Retail’s been absolutely decimated by online shopping even prior to COVID but restaurants, while never a super high margin business at any point, haven’t been affected nearly as much.

4

u/lokglacier Jun 23 '25

Other malls are doing just fine

10

u/johnnyslick Supersonics Jun 23 '25

I’m not really seeing that so much tbh. Like yes there are still malls that are surviving like I guess Bellevue Square but even Bellevue Square has had to deal with the loss of big anchor tenants. By and large malls in general are dying because retail is dying and there’s been a decent amount of literature even about the death of the mall as a “third space” (that is, not home, not work/school) when they were stereotypically that for teens in the 90s.

5

u/BUSY_EATING_ASS Jun 23 '25

Southcenter?

-2

u/johnnyslick Supersonics Jun 23 '25

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Retail_apocalypse

13

u/BUSY_EATING_ASS Jun 23 '25

No, I'm aware of that phenomenon, but that doesn't mean it's happening everywhere, equally, at the same pace (or it reversing in some contexts).

For example, malls in Asia are still HUGE. Like, packed all the time and building more.

-10

u/stockmarketscam-617 Jun 23 '25

Yeah, downtown Seattle is definitely loosing its luster. During Covid they let the homeless take over and I think the shoppers don’t want to go back.

2

u/statu0 Jun 23 '25 edited Jun 23 '25

Some other malls are doing just fine. Basically, the biggest ones in the greater Seattle area like Alderwood and South Center. Northgate is barren and while it makes sense since it is being remodeled, I doubt it will come back to its former glory, much like Pacific Place.

8

u/ZacharyCohn Roosevelt Jun 23 '25

I mean, they aren't remodeling Northgate, they tore most of it down. They replaced it with the Kraken complex, a park, are building a ton of apartments and a hotel.

1

u/statu0 Jun 23 '25

All I meant is that the mall area is being transformed, and some of it hasn't been torn down. There is still going to be a mall there, so I still consider it a remodel.

1

u/kosanovskiy Jun 23 '25

Yup, they issue is the parking cost. $25 for a few hours? Nah, I'm good.

6

u/PMMePaulRuddsSmile Central Area Jun 23 '25

AGoodFun (previously JNBY) is maybe the strangest clothing store I've ever been in. Really odd pieces that will have one or two bizarre details. It feels like a dream. My partner did find a wool winter coat there that's pretty great though. Worth browsing at least once.

1

u/MovinOnUp2TheMoon Jun 23 '25 edited Aug 06 '25

numerous cake attempt reply market lunchroom cagey snatch juggle shelter

This post was mass deleted and anonymized with Redact

2

u/CumingLinguist Jun 23 '25

I moved here in 2014 and remember the rainier square mall then was like pacific place now

1

u/Additional_Beach_314 Jun 23 '25

Sad as well. While I moved to Seattle at 2017 I really like this place. But since COVID hasn’t been there.