Haynes Hall still has the gym floor. You can feel it through the soles of your shoes if you stand in the right spot, a slight give in the wood that eighty years of pep rallies and basketball practices pressed into the boards. On a Tuesday night in late September, the room holds folding chairs, a scattering of drinks, and a crowd leaning forward to hear someone talk about unsolved cases from the Pacific Northwest's past. Ten days later, the same floor holds a DJ booth and a dance crowd that has no interest in sitting down.
Both nights happen inside McMenamins Anderson School, the 1931 building at 18607 Bothell Way NE that spent decades as Bothell Junior High before McMenamins converted it into a hotel, brewery, and event space in 2015. The building was designed by Seattle architect Earl Morrison in an art-deco style, with the kind of oversized windows that flood a classroom or a gymnasium with daylight. That it can hold a lecture one week and a dance floor the next isn't an accident of scheduling. It's the same trick a school gym has always done, just with better lighting and a bar.
Haynes Hall Used to Be the Gym
The Tuesday-night crowd is there for History Pub, a recurring series McMenamins runs with the Bothell Historical Society and the University of Washington Bothell. Past installments have brought in Dr. Warren W. Buck, UW Bothell's founding chancellor, to talk about how a 128-acre cattle ranch became a college campus with a founding class of three students, and Dr. Cynthia Chang, a UW Bothell plant ecologist, to talk about what she's learned studying Mount St. Helens since 2011. The next one, on September 29, 2026, covers Pacific Northwest true crime under the title "What's Up with the Pacific Northwest and Serial Killers?" Doors are at 6, the program starts at 7, and a ticket runs five dollars. It's an all-ages room, and the crowd tends to skew toward people who came for the topic rather than the drink list.
That's the version of Anderson School most people picture when they think of the place: quiet, educational, a little bit like being back in a classroom except the seats are more comfortable and someone hands you a beer.
The Same Chandeliers, a Different Crowd
Ten days after the History Pub crowd files out, the room turns over completely. On October 9, 2026, Anderson School hosts an 80s Homecoming Party with Nite Wave and DJ Dance Dance. Doors open at 7, it's restricted to guests 21 and older, and tickets run $36.20. Nobody is settling into a folding chair to take notes. The chandeliers that hang over History Pub attendees the same week are the same chandeliers lighting a dance floor a week and a half later, which says something about how flexible this building was built to be. A school gym has always needed to double as an auditorium, a dance hall, and whatever else a Friday night required. McMenamins didn't have to invent that versatility. It just had to keep the floor.
Bothell Landing Runs the Same Trick on Grass
The building isn't the only spot in town doing double duty this season. Bothell Landing Park, at 9919 NE 180th St, spent its summer hosting a family-friendly concert series aimed squarely at kids. Music with Eli played there on August 12, 2026. Eric Ode, a children's author and songwriter, played August 5. The Harmonica Pocket closed out the run on August 19. It's the kind of lineup built for strollers and lawn blankets.
By October 10 and 11, 2026, the same park hosts Halloween in the Park Market by Artisan Alley PNW, organized by Lorrie Brawley. It's a two-day artisan market, the kind of event where you browse handmade goods from local makers rather than watch a kids' concert from a picnic blanket. The lawn that held a children's songwriter in August holds vendor tents in October. Same grass, same address, a completely different reason to show up.
The Campus Adds a Third Register
A few minutes away, the University of Washington Bothell campus adds its own layer to the same stretch of weeks. Welcome Week 2026 runs the campus through a run of public-facing events, including Bird Bonanza on October 2 at 9 a.m. and a Congressional App Challenge App-A-Thon hosted with Rep. DelBene's office on October 3 at 10 a.m. Neither event is closed to the public, and both land in the same week as the Anderson School dance party and the Halloween market at Bothell Landing. For a few days, the corridor between campus and downtown is carrying students moving in, families out for a market weekend, and a 21-and-up crowd headed to a DJ set, all within walking distance of each other.
The run doesn't stop at Halloween. On October 24, 2026, a Diwali Mela lands at 3613 191st Place SE, a short distance from Bothell Landing, adding a fourth kind of evening to a month that already had three.
Four Weeks, One Half-Mile
Laid out on a calendar, the density is easier to see than it is to explain.
| Date | Event | Venue | Who Shows Up |
|---|---|---|---|
| Sept 29, 2026 | History Pub: PNW true crime | Anderson School, Haynes Hall | History Pub regulars, all ages, $5 |
| Oct 2, 2026 | Bird Bonanza (UW Bothell Welcome Week) | UW Bothell campus | Students, families, free |
| Oct 3, 2026 | Congressional App Challenge App-A-Thon | UW Bothell campus | Students, tech-curious residents, free |
| Oct 9, 2026 | 80s Homecoming Party | Anderson School, Haynes Hall | 21+, ticketed at $36.20 |
| Oct 10-11, 2026 | Halloween in the Park Market | Bothell Landing Park | Market browsers, all ages |
| Oct 24, 2026 | Diwali Mela | 3613 191st Place SE | Community celebration, all ages |
Four different crowds move through two buildings and one park inside a single month, and none of them are attending the same version of Bothell. The History Pub crowd on September 29 has almost nothing in common with the dance crowd on October 9, even though they're sitting under the same chandeliers. The families at Bird Bonanza on October 2 aren't the same people browsing artisan booths at Bothell Landing eight days later, even though both events happen within a few blocks of each other.
If you're only picking one night, the ticket price tells you what you're walking into. Five dollars gets you a seat and a lecture. Free gets you a campus event built for a general audience. Thirty-six dollars and change gets you a dance floor and a 21-and-over crowd. None of these rooms are pretending to be something they're not, which makes it easy to pick the right night once you know what each one actually is.
The building at 18607 Bothell Way NE has been flexible since 1931, back when the same gym floor held basketball practice on a Tuesday and a school dance on a Friday. Nothing about that changed when McMenamins took it over. It just added a bar.
If you're curious what downtown Bothell actually feels like on a random Tuesday versus a random Friday, Pacific Northwest Partners spends enough time in these four blocks to walk you through it, no matter which version of the calendar brought you here.
