Rendering courtesy of Stock and Pantry
The Bauhaus block at Melrose and Pine has undergone a huge transformation becoming Excelsior Apartments, a mixed-use development.
One of its tenants, a local small business called Stock and Pantry has also transformed from a sauce and spread company to a home decor and lifestyle business as owner Sasha Clark prepares to move into the space.
Clark started the company three years ago making jellies, mustards and other spreads, which she sold online and in some boutique stores — she hasn’t had her own storefront. Until now.
“When the plywood came down off of the storefront of the Excelsior I just went, ‘Oh my god, that’s perfect,’” she told CHS.
The preserved facade and storefront of the old Pinevue Apartments building are “perfect” for Clark to move her business away from selling pantry goods online and into a storefront filled with carefully curated home decor, textiles, art, gifts, accessories and art and design books.
The products will not only be beautiful, she said, but also functional.
“It’s not supposed to just sit there and look pretty,” she said.
The massive Excelsior also includes underground parking for 280 vehicles… and, we suppose, your bucket bike (Image: CHS)
Most of the goods are items that match her taste — clean and modern, elegant but contemporary with comfortable refinement but utilitarian.
Clark is also focusing on products that won’t go out of style, that customers will be proud to gift or pass down.
She has spent countless hours searching for lesser known brands that create items that aren’t available elsewhere in Seattle — many are out of Scandinavia and Japan. But she is also looking for Pacific Northwest designers as well.
While Clark won’t sell her own line of sauces and spreads, she plans to have a small pantry section and will keep the name Stock and Pantry.
The Capitol Hill resident had been interested in opening a store for a while, but nothing in her price range fit her needs until the Excelsior transformed. The seven-story, 200+ unit Excelsior mixed-use development has 16,000 square feet of retail space. It is built above the overhauled shells of auto row buildings along E Pine including the Melrose Building formerly home to the popular Bauhaus cafe. Bauhaus wasn’t the only small business displaced by the development. Retailers including Le Frock, Edie’s, Scout Apparel, Vutique, Wall of Sound and Spine and Crown Books all eventually made way for the construction.
Clark will start tenant improvement work soon, she said, using local contractors, and has a target opening of February 2017.
She hasn’t yet met her neighbors, which includes London-born Rapha, a high-end cycling brand, which is bringing one of its Rapha Clubhouses to the building.
Aesop, a skincare company that began in Melbourne, is also moving in, along with California’s The Pressed Juicery chain.
Having Stock and Pantry, a local small business, in the building alongside the international and chain stores is important, she said, and it was something the owners wanted.
“Considering the level of the other tenants, they were really great about the fact that we’re local,” Clark said.
She also said there was a national brand — she doesn’t know who — that was vying for the space, and the owners declined them.
“It’s a good feeling to start out with,” she said.
Stock and Pantry will open in early 2017 at 313 E Pine. You can learn more at stockandpantry.com.
