Proposed Facelift for the former JC Penney Building in Downtown Renton

Mixed Use plans in the near future for the vacant JC Penney Building on S 3rd St

Downtown Renton is home to many beautiful historic buildings that have stayed active through retail use, housing units and office space. Some of the buildings are nearly a century old, and reflect the stories that have taken place as Renton has grown from a coal and logging industry into what it is today. The history of Renton’s downtown lives on with assistance aimed at the revitalization of the historic downtown through the Main Street Program model as well as support from small businesses moving into the area.

Businesses aren’t the only new changes happening in Downtown Renton.  The owner of the former J.C. Penney building on the corner of S 3rd St and Burnett Ave S has submitted plans for a mixed use loft project mentioned recently in a CoStar article.

“The J.C. Penney’s in downtown Renton is expected to become apartments, while the store of its former rival, Woolworths, was added to the National Register of Historic Places in 2015.” says the article. “The J.C. Penney’s closed in 1987, a casualty of the downtown’s losing battle with the Southcenter Mall, which opened in 1974, according to a historical podcast series produced by the city of Renton. It was most recently used as an office and shop for American Drapery, which sold the property to the current owner, Paragon Real Estate, for $1.85 million in July 2017, according to CoStar.”

CoStar Group is a provider of information, analytics and marketing services to the commercial property industry in the United States, Canada, the United Kingdom, France, Germany, and Spain.