Another landmark retailer is leaving Seattle’s Pioneer Square.
Masins Fine Furnishing and Interior Design has put its building up for lease and started looking for another Seattle location where its customers won’t get so many parking tickets.
Owner Bob Masin says the concentration of services near it that attract homeless people on the streets also doesn’t help it keep its high-end customers happy. Masin's has a smaller location in Bellevue, where parking is not a problem.
He tells the Seattle Times, once the Alaskan Way Viaduct comes down and a planned mixed-use housing development is finally finished on the north lot of Century Field, the neighborhood will attract more shoppers. But for now, he thinks his space would be better suited to a dot-com or other office tenant.
He says the popularity of the Sounders soccer team as well as increased parking rates at metered spots has worsened the situation in recent months. And he's worried it will get even worse with Washington Huskies' games moved to Century Link Field during the renovation of Husky Stadium.
Masin’s has been in the neighborhood for nearly eighty years.
Elliot Bay Books left Pioneer Square for similar reasons last year.
Its space still sits empty.
