The Dirt: More apartments at Knickerbocker slated for renovation
More apartments in the historic Knickerbocker are getting renovated, according to city permit data.
The work on six units of the Knickerbocker Apartments, 507 S. Howard St., will install new showers, new kitchen cabinets and update the apartments’ electrical wiring.
The three-story, 30-unit building has been undergoing a top-to-bottom renovation since 2010, when the building’s previous owners, Mary and Eric Braden, began to overhaul the 108-year-old building at Fifth Avenue and Howard Street.
In 2015, the Bradens were recognized for their restoration work with an award from Spokane Preservation Advocates. They completed renovations to 20 apartments before selling the property to Portland-based developer Rob Brewster for $2.7 million in April.
Brewster, who grew up in Spokane, has embarked on a return to Spokane through the purchase of other historic properties that he has said he will renovate, including the McKinley School in East Central, the former Sterling Savings Bank building downtown and a small, corner grocery store in the South Perry District through the Seattle-based company he runs, InterUrban Development.
The Knickerbocker was listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 1987 as one of four apartment buildings in Spokane designed by architect Albert Held.
The red brick and terra cotta Knickerbocker was built in 1911 for $200,000, and at the time it rented the most expensive apartments in the city. Residents were delivered fresh linens by in-house maids and had access to a billiards room, library and a private restaurant in the daylight basement on the building’s north side. The chef, James F. Wilson, created a menu with scores of items: Lobster a la Newburg, calf’s liver and bacon, finnan haddie, scrambled eggs with asparagus tips, pasta, sandwiches, sweetbreads, rarebits – made to order all day long and for less than a dollar.
As years passed, the restaurant was replaced with an ice cream parlor to please the students across Fifth Avenue at Lewis and Clark High School, which opened one year after the Knickerbocker. Residents enjoyed the shared entry room, its roaring fireplace and Honduran mahogany trim, as well as the rear courtyard and fountain.
Local Mathnasium franchise to open second location in Spokane
A second location for an international chain of math learning centers is opening in Spokane, according to permits issued by the city.
Mathnasium, which opened its first Spokane store in the Lincoln Heights shopping center in December 2017, will open another learning center in Northpointe Plaza on U.S. Highway 2. The shopping complex just north of the Division “Y” also contains Safeway and Best Buy stores.
The local Mathnasiums are owned by Jerry Post, the former KXLY news director, but the company was started in 2002 in Northern California and uses proprietary teaching methods and materials.
The K-12 center has programs for any student, but generally helps students who are either struggling with concepts and need to catch up, are excelling and need a greater challenge, or are studying for specific exams, like the SAT.
Costs run between $15 and $25 an hour.
Providence plans $350,000 upgrade of MRI infrastructure
Providence Sacred Heart Medical Center is spending $350,000 to upgrade its MRI infrastructure, according to permits issued by the city.
In 2014, about 90 employees at the hospital lost their jobs after Inland Imaging, the area’s primary providers of MRIs, ultrasound testing, X-rays and CT scans, said it was taking over scanning services at Sacred Heart, the area’s largest hospital.
The work is being done by Jackson Contractor Group, of Missoula. NAC Architecture, of Spokane, did the design.