A nonprofit that employs and advocates for adults with disabilities paid $2.495 million for the century-old Bone Dry Shoe Building at 2111 Pacific Ave., giving downtown Tacoma a new owner-occupant anchor where an architecture firm once kept its headquarters.
Centerforce, a 35-employee organization serving 300 clients across Pierce, King, and Thurston counties, plans to move from its leased space in Lakewood and begin operations in the building by late fall 2026, according to a Lee & Associates announcement published Wednesday, July 16.
No specific move-in date has been set.
The two-story timber-post-and-beam structure, listed on the Tacoma Register of Historic Places, totals about 12,000 square feet.
Centerforce will occupy 6,000 square feet on the upper floor and lease the remaining 6,000 square feet on the first floor to other tenants, according to Pierce County records and the Lee & Associates release.
"Owning our own headquarters is an investment in our mission and in the people we serve every day," said Mark Mattke, Centerforce's executive director.
The seller was The 21 Pacific LLC, according to Pierce County records. John Bauder and Harrison Laird, both principals at Lee & Associates, represented the seller. Ryan Kershaw and Drew Frame of Kidder Mathews represented Centerforce.
Building history
The Bone Dry Shoe Building was constructed in 1919 for the Bone Dry Shoe Manufacturing Co., which produced logging boots and outdoor footwear for Pacific Northwest workers.
Designed by Hill, Mock and Griffin, the building housed as many as 50 employees before the Johnson family sold the company in 1957. The worn impressions of workers' boots remain visible in the fir floors where they stood at benches and machines for decades.
In 2000, McGranahan Architects completed an award-winning rehabilitation that converted the building into modern office space. The firm used it as its headquarters for roughly 25 years before merging with PBK in 2024 and relocating to Tacoma Centre earlier in 2026.
Market context
Harrison Laird of Lee & Associates said he has seen owner-user office sales outpace traditional office-investment sales across the South Sound, as organizations choose to buy rather than lease.
The Bone Dry Shoe Building sale fits that pattern: Centerforce itself built its Lakewood facility in 1998, sold it to new owners in 2022, and has been leasing space there since.
Centerforce has operated for more than 55 years, providing over 25,000 hours of employment assistance and 14,000 hours of community-inclusion services annually.
Centerforce plans to lease the 6,000-square-foot first floor to other tenants; no lessees have been announced.
