After tumultuous year, Molbak’s is being demolished in Woodinville

By Anna Patrick / The Seattle Times

Even after closing earlier this year, the punches keep coming for Woodinville’s former garden store, Molbak’s Garden + Home.

Many of the former business’s buildings have been demolished, according to Woodinville City Manager Brandon Buchanan.

And as the structures have been reduced to piles of metal and wood, any final hope that the Molbak’s legacy could be saved is now erased.

A former Molbak’s employee, Tyler Freeman, launched a campaign this year to try to get the property designated as a historic landmark, but before the application to the city was complete, the demolition paperwork was already processed and approved, Buchanan said.

The demolition paperwork was filed Oct. 10 and approved Oct. 15. The nomination application to designate Molbak’s as a protected site wasn’t submitted until Oct. 23, Buchanan said.

Green Partners bought the land from the Molbak family in 2008.

“We razed the existing buildings after receiving permission to proceed from the city,” according to a spokesperson for Green Partners. “We are still developing our plans for the future and do not have any further updates to share at this time.”

The city did receive a request to issue a stop work order to halt the project, according to the city manager, after demolition work on the property had already begun.

But “as the property owner was in compliance with the terms of the permit and city code, there was no legal grounds to issue a stop work order,” Buchanan said.

After Green Partners purchased the property more than 15 years ago, plans were underway to redevelop the property as part of a housing, shopping and entertainment area in downtown Woodinville.

Last November, Molbak’s ownership claimed it was being cut out of the plans. But Green Partners later said it was shelving the Gardens District project and partially blamed interest rates and construction costs.

Following that saga last year, the business closed Jan. 28.

One contributing writer to The Seattle Times described the longtime business — founded in 1956 after its original owners Egon and Laina Molbak came to Washington from Denmark — as “a haven for community, for creativity, for connecting.”

Since its closure, a fundraising effort to bring the space back to life fell short.

The nursery launched a $2.5 million fundraiser in April to reopen the space as Green Phoenix Collaborative, where it would host plant vendors, classes and businesses serving food and drinks.

But by May, the effort had only raised just over $100,000, according to its crowdsourcing webpage.

CEO Julie Kouhia said at the time that donated money would be returned.

“Like the rest of the community, we were sad to see such an iconic business close. It was a big loss for many,” said Buchanan, the city manager. “It’s my hope that this demolition, while closing one chapter, makes way to open the next for this important piece of downtown Woodinville.”