March 23, 2022

Port of Everett’s Weyerhaeuser building to reopen as whiskey/coffee bar and museum

Images courtesy of Port of Everett [enlarge]

The Weyerhaeuser Building has moved three times and is in its fourth and final location at the port’s Boxcar Park.

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The port is planning to re-develop the park and add a waterfront performance venue off the west side of the building.

The historic Weyerhaeuser building at the Port of Everett is set to be restored and re-opened as a new whiskey and coffee bar called The Muse. The port recently announced that it has signed a ten year lease with Weyerhaeuser Muse LLC, owned by Jack and Jin Ng of China City Property LLC, who will own and operate the new space. The Muse will also double as a publicly accessible museum highlighting the history of the building and timber industry on the Everett waterfront. The restored building will also be used to host boating clubs.

The Muse will be the fifth business for Jack Ng, who started in the restaurant industry as a dishwasher. Ng currently owns three China City Restaurants (two on Whidbey Island where he is based and one in Mill Creek). He is also set to open Fisherman Jack’s at ‘restaurant row’ in Fisherman’s Harbor, another Port of Everett project. That project broke ground in November 2021. The port is investing up to $1 million to get the Weyerhaeuser building ready to accept tenant improvements. Those are anticipated to begin later this year. The work includes, but is not limited to, the repair/replacement of all windows to historic standards, interior renovations, ADA accessibility upgrades, utilities upgrades, modernization of restrooms, and exterior landscape improvements. Ng told the Puget Sound Business Journal that he does most of the design work for his restaurants himself but it is likely that some architects will be working on this project. A general contractor has not yet been selected.

The Muse’s soon to be home, the ornate Gothic-style Weyerhaeuser building, was designed by Carl Gould and built in 1923. The 6,000-square-foot, one-and-a-half-story building served as the timber company’s administration office and a place to showcase the company’s local wood products such as fir, cedar and hemlock. The building was listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 1986. After Weyerhauser’s use, it was home to the Everett Chamber of Commerce for many years but has been sitting vacant for decades. The port has been looking for a new tenant since 2020.

“We are so fortunate that we found a tenant passionate about this building and has agreed to partner with us on the adaptive reuse of this building to get it back open for public enjoyment in a meaningful way,” Port of Everett CEO Lisa Lefeber said in a press release. “The tenant has also agreed to have the building serve as a museum.” There are no further details on what that museum might look like. Ng’s China City Restaurants currently incorporate the display of Asian artifacts and history in the lobby and communal spaces.

Following tenant improvements, the building is set to open on its centennial of March 23 2023, which is a meaningful date for the new tenant. “The Weyerhaeuser Building opened back on March 23, 1923. I immigrated to America on March 23, 1990, so this project is symbolic for me. As such, we are planning a grand re-opening celebration on the building’s centennial on March 23, 2023. It feels like it’s meant to be,” Jack Ng, said in the press release.

The Port of Everett also plans to redevelop the 2-acre Boxcar Park that surrounds the Weyerhaeuser building. It is actively seeking a new partnership to add a waterfront performance venue off the west side of the property. The building was relocated in 2016 from the South Marina to become the featured attraction of the 2-acre Boxcar Park at the Central Marina. Boxcar Park is itself part of the port’s growing 65-acre Waterfront Place mixed-use development. Those plans include 63,000 square feet of retail and restaurant space, 447,500 square feet of offices, two hotels, 20,000 square feet of marine retail and up to 660 homes. Hotel Indigo opened about a year ago at Waterfront Place and a 257-foot-long pedestrian bridge linking Grand Avenue Park with the waterfront opened over the summer.