Pier 11 once again a mall
Published 4:52 am Tuesday, August 16, 2016
- Deborah Gordon works on the wax model of what will become the newest in her series of brass, Oregon-themed book ends, inside The Art Stall gallery on Pier 11.
A steady stream of people perused tables of antiques and other crafts arrayed along the rustic, all-wooden central corridor of Pier 11, a historic feed mill and grain tower converted into a galleria in the 1970s and aptly playing host to Antique Alley Sunday.
More people popped in and out of shops and bought New York-style pizza by the slice and barbecue along elevated walkways.
Since taking over Pier 11 nearly two years ago, the Allen and Huber family have almost entirely filled up Astoria’s waterfront mall.
“We didn’t have an opinion or philosophy,” said building co-owner Stephen Allen, who is also an accountant located next to Pier 11. “We just wanted to fill the building up and get more activity there.”
The Allens started their ownership with nine tenants, including longtime stalwart Bruce McBride’s Rollin’ Thunder BBQ, but said the building could handle nine.
In the past several months alone, Pier 11 has added pizza, retail electronics and repair, home furnishings and interior restoration, an art gallery and homemade household accessories. The new additions joined an already motley collection including Rollin’ Thunder, Rich Ewing’s Rat Pack-inspired cocktail bar the Inferno Lounge and Rebecca Kraft and daughter April Thorgramson’s WineKraft tasting room.
Since opening the Inferno Lounge more than a year ago, Ewing has expanded into Pier 11’s anchor tenant. Several months ago, he opened Inferno’s Pier 11 Pizza, a partnership with former Pizza Express proprietor and fellow native New Yorker John Kozlowski to provide a slice of the Big Apple. The pizzeria turns out several varieties by the slice from a window inside Pier 11 and inside the Inferno Lounge, and sells custom whole pies to go.
“It looks like New York. It smells like New York. It folds like New York,” Ewing said, adding the shop makes its own dough and sauce, even grating its own cheese.
On either side of Rollin’ Thunder, perpetually vacant spaces have recently filled in with Jay Rosen’s historic interior and furniture restoration business North Coast FIX, Debra Malachi’s Homespun Gifts by Mom and Me and The Art Stall gallery run by Deborah Gordon.
Gordon, who specializes in bronze sculpture, said she hopes to eventually put on display the most local artists of any gallery in Astoria. Making homemade gifts has been passed down through multiple generations to Malachi, who comes from Milwaukie and has worked some of the local markets, and opened the shop full of creations with the help of her mother, Charlene Rudig.
Seven years ago, Astoria’s Best computer store owner Leo Finzi met his partner, Bonnie Murphy, at a Toys for Tots fundraiser inside Pier 11. Last month, Finzi traded the basement he had occupied for several years beneath the Astoria Downtown Market for nearly 180-degree views along the Columbia River from his suite in Pier 11.
Finzi said the move was a combination of his old lease expiring, the rent being hiked and the Allens providing him a reasonable opportunity. While there isn’t the car traffic of Commercial Street, he said, there’s more parking and foot traffic from the Astoria Riverwalk. Finzi also feels part of the building and city’s resurgence.
“When people call up, I tell them I’m in the Pier 11 mall,” Finzi said. “It’s kind of symbolic of what’s happening in Astoria.”