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Street Appeal: The Storefront as Critical First Impression

Metropolitan Market’s latest store in Seattle’s Crown Hill neighborhood welcomes shoppers with a modern exterior

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AS FAR AS FIRST impressions go, a store’s exterior can pack a punch. A storefront exhibits a brand, provides wayfinding, incorporates hospitality with its look and feel and draws people in.

The amount of attention a retailer and design team spend on this aspect – or rather, a collection of aspects – is essential to its purpose.

Recently, Metropolitan Market wanted to transform a 30-year-old building in the Crown Hill neighborhood of Seattle into a modern shopping destination ­and charged Cushing Terrell with the project – one that connects the store to the up-and-coming neighborhood and upholds Metropolitan Market’s brand. The new store also needed to incorporate Metropolitan Market’s design intent while complying with city requirements. The exterior was a central part of this adaptive reuse and transformation.

One requirement was the transparency for street-facing façades, which called for a minimum percentage of glazing between specific heights. This proved challenging for a grocery building with a large kitchen facility. The store’s kitchen was situated on its west side, which sat on a street, triggering this transparency requirement.

Considerations for this unique window placement included:

  • Material selection: Typically, back-of-house kitchens have a more practical finish that is economical while emphasizing cleanability. Because the kitchen would be visible from the sidewalk, different materials were selected to enhance the look while maintaining ease of cleaning. For example, a synthetic material was specified with a finished tiled look rather than stainless steel panels. With the “back of house” now “front of house,” more visually appealing materials were in order.
  • Interior layout: Our design team worked with the client to carefully arrange the kitchen layout to accommodate the window placements while meeting operational needs.
  • Equipment placement: Having windows in the kitchen limited the ability to run utilities against that wall. The design team had to strategically place equipment that required utilities, maintaining close communication with MEP design teams to design the routing for utilities while complying with city requirements for transparencies.

Street Appeal: The Storefront as Critical First Impression

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The café is also located along the street-facing façade, requiring glazing. The design team saw this not just as a requirement but as an opportunity. Glazing opened the corner of the store with large windows, allowing in daylight, adding visual interest and affording a glimpse of the store and a chance for people-watching before customers even enter the store. It’s a lively corner and a pleasant place to relax with a cup of coffee or a bakery treat.

Another significant change to the exterior was the entry façade and its integration into the overall design. The original building’s parapet roof lines didn’t match Metropolitan Market’s branding and design intent. We reworked the cornice-look roof line into a clean, modern roof line. We added towering elements over the entry vestibules to bring height and significance. These towering elements have large windows above, serving as a beacon when illuminated at night, a feature that can be seen in other Metropolitan Market stores.

Street Appeal: The Storefront as Critical First Impression

 

Uplights are used along the exterior wall, creating a nice warm glow at night. An overhang of canopies provides weather protection and allows for an outdoor merchandise display area along the façade. The design team applied an exposed wood material to the underside of the canopies to give warmth and reflect the Pacific Northwest setting. For the brick veneer, a darker charcoal gray was selected as a simple neutral tone that works with natural materials and matches Metropolitan Market’s color palette.

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The resulting exterior satisfies all necessary elements of a storefront and city requirements. But more than that, it is an impactful building whose first impression creates a lasting impression.

Metropolitan Market, Crown Village and the Cushing Terrell design team were honored with the Storefront/Exterior award during Shop! Association’s 2024 Design Awards.
PHOTO GALLERY (4 IMAGES)
KEVIN SCOTT, NEW YORK/SEATTLE

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