Condos emerge from rubble
“Welcome to my house,” says Heather Hanley as she gestures at the exposed brick and studs of her new condo project, First @ Washington, in downtown Spokane.
Wearing a vintage-print dress and four-inch heels, Hanley steps gingerly through the concrete rubble and construction debris that litters the floor in the seven-unit building she is developing at First Avenue and Washington Street.
“I’ve been trying to get closer and closer to downtown,” says Hanley, owner of Tin Roof Home Furnishings and Décor in Spokane. “I felt like I looked at every single condo available and each one had something I didn’t like – so I decided to buy my own building.”
The project took shape last year when Hanley and her father, Jim, purchased the former Hotel Washington and began renovations. Of the seven units to be completed later this summer, Hanley says three already are reserved.
Pointing to an exposed-brick arch in the wall of her future condo, Hanley describes the range hood that will be nestled into the old window frame.
“From the beginning the goal has been to keep as much of the original architecture as possible,” she says, adding that each unit’s floor plan is unique and will incorporate a different historical aspect of the old hotel. “If there is a cool old column, then build around it.”
The hotel’s original skylights and windows were salvaged, along with several claw-foot tubs and the old hotel-room doors, which will be used in some of the condo interiors. One unit will feature an original “ghost” sign from the adjacent building that reads “PRINTERS – STATIONERY.”
“I even saved the radiators,” she says, though she’s unsure what to do with them. “I keep thinking genius will strike.”
Hanley says buyers will be able to choose from three interior design collections that she helped develop: “L.A.” offers bright colors and mid-century modern lines; “Manhattan” is edgy, dark and brooding; and “Chicago” is soft and contemporary.
Other options include central vacuums, whole-house audio and a remote security system, along with a camera for viewing visitors at the building’s entrance and a double set of front doors to deter unwanted guests.
“Security is something that is really important to me,” she says.
Although the building incorporates a number of aesthetic and technological elements that Hanley sees as vital to condo living, First @ Washington is also a physical manifestation of her personal urban ethos, one that merges the concepts of living, working and playing within the city’s central core.
Or, in Hanley’s case, the same building.
“We’ll be doing a concept store on the ground floor,” she says, describing a plan to expand her furniture and design business to the building’s retail level. The store, dubbed Concept Home, will offer a modern line of small-scale pieces suitable for condo living.
Hanley – part of the Acme TV dynasty spawned by her grandfather, Arch Hanley, in the 1950s – says she learned about living and working in a single location when Arch moved into an apartment above his store in the later years of his life.
“As a kid I thought, ‘This is a good idea!’ ” she says. “I think the whole live-work-play idea is finally starting to happen and come to fruition.”