The Port of Everett has signed a 10-year lease with Weyerhaeuser Muse LLC to renovate and reopen the historic 1920s Weyerhaeuser Building on the waterfront.
The contract with the company owned by Jack and Jin Ng of China City Property LLC calls for plans to install a new whiskey bar and coffee shop called The Muse and space for the Port of Everett Marina boating clubs to meet.
The port plans to spend up to $1 million to renovate and ready the building for tenant improvements later this year. The port hopes to open the building in 2023; it would be the first time the public would be allowed in the building in more than two decades, according to the port.
Renovation work includes, but isn’t 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.
The port said that it has future plans to redevelop a two-acre park surrounding the building and is actively seeking a new partnership to add a waterfront performance venue off the west side of the building.
“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 CEO Lisa Lefeber said.
She added that the incoming tenant has also agreed to have the building serve as a museum of the building’s history and that of the timber industry on the Everett waterfront.