Is Googie Good?

Then there is also the historical aspect that has attracted supporters like Anne Forestieri, a 22-year resident of Ballard who, up until this project, had no background in community activism. To her, it's a funky building that gives the neighborhood character, especially in the face of a burgeoning number of condominium developments. And it's not just a Denny's. The building's original occupant was a Manning's outlet, part of a West Coast coffee-shop chain that started in Seattle's Pike Place Market, which some consider the predecessor to Starbucks. "They think we're trying to preserve a Denny's but it's not about that," Forestieri says. "We're trying to get the word out there, explain the significance of how it used to be."
 
Forestieri and a handful of other volunteers have been spending a cumulative 15-20 hours a day on the project, doing research, hosting community meetings and scanning the comments on the local newspapers trying to educate the public about this particular building. They have even worked with a local architecture firm to draw up plans for how a new condominium complex could incorporate this building, allowing for both development and preservation. "We are definitely not against development of the land," she says. "We want them to develop around this building."

But that does not seem to be in the cards, if the property owners have anything to say about it. "A lot of the preservation activists were speculating about how wonderful it could be if the building were lovingly restored," says McCullough, the land-use attorney representing Benaroya. "We pointed out at the meeting that the name is the preservation board, not the restoration board. All the board can do is preserve the status quo." McCullough says that the Benaroya Co. plans to appeal the landmark designation and is currently "evaluating options" of how to do so. But until then, the former Denny's stands, a minor victory—if not a grand slam—for Googie architecture.

© 2008