The following information is from the National Trust's Webpage on a
case study history of the apartment building and its transformation
into low income housing for the elderly:
The Annobee Apartments help illustrate the early 20th
century development of Tacoma. The city gained more than 35,000
residents between 1910 and 1930 as workers came to fill jobs in
lumber and other industries. This influx helped spawn a building
boom that dramatically changed Tacoma's architectural character, as
a wooden late-19th century town became a masonry-based, modern
industrial center.
The Annobee's crumbling exterior before rehabilitation
Construction of the Annobee highlighted several of these trends.
Located on a hill dominated by single-family wooden homes, its 1925
construction (it gained an addition three years later) made it one
of the Tacoma's first multi-unit apartments. The building, designed
by local inventor and roofing specialist Oscar B. Clow, is
considered a forerunner of modern apartment building design because
of its central corridor plan, symmetrical apartment layouts, and
efficient use of space.
The Annobee operated successfully until the 1970s, when it
suffered through a series of ownership changes and the beginnings
of overall neighborhood decline. It was abandoned by the late '80s
and sat vacant through almost all of the '90s.