The Peter Kirk Building, first known as the Kirkland Investment Company Building, is a historic building in Kirkland, Washington located at the corner of Market Street and Seventh Avenue, Kirkland's historic commercial core. It is listed on the National Register of Historic Places. It was built in 1889 by the city's founder and namesake Peter Kirk, who constructed the building as the intended centerpiece of his planned steel producing mecca until those plans were dashed by multiple factors including the Panic of 1893. In the ensuing years, Kirkland's commercial core shifted to the south, likely sparing the building the fate of urban renewal or being altered beyond recognition. Due to its location on the East Side's main north-south arterial (WA 2-A, a.k.a. Lake Washington Boulevard) the building remained occupied on the ground floor but had fallen into serious disrepair by the mid-20th century. The building was rescued from demolition in the early 1960s by a syndicate led by William Radcliffe who purchased and restored the Peter Kirk Building into the Kirkland Arts Center which it remains to the current day. Today it is one of Kirkland's most historic and iconic landmarks. The building is notable for its corner turret and Victorian and Romanesque designs which remain intact. It is constructed of locally pressed red brick with plaster, rusticated stone and tin trimmings. It is the oldest existing commercial building on the Eastside of Lake Washington. Present and original appearance The Peter Kirk Building is generally late Victorian in character and the exterior, in spite of many owners and periods of neglect, appears now almost exactly the same as it did in the late 19th century. There have been some interior changes such as a stairway being moved and the addition of a fire escape in the rear and also the addition of a mezzanine. The land on which it sits is sloping. The building is basically square, measuring 59' × 55'. The roof is flat with a continuous parapet on the north and west faces (approximately 3 feet high). There is an isolated pediment rising above the roof line on the west face. There is a decorated entablature with dentils and stylized brackets; the entablature is metal. The building material is brick in stretcher bond pattern. It is two stories with no basement. Second story windows are tall semicircular with radiating voussoirs and continuous sills; they are all double hung