Earlier this month, developer Pastakia + Associates announced plans for a four-story office building that wraps around the historic Bleitz Funeral Home—technically in West Queen Anne, but just across the bridge from the commercial center of Fremont.
The building, which Pastakia is calling Fremont Crossing, will include more than 58,000 square feet of indoor and outdoor commercial office space, including 51,000 square feet from new construction and 7,800 square feet from the original structure. The project is being designed by SKB Architects.
Bleitz Funeral Home was founded by Jacob J. Bleitz in 1904 in the Green Lake neighborhood. The operation moved into this Tudor-influenced concrete building in 1921. A 5,000-square-foot addition was added in 1989, but will be demolished as part of the new development. Pastakia also plans to remove changes made in renovations to the original building to get as close as possible to the original 1920s design. The new construction will wrap around the original structure to the north and east, with floor-to-ceiling windows for Lake Union and canal views.
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The buildings will connect through a courtyard on the project’s north side, with a two-story, glass-enclosed bridge between the two. The new construction will be just one story higher than the original building, and about the same height at the connection point.
The developer bought the property from Warm Springs Investors on November 15 for $8 million, public records show. Uniservice Corp, a company that operates funeral homes and bought the property from Bleitz in 1990, sold it just two years ago for $4.2 million.
The building declared a designated Seattle landmark in 2017 after a nomination requested by Warm Springs.