The main corridor of the second floor of downtown Kennewick’s Cascade Building smells of fresh paint. So do its six apartments, which now boast stainless steel appliances and quartz countertops. And thanks to Rockwool insulation, you can’t hear the traffic down on Kennewick Avenue.

“I’ve blasted music in this apartment and gone into the one next door and not been able to hear it,” said Miles Thomas, the building’s property manager.

A fire ravaged the Cascade Building about three years ago but a transformation is underway.

While work is ongoing on the commercial space on the ground floor, the building’s six apartments are now on the market, with two already leased out.

The Cascade Building was still a shell about a year ago when restaurateur Kagen Cox of Kagen Coffee & Crepes and real estate broker Kellen Adcock bought it for $650,000 after two fires displaced residents and businesses.

“We’re very excited to bring some light back to this corner,” Adcock recently told the Tri-Cities Area Journal of Business.

The Cascade’s first fire, in February 2022, started upstairs and destroyed the roof and apartments, with water damage displacing businesses on the ground floor and in neighboring buildings. 

A second fire happened in August 2023, when most of the building was unoccupied while it was being renovated. The damage largely was isolated to one apartment and floor.

Adcock said he and Cox did most of the Cascade’s renovation themselves, though Curtis Dunbar at New Creation Homes has provided a lot of assistance. Jose Campos has done indoor and outdoor painting at the building.

Property manager Miles Thomas stands in the unfinished ground floor commercial space of the Cascade Building in downtown Kennewick. The space still has some work to go but will be left as a shell so prospective tenants can modify it easily to their needs, Thomas said.

| Photo by Ty Beaver

The upstairs has six apartments total – two 450-square-foot studios and four 800-square-foot two-bedroom units – all with 10-foot-high ceilings. Other amenities include 1-gigabyte fiber Internet, secure entry and guest video doorbell, on-site laundry and a single parking spot per apartment.

The two-bedroom units lease for $1,695 or $1,795 a month, while the studios, which come fully furnished and with utilities included, are $1,999 a month. Thomas said the studios are being marketed as a short-term rental option for temporary workers coming into the area.

While one of the building’s two residents has lived downtown previously, Thomas said the other tenant is someone new to the area who works in north Richland.

“Everyone I’ve talked to has said it’s cool to be part of a cozy downtown than be in a complex in the middle of nowhere,” he said.

The ground floor has roughly 4,400 square feet of space and work is ongoing, primarily plumbing and electrical. Thomas and Adcock said the plan is to leave them unfinished so future tenants can modify to their needs.

With the Cascade apartments once again available, downtown Kennewick has a total of 56 residential apartments, said Stephanie Button, executive director of the Historic Downtown Kennewick Partnership. Those apartments are critical to downtown businesses, as they provide a customer base for shops and restaurants. And they also help address the demand for housing by providing an option for those wanting a more urban lifestyle.

“Overall, having these six units back after three years of vacancy is a win for downtown Kennewick, contributing to both its economic resilience and appeal as a vibrant Main Street District,” Button said.

Go to: cascadekennewick.com.