Toothless Seattle landmark law dooms the old Mama’s in Belltown

The one-story brick building in Belltown that once housed beloved restaurant Mama’s Mexican Kitchen will apparently soon be demolished, even though it was previously designated a City of Seattle landmark and was, at least theoretically, protected.

On Wednesday, City of Seattle Department of Construction and Inspections (DCI) director Nathan Torgelson will brief members of the City of Seattle Landmarks Preservation Board as part of their regular meeting.

“I have concluded that demolition of the landmarked structure is required for reasons of health and safety pursuant to SMC 23.40.008.B and SMC Chapter 22.208,” Torgelson wrote, in a letter dated September 12, 2024, to Ian Morrison, an attorney with the Seattle firm McCullough Hill. McCullough Hill represents owner Cheng Chen of Minglian Realty (also sometimes called Minglian Group or Minglian Development).

Torgelson’s letter allows Minglian, Chen and McCullough Hill to pursue an expedited process to secure a demolition permit. Department of Construction and Inspections officials did not respond Tuesday to KIRO Newsradio’s email seeking additional information, including a possible timeline for issuance of the demolition permit.

UPDATE 9/18/24, 2:30 p.m.

At midday Wednesday, Steve Hall of Friends of Historic Belltown submitted a letter to City of Seattle Department of Construction and Inspections (SCDI) director Nathan Torgelson contending that SDCI and Torgelson’s actions to grant an emergency expedited demolition permitting process to the owner of the old Mama’s Mexican Kitchen at Second and Bell will harm the neighborhood.

Hall’s letter to Torgelson says, in part, “Friends of Historic Belltown (FHB) has determined that SDCI’s decision to proceed with the emergency demolition of Mama’s Mexican Kitchen, a designated landmark protected under the Seattle Landmarks Preservation Ordinance (LPO), is in error based on incomplete facts and a clear violation of law, including the LPO.”

“We assert that SDCI’s clear violation of law and indifferent approach to landmarks will cause significant and irreversible harms,” Hall continues, “and that SDCI has a clear legal and fiduciary duty to prevent these harms.”

“This letter is our formal notice to SDCI,” Hall writes, “that we intend to hold SDCI fully accountable for its actions – based on the facts and the law.”

The 14-page document submitted by Hall to SDCI goes into detail about the building, the building’s condition and SDCI’s actions, and proposes alternative solutions that would not destroy the one-story brick structure, which is a designated City of Seattle landmark.

Torgelson is scheduled to provide a courtesy briefing to the City of Seattle Landmarks Preservation Board (LPB) regarding his decision at today’s regular meeting of the LPB.

MORE OF THE ORIGINAL STORY:

The original Mama’s was in business at the corner of Second Avenue and Bell Street from 1974 until 2016. It was a classic Seattle hole-in-the-wall, with cheap and consistently good food – especially the abundant chips and salsa, the Bean Nolasco Burrito and, of course, the Cheese Screamer. When downtown Seattle real estate was cheap and abundant, a “low-stakes” place like Mama’s – with its food, but also its décor, including the Elvis Room – could survive and thrive and become a place beloved by multiple generations.

After a brief closure in March 2016, a different owner operated a similarly named restaurant there until 2019. The one-story brick building has been vacant for five years. Minglian Realty, the developer who bought the property in 2015, had plans to construct an eight-story building at the site which have apparently been delayed.

On Tuesday, non-profit preservation group Historic Seattle sent out an email alerting their members about Torgelson’s upcoming appearance before the Landmarks Preservation Board and about Minglian and McCullough Hill’s moves to secure a demolition permit.

Earlier this summer, the Seattle Fire Department (SFD) declared the old Mama’s building a “public nuisance.” In a four-page letter to the property owner dated July 19, 2024 and provided to the Landmarks Preservation Board by Ian Morrison of McCullough Hill, Chief Timothy J. Munnis of SFD wrote, “I declare the building or occupancy to be unsafe, a public nuisance, and that it endangers the health or safety of the public, neighboring buildings, and fire department personnel.”

Chief Munnis’ letter lists five times that SFD has responded to the structure between November 2022 and April 2024 for what’s described as help to “Secure Window,” for a “Rubbish Fire,” and for something called a “Water Job.” It appears that there were no calls for help between April 11, 2024 and July 19, 2024 when Chief Munnis sent the letter to Cheng Chen of Minglian Realty.

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Munnis’ letter also outlines how the structure’s south wall was not designed to serve as an exterior wall; this “party wall” has apparently been breached multiple times by transients who were able to gain entry to the structure.

It’s not clear exactly what steps Minglian Realty took to address SFD’s concerns, which were apparently brought to Minglian’s attention earlier in 2024 – though Ian Morrison’s letter to Nathan Torgelson says “the Owner has spent more than $75,000 on locks, fencing, and other hardening measures to deter trespass and other damages.”

KIRO Newsradio reached out to the Seattle Fire Department Tuesday afternoon for additional general information about declaring buildings a public nuisance and about this specific instance, and attempted to schedule an interview by late Tuesday evening. An SFD spokesperson wrote in an email, “Unfortunately, we will not be able to meet your deadline. We will look into this inquiry with our Fire Prevention Division and get back to you as soon as we can.”

When Minglian bought the building in 2015, says Belltown resident and member of Friends of Historic Belltown Steve Hall, they probably didn’t have any idea that the one-story, utilitarian structure would ever be designated a landmark – and thus be protected in any way from demolition other than through a regular demolition permit process.

“No one thought it would be a landmark,” Hall told KIRO Newsradio on Tuesday. “Even the (Landmarks Preservation Board) staff recommended the board not vote for this, but our community got together and we made a compelling story that this is the very thing that makes our neighborhood – its simpleness is its character.”

When the old Mama’s building was designated a landmark in December 2016, Hall says, “I could tell they” – meaning Minglian Realty – “were shocked. The landowners didn’t know what to do.”

“And then we started meeting with them,” to share their concerns, Hall continued, “and then they started fumbling around, and I think they didn’t know what to do.”

The City of Seattle landmark designation protects a building from things like major interior and exterior changes, up to and including demolition, by requiring approval from the Landmarks Preservation Board for any changes to the parts of a landmark that make it significant. But, a landmark designation doesn’t absolutely prevent those things from ever happening, it just makes them more difficult should a building owner set their mind to demolition.

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Eugenia Woo of Historic Seattle says that one result of the landmark designation was that the owner’s plans for the new eight-story building were modified to retain the brick façade of the old Mama’s building and incorporate it into the new structure. Taking a step like this is one way that the owner of any City of Seattle landmark can potentially get approval from the Landmarks Preservation Board for new construction at the site of the landmark – by retaining some or all of the landmark structure.

The plan to save the façade has now apparently been thrown out the historic window, because by going directly to the Department of Construction and Inspections for an emergency demolition permit, the owner bypasses the Landmark Preservation Board and all those, what in this case, seem like only alleged protections.

On Tuesday afternoon, KIRO Newsradio reached out to Cheng Chen of Minglian Realty and their attorney Ian Morrison of McCullough Hill to ask about their intentions regarding possibly still retaining the façade, but neither party has responded.

As far as the building being declared a public nuisance because of the recent break-ins, Steve Hall says what that means is that the owner is not being responsible about securing the structure while it awaits development.

“We look at their letter” – a letter dated August 27, 2024 and sent by Ian Morrison of McCullough Hill to Nathan Torgelson of the City of Seattle Department of Construction and Inspections – “as documenting their neglect of the building and then using it as an excuse to destroy the building,” Hill said. “And it’s just really an absurd twist, but not a surprising one, because we all know that’s how a lot of decisions are made.”

“I think the investors, I think they’re inexperienced, from what I know,” Hall continued, referring to Minglian Realty. “And they came in here thinking they could extract a quick couple of million dollars out of our neighborhood. And I don’t blame them. I mean, that’s what those type of people do, and it’s great, that’s the economy.”

“But hey, they made it a bet, and they lost somehow,” Hall said, referring to Minglian’s not anticipating the landmark designation for the old Mama’s building.

By “making a bet,” Steve Hall says the developer who bought Mama’s probably assumed it would be easy to get a demolition permit for the building – they probably did not anticipate that it would be designated as a landmark, and thus require additional bureaucratic finessing and additional expense to achieve their development goals for the site.

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When Nathan Torgelson, the head of the Department of Construction and Inspections, speaks to the City of Seattle Landmarks Preservation Board on Wednesday afternoon, it will essentially constitute a courtesy visit. Because Torgelson has already granted Minglian Realty’s request to expedite the process of securing a demolition permit based on the “public nuisance” declaration by Seattle Fire Department, the Landmarks Preservation Board can do absolutely nothing to protect a building that they previously designated a City of Seattle Landmark. Which could pose the question, at least in this head-scratching case, as to why there is a City of Seattle Landmark Preservation Board in the first place.

Steve Hall says Friends of Historic Belltown, if they choose to oppose the maneuvers of Minglian Realty and McCullough Hill, probably has two options going forward. One would be to file an appeal through the hearing examiner – the standard process land use decisions rendered by public agencies

The other option would be to send a “cease and desist” letter to both the City of Seattle Department of Construction and Inspections and to the owner’s attorney – Ian Morrison of McCulloch Hill – to lay out what Hall describes as “harms.”

“It’s not just the harms right now of destroying our landmark,” Hall said. “They’ve harmed our neighborhood for the last nine years with this turning our landmark into a blight, turning the neighborhood against landmarks.”

Hall says the vacant and neglected old Mama’s building generates negative comments about the neighborhood.

“People are saying, ‘Oh yeah, that’s the reason there’s crime here, those historic people did this,’” Hall said. “And just their telling that narrative, they’ve harmed us, we think, significantly, and we think that the courts would see that they had a duty to prevent those harms.”

“It’s just basic law,” Hall said.

Hall says his group could decide what they will do next perhaps as early as Wednesday.

Eugenia Woo of Historic Seattle says that this whole process to bypass the Landmarks Preservation Board via the Seattle Fire Department and the City of Seattle Department of Constructions and Inspections through an expedited version of what preservationists call “demolition by neglect” sets a dangerous precedent.

And, as far as the original plan to save the façade that will likely fall by the wayside if the emergency demolition goes forward, Woo has mixed feelings.

“We’re not a big fan of façadism,” Woo said, employing an ironic term coined by preservationists to denote what they see as “glass-half-empty,” partial or “token” saving of the bare minimum parts of historic structures.

“It’s not really historic preservation,” Woo continued. “But if that’s all we’re left with, then, in this case, we’ll take it.”

You can hear Feliks Banel every Wednesday and Friday morning on Seattle’s Morning News with Dave Ross and Colleen O’Brien. Read more from Feliks here and subscribe to The Resident Historian Podcast here. If you have a story idea or a question about Northwest history, please email Feliks. You can also follow Feliks on X.

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