From Plumber to Real Estate Baron
The building at 3235 Rainier Avenue South was torn down recently, a reminder that I wrote something about it long ago. The light industrial strip of Seattle’s Rainier Avenue has been gentrifying for quite some time now, but real estate is indeed a glacially paced business: the owners here had no problem paying property tax on a building vacant for long over a decade. The payoff is that zoning has changed since then and a developer can put a five over six cardboard condo with ground level retail here now. Or a charter school. Anything to maximize the profit / sellable square footage on the lot.
Derelict Seattle Building Has Unique History
Originally published on July 26, 2012
The property owned by Justin T. Hines Jr. at 3235 Rainier Avenue south in Seattle has been in a state of disrepair for years. Boarded up and covered in graffiti, it is the definition of urban blight and a sign of the gentrification hitting South Seattle. Hines, who did not return multiple phone calls, inherited the property from his Father, Justin T. Hines. Hines Senior died on March 22, 2008 at the respectable age of 100.
Real estate values along Rainier Avenue and Martin Luther King Way (the Hines property is close to the intersection of these two) have skyrocketed ever since Sound Transit’s light rail system began operating in 2009.
The amazing thing is – this was his dear old Dad’s plumbing shop, and until 2011 it still sported its original wooden sign from the mid 60s that said “PLUMBING PA. 3-5740.” We date this from the 60s at the latest because the sign advertises an old exchange phone number, a service discontinued when direct-dialing became popular. A collection of dusty antiques could be seen through the windows, perhaps also untouched for decades.
In 2012 someone painted over the sign for no real reason – that’s when this lot came to my attention. You can’t fight progress, and there is perhaps dubious historical value in a run-down old plumbing shack in South Seattle, but it’s good to take notice of such transformations. I never got a picture of the sign before it was painted over, but Google images had one on file from 2008.
Judson Hines Senior was not only a successful plumber who built a mini real estate empire to hand over to his offspring – he was an inventor! In 1951 he received a patent for a hot water tank and the royalties from this innovation gave him the cash to start dabbling in commercial real estate.
—Alex
For lots of stories like this please visit the excellent Vanishing Seattle project (not to be confused with Clark Humphrey’s book of the same name).
