A Bremerton building at one of the city’s central intersections, mostly vacant since its heyday as a retail center ended four decades ago, could become the site of a towering new facility in the downtown core.
Plans call for turning the property at Burwell Street and Pacific Avenue, known as the Burwell-Wycoff Building, into a complex called the Pacific Harborside, according to documents filed with the city of Bremerton. The hulking gray, three-story building was at one time a J.C. Penny and later known as Bremer’s department store is now slated to be torn down to make way for a seven-story apartment complex with 2,000 square-feet of retail space at ground level, a landscaped courtyard along Burwell and, notably, no parking spaces included on the site plan.
That last detail is legal, after the city dropped parking requirements for residential developments in the downtown “subarea,” a specific city zone that guides standards for development, in 2025 by a city council vote. This would be the first development proposal under that revised city ordinance, and the building’s owner, Ron Sher of Bellevue, said the change in parking standards was specifically the reason he decided to move forward…