The old Pacific Cannery building on the Eastside has been many things since the fish left: a mattress warehouse, a paintball arena, and for a long stretch, nothing. Since 2023 it has been a maker’s hall, carved into fourteen units with roll-up doors facing a shared courtyard.
The tenants are the kind of businesses that need space, power and patience. A brewery, a bakery, a bookbinder, two furniture makers, a ceramics studio, a bicycle frame builder and a company that makes sails.
Sharing more than walls
What the landlord did not plan for was how much the tenants would share. The bakery uses the brewery’s spent grain. The bookbinder sells journals in the ceramics studio’s shop. On the first Saturday of each month, the courtyard becomes a market that drew 3,000 people in October.
Rents are rising, as they do. The landlord says it will keep at least six units at maker rates through 2030, a promise it has put in writing. The sailmaker, who was the first tenant, says she will believe it when she signs the renewal.
