Zervas Group at core of Bellingham redevelopment
Gateway Building provides key changes along Holly and Railroad

By Elisa Claassen

The Gateway Building, designed by Zervas Group
Architects, at Holly Street and Railroad Avenue in
Bellingham represents the new face of downtown.
Bob’s Burgers & Brew is the building’s anchor tenant.

Driving down Holly Street into downtown Bellingham the landscape is changing – new faces and new places rehabilitated out of old spaces.
Soon Whatcom Education Credit Union will have a new loan center, 124 condo units have been approved within the Bay View Tower on North State Street, and a dingy hotel at the intersection of Holly Street and Railroad Avenue has been reborn into the concrete-and-glass Gateway building to set a new look and feel for the city’s core.
Zervas Group Architects (ZGA) is behind the Gateway Building’s striking appearance as well as that of many memorable local buildings.
Bellingham “old timers” will remember the Western Optical building on Chestnut and Forest streets (today part of the Community Food Co-op) in part for its distinct design. An early project of Jim Zervas, founder of the ZGA firm, Zervas and his partners have been designing memorable structures for the Bellingham community since 1961.
Zervas, who interned several years with the illustrious architectural visionary Frank Lloyd Wright, continues to encourage his firm in the direction of sustainable design practice and to work personally in quality control and oversight of specification books, giving details of the construction item-by-item.
In his 50 years of professional practice and as a 40-plus year resident of Whatcom County, he has also stepped into the community as the first chair of the Whatcom County Parks Board in 1965, as part of the restoration team of the historic Mount Baker Theater in the mid-1980s, and assisting in the formation of the Regional Urban Design Assistance Team in 1992 to give a vision for Bellingham‘s future.
Zervas today is joined by three partners: Mike Smith, FAIA; Sharon Robinson, AIA; and Terry Brown, AIA; as well as two clerical staff, one interior designer, two associate senior level project managers and six technical staff.
Five of the technical staff are intern architects in the process of preparing for taking their licensing exams while working in the field following their formal education. During summers, the firm also hires fourth and fifth year architecture student interns, many who later join the staff.
“We choose to focus our business on clients who are in the four Northwest Washington counties – Whatcom, Skagit, Island and San Juan counties,” said partner Smith.
The entirety of ZGA’s current 31 clients are from this area. “We believe that our proximity and local involvement in our communities translates directly into unparalleled service,” he said.
Smith was instrumental in the Gateway project. He became involved following a discussion five years ago with his long-time friend and local real estate investor Lisa Woo, who had tried to renovate the old Bellingham Inn, where the Gateway is now located. The Inn had received bad press of alleged illicit activities, not uncommon for the “old” Railroad Avenue, and something that Woo and governmental officials wanted to change.
Smith had an idea to transform the intersection and pitched it to Woo, who was receptive to and excited about new ideas for the property. Rather than facing a possible condemnation, they could sell the city on a redevelopment plan. Although the current jutting structure that cantilevers over the street edge differs from the original plan, along the way the owner and architects found allies in then-Bellingham Mayor Mark Asmundson and his then-Planning Director George Vega, he said.
“That location is such an opportunity,” Smith said. “We wanted to do something unexpected. The fact is that great city centers have great buildings. Our thinking was that our community is a wonderful place, and that we should really celebrate that corner and make a big statement that says, ‘You’ve arrived in downtown Bellingham.’ We are not afraid to be bold, to be different. We believe that a bold, different design for the Gateway Building was require, in order to give the streetscape a vibrancy, and life, that a more ordinary design would have failed to do.”
The old motel was a 1950s Modernist design. The new design called to use the same patterned concrete block, and to insert large expanses of glass evocative of the Modernist movement of the ‘50s and ‘60s.
Smith also encouraged Woo to think beyond the original two stories to build out to four stories.
Eventually the development became approximately 9,000 square feet of retail and 6,000 square feet of office space. So far, commercial tenants include Bob’s Burgers & Brew; Left Right Left, a shoes and accessories store; Frank James, a women’s jeans boutique; Le Rendez-Vous Gift Art and The Calypso Salon.
Now 3,500 square feet of commercial space is available in the building through Pacific Continental Realty LLC. One space includes the third floor signature office with a glass corner suite with 3,895 square feet and a loft. Additionally, a 600-square-foot building is being built to close off the courtyard to the south and to contain a frozen yogurt shop, based on the trendy Pinkberry in Los Angeles, Smith said.
The Gateway building is part of a larger movement revitalizing downtown Bellingham. Smith believes in that revitalization so completely that he’s put money down on a unit in the 23-story Bay View Tower, set to open in spring 2008. (The tower is also a ZGA project.)
Smith is one of the city’s professionals who would like to not only work in the downtown core on these projects but to relocate and live there, too, as professional services, governmental offices and retail outlets now exist alongside entertainment, eateries and new housing.
Soon, he adds, within walking and bicycling distance, 137 acres of prime land for redevelopment will be available along the waterfront as well, something virtually unheard of in existing downtowns. “It’s even less than a once-in-a-lifetime experience and will never happen again.”
As architects, ZGA will eagerly await its chance to help shape “New Whatcom” as it has the rest of Bellingham.

Mike Smith, ZGA partner, was instrumental in pitching the look of the Gateway building. “We wanted to do something unexpected.”