About
Past to Present: Our History
1914
Built as St. Paul’s Lutheran Church.
1954
Remodeled and expanded adding more offices and changing bell tower roof style. Moved pipe organ to back of building and brought in mostly new pipes from a movie theatre in Chehalis (organ was built in 1924 but is no longer functional)
1990?
Built ADA ramp on front of building and changed entrance.
2000
St. Paul’s Congregation retires from building and merges with St. John’s United on Phinney Ridge. The Compass Center uses building as temporary mens homeless shelter while their new building is being built downtown.
2005
Compass Center moves into their new home, Church of the Apostles (a young progressive Lutheran/Episcopal church) purchases the building with a loan from the ELCA and moves in from across the street where they had operated the Living Room Tea House (Arts Venue) for about 2 years.
COTA desired that the building be used by the community so founding pastor Karen Ward established the arts nonprofit 501c3 as a separate organization in the early years. In mid 2005, founding Executive Director, Nathan Marion, took on the nonprofit side and began to develop the board and community involvement. Volunteers from the community also took part in slowly fixing up the building to be functional for arts events, including The Round which landed at the Abbey in November, 2005. See FAQ for more about this unique model of sharing an old building.
2006
The building is now curated by "Artwerks DBA Fremont Abbey", an independent, non-religious, nonprofit 501c3 organization focused on community level arts education experiences for all ages. 2006 was a year of development and slowly fixing up the building as well as hosting community meetings and figuring out what the areas of need were.
2007, Jan
Fremont Abbey Arts Center received a $14,900 startup grant from the City of Seattle's Dept of Neighborhoods. Test programs began, events are implemented, and a large community survey was performed to asses the needs of Fremont & North Seattle.
2007, Oct
Renovations begin to improve building for community uses.
Upgrades include:
- Leveling floor in Great Hall
- Seismic upgrade
- Efficient Heating
- Insulation
- Electrical
- Plumbing
- ADA Accessible bathrooms
- Improved lighting throughout
- Removing asbestos tile floors
- Removing lead paint
- New walls & paint throughout main assembly areas
- Much more
The project was managed by Nathan Marion with oversight by the COTA "Strikeforce" building committee and funded by the Mission Investment Fund of the ELCA (with a loan to COTA).
Many community members and volunteers also supported the renovation project and many of the contractors involved donated much of their time and resources. More than $50,000 was saved or donated through the process and approximately 1000 volunteer hours given.
We also worked with the Re:Store to take out many of the old materials from the building and repurpose them around the state. In turn, we used our Re:Store credit to pickup many materials including old doors, furniture, fixtures, etc.
2008, March
Reopens offering more educational arts experiences, classes, workshops, music lessons, concerts, theatre, dance classes, and much more.
2010, May
Celebrates The Round's 5th Birthday - www.TheRound.org - 60 months in a row, mostly held in the Arts Center
2010, November 17
Celebrate the Abbey's 5th Birthday! Five Great Years as your community Arts Center.