Seattle Opera sells Teatro Zinzanni property

Teatro Zinzanni may have to pitch their spiegeltent somewhere else in the not-too-distant future. KIRO 7 has learned that Seattle Opera—Zinzanni’s landlord for nearly a decade—has sold the property to a company owned by real estate developer Washington Holdings.

This news comes right as Zinzanni finalizes plans to develop a permanent home in San Francisco, where the original Seattle company has been operating since 2000.

A nearly identical situation caused Zinzanni to pack up and move before in 2007, when the former Cadillac dealership at 6th and Battery where they had been performing was sold to a developer. Fortunately, during their Belltown run, the site where the original company performed had been granted to the Seattle Opera—they moved into the Mercer location and all was well, until now.

It’s become a little more difficult to find a central location that can fit a spiegeltent in the past ten years, though—the city’s growing upwards, and that much ground-level square footage is expensive and hard to come by. But if San Francisco can find a space, there’s hope we can, too.

• Teatro Zinzanni property sold, future uncertain [KIRO 7]

Teatro ZinZanni to pull up stakes, return to Seattle Center site [Seattle Times]