Union Stables (1910)

Completed in 1910, Union Stables was commissioned by the Benjamin & Maddocks Livery Company to house and care for the three hundred horses that were part of the city’s early transportation and delivery industry. The decade after the building's completion saw rapid change as automobiles, considered a novelty by many when this building opened, went from gradually being used in place of horse-drawn street cars and wagons to replacing them in the 1920s. During that decade, the former stables building was converted into a furniture warehouse. The building later served as an automobile repair shop and parking garage. Almost a century later, the structure was fully renovated and given modern features that earned the LEED Gold certification in 2015. The property was designated a Seattle Landmark in 2005 and was listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 2013. The decorative terracotta horse at the top of the building's front facade remains as a reminder of the centrality of horses within Seattle and other cities until the 1920s.

In the 1890s, Scott Benjamin and V.D. Maddocks owned a successful Seattle delivery and transportation business, the Benjamin & Maddocks Livery Company. Their horses pulled wagons loaded with goods through the city's streets, while making frequent deliveries for the nearby Pike Place Market. Starting in 1903, the company began to stable its horses in an existing facility (an earlier building also called Union Stables), which was located on 3rd Avenue and Pine Streets. As the company continued to grow in the early 20th century, Benjamin & Maddocks commissioned the construction of a new state-of-the-art horse stables with enough space for 300 horses.

Completed in 1910, the new urban equine facility was constructed in a corner lot, replacing an existing fruit orchard. Designed by the architect George C. Dietrich, the building was four stories tall and fireproof. Internal ramps provided interior passageways for the horses to move between the floors, and large windows allowed ample light into the interior. The monumental brick building also included decorative masonry details on the exterior, including a dramatic terracotta horse head in a scroll near the top of the façade, which is still visible today. According to an article published in the Seattle Daily Times newspaper on August 29, 1909, the property's owners envisioned the new Union Stables as "the most modern building west of the Mississippi River."

However, the new building's use as a horse stable proved short-lived. By 1915, the automobile industry had expanded considerably in Seattle, with nearly 7,000 residents holding driving licenses for cars. A decade earlier, a city traffic count conducted on December 23, 1904 at the intersection of Pike Street and 2nd Avenue had tallied 3,945 horse-drawn vehicles and only 14 automobiles. As the use of horses for transportation continued to decline in the 1920s, the Union Stables building was eventually converted into an automobile repair shop, a parking garage, and a furniture warehouse.

Designated a Seattle Landmark in 2005, Union Stables was listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 2013. Two years later, the building was adapted into a modern office complex by Weinstein A+U, a Seattle-based urban design and architecture firm. Windows were replaced, mechanical and electrical systems were updated, and the building received a seismic retrofit. A fifth story was added, and the façade was restored, while original exposed brick and heavy timbers were preserved in the interior. The renovation received LEED Gold Certification and an Award for Outstanding Achievement from the Washington State Office of Historic Preservation in 2015.

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