Backlash Against McMenamins

Around the turn of the century, I sat on a committee to study the feasibility of the "old" Cooper School building on Delridge in West Seattle. Several on the committee envisioned selling the surplus school to McMenamins to open a brew pub inn and theatre akin to The Kennedy School in Portland, Oregon. We contacted the McMenamins and had them come up to Seattle to check out the building. They were enthusiastic. Eventually the idea and a few others were offered to the community in a vote the UN should have observed where 100 voters decided to turn the building into artists' lofts, which it is today.

What struck me about the backlash against McMenamins then and now--I read this morning that the proposed McMenamins at Saint Edward State Park in Kenmore, Washington is dead--is that the Seattle area still has a streak of the puritanism that fueled prohibition around here in the early part of the 1900s.

I liked this letter to the Editor of The Seattle Times this morning:

Tavern off the green

I read with great regret that the McMenamins proposal has been withdrawn ["Brewery says it is dropping plan for pub in St. Edward State Park," Local News, April 28]. It looks like a law change by the city of Kenmore has killed the deal.

This is very unfortunate. This was a one-time chance to save the building and now it has passed us by. The city of Kenmore decided that the selling of alcohol was not to be allowed in parks. If anyone from the city had bothered to look at other McMenamins properties, they might have changed their minds.

McMenamins is a great company with a long history of taking care of and preserving buildings just like this one. It would have given the building a purpose and the ability to make money, thus protecting it from further decay.

There are no other proposals I have heard of that would raise the $10 million or so needed to fix the building and to keep it up and running.

Right now the building is closed and not open to the public. This is the only thing that will continue. The hotel would have been a showpiece for the entire area.

Shame on you, city of Kenmore.

— Duane Hansen, Kirkland