Old jail to become culinary and cultural hub in Wenatchee, Wash.

The Old Wenatchee Jail in Wenatchee, Wash., is the centerpiece of a project creating a food and beverage and retail hub in the city’s downtown. Dating back to 1910, the brick vernacular jail will be restored and enhanced to serve its new purpose.

Two new contemporary masonry buildings will house a mix of tasting rooms, restaurants, and retail, organized around a shared courtyard. The new buildings and the refurbished jail will form a vibrant culinary and cultural center at the southern edge of downtown.

The building team will carefully remove obstructive structures and replace them with a detailed, landscaped plaza. The project will create six spaces for new businesses—two inside the old jail, and four more across the new buildings. Graham Baba was engaged to design four of the six, all operated by a single restaurant group, but with distinct concepts and identities.

The businesses will operate at different times of day, ensuring a dynamic and continuous activation of the site. In one of the new buildings, the envisioned restaurant is split across two levels, with the ground floor as a more casual, daytime space, anchored by a prominent pizza oven that serves both levels.

The upper floor offers a more formal dining experience, oriented around the evening crowd. In the old jailhouse, the ground floor space is envisioned as a European-inspired larder, deli, and small market featuring house-made grab-and-go items and curated grocery offerings with a speakeasy above.

The design incorporates original architectural elements of the jail into the interior design to preserve and celebrate the building’s character.

Project Team:
Owner and/or developer: Weidner Apartment Homes
Design architect: Graham Baba Architects
Architect of record: Graham Baba Architects
MEP engineer: PAE
Structural engineer: Swenson Say Faget
General contractor/construction manager: Avarra Construction