Awards
2020
09.28.20
Historic Seattle Preservation in Progress Blog - Seattle's Full Story, September 2020
The Louisa Hotel - 2020 Community Investment Award | Historic Seattle
The Louisa Hotel, a contributing building to the Seattle Chinatown National Register Historic District and the International Special Review District, was built in 1909 as a single occupancy (SRO) hotel with ground floor retail. Designed by Andrew Willatsen and Barry Byrne, disciples of Frank Lloyd Wright who work in his Chicago studio at the turn of the century, the hotel first housed Chinese, Japanese, and Filipino immigrants while they waited for work in Alaskan canneries.
The building was once home to a casino, a jazz club, and Seattle's first Chinese bakery - but this history was threatened by both the passing of time and by disaster.
The Louisa Hotel's top floors were vacant for over 50 years. It had been too expensive to bring them up to code, as is the case with many buildings in the Chinatown-International District. On Christmas Eve in 2013, a fire broke out which burned the roof and compromised the western half of the building. With the mortar in the brick damaged by the fire, the unreinforced masonry wall along Maynard Alley was in danger of collapse and became a threat to public safety. Furthermore, some the building's interior had collapsed onto itself.
The restoration project began by stabilizing, demolishing, rebuilding, and replicating the fire-damaged western side of the building. Just stabilizing the building took two years. The design team, led by Bob Hale, a principal of Rolluda Architects, then worked to preserve the Louisa Hotel's facade and extensively renovate the eastern half of the building. The restoration complied with the Secretary of the Interior's Standard for the Treatment of Historic Properties. The team preserved the feel of the hallways by removing, refinishing, and reinstalling the historic doors, which still carry the shadow of their original unit numbers. They paid close attention to detail when restoring the building's character-defining features, such as the original wood trim, picture rails, leaded glass windows, and bay windows. Notably, Prohibition era murals from the jazz club were also discovered and restored. Furniture and other artifacts salvaged from the Louisa Hotel before demolition have been returned and put on display.
But the building is more than just brick and mortar. True to its origin as affordable workforce housing, the Louisa Hotel reopened with 84 units of affordable workforce housing for individuals and families earning between $35,000 and $80,000 per year. In June of 2019, the building opened its doors to new residents for the first time in over 50 years - and not a moment too soon.
Historic Seattle recognizes the owner, the Woo family and Gaard Development, as well as the partners, Chase Community Equity; First Federal; Barrientos Ryan; Rolluda Architects; DCI Engineering; Marpac Construction; Chinn Construction; Gemma Daggatt Interior Design; and Northwest Vernacular with the Community Investment Award for the restoration of the Chinatown-International District's historic Louisa Hotel.
04.06.20
Evergreen Village Wins National Excellence in Construction Award | Associated Builders and Contractors (ABC)
The Association of Builders and Contractors (ABC) honored Synergy Construction with the Pyramid Award—a National Excellence in Construction Award—for general contractors in the Renovation $5 million - $15 million category for the Evergreen Village project in Olympia. The project won a chapter award in 2019. Rolluda Architects, led by Bob Hale, worked with Synergy as the prime consultant and architect for the project.
