Cherry Parkes Building

The University of Washington Tacoma joined three historic warehouse buildings along Pacific Avenue to create a new academic building called the Cherry Parkes Building as part of “Phase 2b” in the overall campus plan.

The first two warehouses to be constructed as part of this complex were the Davies Building and the Reese, Crandall and Redman Building in 1890. These buildings share identical facades reflecting Romanesque Revival influences characteristic of their late-nineteenth-century construction dates. Both rise four stories with red brick walls, interior timber framing, and street-level cast-iron facades fabricated by Cherry and Parkes Puget Sound Iron Works of Tacoma. John Campbell and Company occupied the Davies Building for many years and imported coffee, tea, and spices from Asia. Reese, Crandall, and Redman was a Tacoma wholesale grocery company. A decorative cornice caps the facades of both buildings.

The northernmost structure of the three buildings, the Wiegel Candy Company, was initially erected as a three-story building on the southern part of its lot in 1904. In 1908, a nearly identical, four-story building was constructed to the north and a fourth story was added to the original building. Careful inspection reveals how the slightly different colored tan brick was woven together to create a unified facade on Pacific Avenue. Sandstone stringcourses and a simple corbeled cornice complete the structure. The candy company had a factory on the upper two stories and a shop on the street level, and lettering reading “Wiegel Candy Co.” is still discernable along the entablature along with other lettering partly visible on its north side.

The buildings were remodeled for the University of Washington Tacoma to create a single academic building—the Cherry Parkes Building—with classrooms, meeting rooms, and offices, as well as retail and restaurant space on Pacific Avenue. Openings in the common walls on the second level permit access to William W. Philip Hall to the north and the McDonald-Smith Building to the south. The Cherry Parkes Building, along with the Mattress Factory Building that comprised part of Phase 2b of campus development, were the first buildings at any University of Washington campus to meet LEED standards with Silver certification.