What’s going on with the historic space age building in Olympia? Now we know
Questions have been raised on social media about what’s happening to the distinctive and historic building in downtown Olympia that was once home to a bank and then a string of popular nightclubs. Now we have some answers.
Jennica Machado, the city’s Economic Development director, told The Olympian that the building located at 425 Franklin St. has undergone tenant improvements to be converted back to a business office for Corpsmart. It’s a women-owned legal service that specializes in the needs of lawyers, lenders and businesses, according to its website.
Machado said the company applied back in January 2024 to move into the building and was working to finalize the renovation and move in this January. She said the building is listed on the National Register of Historic Places but isn’t on the local register yet.
According to a historic property report from the Olympia Historical Society, the building was constructed in 1963 and was originally a Capital Savings & Loan. The building features a sloping, fan-shaped roof, metal louvered panels and concrete walls partly covered in Columbia basalt.
According to previous reporting from The Olympian, an advertisement that announced the opening of the building invited folks to “take a look at the future.” The new bank had the city’s first escalator.
The building was most recently a nightclub called The Level, and was previously known as the Big Whisky Saloon. It shut down in 2017, The Olympian reported.
McKenna Reid, the Vice President of Business Development for Corpsmart, told The Olympian on Jan. 26 that the company successfully moved into the building about three weeks ago from its former space just down the street at 106 Fifth Ave. She said there’s been speculation from folks about what’s happening with the building, and if they’re bringing a new club to the city. The reality is, she said, the company is continuing to grow and needs more room for folks to work comfortably.
Reid said Corpsmart was started in 2015 and has always been based in downtown Olympia. It’s a woman-owned business that works with companies throughout the country in the financial and legal space.
“Basically, we’re supporting small businesses in hopes that they can kind of focus on what they’re good at,” she said. “So whatever business they’re good at, there’s still a lot of compliance that goes into maintaining an active entity and doing things by the book with the state or government or whatnot.”
She said they focus heavily on small businesses, which is one of the reasons they decided to stay in downtown Olympia. Another reason was for the company’s close work with the Secretary of State, whose office was located on the Capitol Campus until it recently moved to Tumwater.
Reid said Corpsmart has about 35 people in the office, and there are about 10 employees scattered throughout the country that got their start in Olympia and have since moved.
She said about 80% of their day-to-day business is powered by women and people from all different backgrounds. She said they try not to hire people based on their prior experience, but on their character instead. They then train people from the ground up in their new office.
“And that has served us very, very well, I think, not only in our business, but also in having a unique set of people from our community that have all different sorts of skill sets,” she said.
Reid said the staff loves being in the office and having a space to be proud to work from. She said for her, the new office is nicer than her home. There’s a gym, cold brew on tap, training and conference rooms and “all sorts of fancy little features that make it quite enjoyable to do the work that has to get done,” she said.
She said it was quite the effort to get the 10,000 square-foot space to where it is now. The property was purchased Aug. 1, 2023, for $1.8 million, according to county property records.
Reid, her husband and her mother worked to purchase the space age building in 2023 from Reid’s father-in-law, Mike Reid, who originally purchased the building in 1998. He co-owns a number of buildings downtown, including Corpsmart’s previous office space, through Cooper Realty. He’s also the contractor the family worked with to restore their new office.
Reid said since the building is on the National Historic Registry, they wanted to preserve a lot of what was originally built. She said the building was constructed around the same time as the Space Needle for the World’s Fair expo in Seattle. She said you can see the similarities in style between the two structures.
She said they have a collection of photos from when the building first opened as Capital Savings & Loan that will be featured in Corpsmart’s entrance area. She said there have been a lot of prior owners of the building, and everyone seems to have a different story when they come in now.
“Everybody seems to have a story when they come through here,” she said. “... But through those various tenants, they had added a lot of fixtures and things that weren’t really in the best interest of the character of the building.”
She said the renovation took about two years in full, from permitting to completion. She said crews had to strip a lot of old material that didn’t cater to the original style of the building to bring it back to life.
“We’ve kind of tried to honor the original office and what it was supposed to be, even kind of doing similar light fixtures and sourcing things like that, which has been really kind of fun,” she said.
Reid said the space isn’t really open to the public but is more of a space dedicated for staff to work comfortably and securely. She said they may try to open the space up more in the future for events and collaborations with local business owners.
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