Below is part of a real estate story written by the Seattle Daily Journal of Commerce that I missed from last month. That paper seems to have all the scoops.
Crews are building an outdoor deck for the Pony, a new bar at 12th and Madison on Capitol Hill. Most architects wouldn’t refer to their finished product as a dive, but that’s the ambience Peter Stoner Architects is aiming for in turning a Capitol Hill flower shop into a bar.
“It’s going to be kind of a gay dive bar,” said Mark Stoner, an architect with the firm, which is converting the 1221 E. Madison St. building into space for the Pony bar.
The Pony was open temporarily in 2007 at 506 E. Pine St. under another owner, but closed to make way for demolition of that building, said Stoner. Stoner now owns the Pony, and said he hopes to open it by mid-August. The establishment will be about 1,200 square feet, half of which will be an outdoor deck. The renovation has exposed the building’s metal structure and concrete floor in an effort to channel the “old” Pony.
“People just love places that are cheap and unpretentious, especially with the proliferation of nice places on Capitol Hill that are not cheap,” Stoner said. “Nice places on Capitol Hill are becoming kind of the norm so this is one of the ways to have something like the old Capitol Hill.”
Marcus Wilson, the creator of the original Pony, will manage the bar. Acacia Florist, which had occupied the building, has moved to South Lake Union, Stoner said. A gas station once occupied the site. He and his father, Peter Stoner, who heads the architectural firm, own the land on which the Pony sits.
Seattle Daily Journal of Commerce requires a subscription but the paper’s worth it.
