Built in 1932 as a store of the Pay 'n Takit Food Store chain, the building was designed by architect well known local Gustav Albin Pehrson. This was one of six identical Art Deco Pay 'n Takit stores built in Spokane at the time, shortly after the beginning of the depression.
Today the building appears to be entirely occupied by an auction house.
When
James Jerome Hill, generally known as J.J., brought his
Great Northern Railway to Spokane, the decision was made to set up the railway shops, service center and roundhouse adjacent to what became the town of Hillyard, named, naturally enough, after J.J. himself, literally,
Hill's Yard.
In the early twentieth century the prosperity brought about by the presence of the Great Northern yards gave rise to much new construction, primarily of much more substantial brick and stone buildings, forming the Hillyard business section we see today. Prosperity continued until the closing of the yards in the early 1980s, a culmination of the mergers of the Great Northern into the Burlington Northern Railroad and eventually the BNSF Railway, resulting on the relocation of the railroad yards to Yardley. The loss of their only industry to speak of created instant economic woes for Hillyard, which continue to this day, with its continuing to be the poorest neighborhood in the state of Washington.
Pay 'n Takit Food Store
[A] building project in Hillyard during
the Depression years included the Pay 'n Takit Food Store located on the northeast corner of Market Street and Olympic Avenue. Funded by Skaggs, Inc. in Portland, Oregon, the grocery market was erected in 1932, along with five other identical Art Deco-style grocery stores in Spokane.
This one-story poured concrete building is an excellent example of the Art Deco style with bas relief panels embellished with a sunburst motif. Multi-paned transom windows feature metal chevron filigree designed as security screens that cover the window units. An original metal awning suspended over the storefront highlights a corner entry.
The building was designed by noted Spokane architect G. A. Pehrson, and was built for $22,500 as one of the area's first Pay 'n Takit Food Stores. In 1938, the Safeway Corporation purchased the store.
From the NRHP Nomination Form