For nearly 30 years the West Seattle Nursery has been the local landmark, go-to resource for plants of all kinds. Situated on the corner of S.W, Brandon Street and California Ave. SW. it's been dealing with limited space for a long time. So, plans were announced last year to remove the house next door where owner Mark C. Smith lived and expand into the space. He had paid it off.

They even offered to give the house away for free, but no one came forward to pay the $90,000 moving cost.

Regardless they moved forward with their plans to build a greenhouse, with other features (even an apartment for Smith) hiring local architect Parie Hines and Ventana Construction to prepare the plans.

Then a bombshell hit.

They had been leasing the land they occupy for the past 27 years and the lease was set to expire in April of 2015. They realized they had to renew it and spoke to the owners about extending the lease who told them initially that they would. When they sought the financing for that lease they called the landlord in August for a copy of the renewed lease. They were told, "We changed our minds. We're going to sell the property. The tablecloth just got ripped out from underneath us," said Bruno.

Given the nature of what has happened to land in West Seattle that lit a fire under Manager Marcia Bruno and Smith to see if they might move the business.

Land for that purpose is pretty rare in West Seattle so, they asked, "How much would the land be sold for?" The answer? Two million dollars.

That number seemed completely out of reach and left the entire company in a state of limbo as they put their expansion plans on hold (and the banks of course chose not to fund it) and looked around for other options. The landlord said they would sell it to Smith and company if they put $500,000 down. "We didn't have that much to put down," said Bruno, "It was sounding kind of impossible that this was going to happen." Through the fall they sought other financing options and got rejected.

The people at Washington Federal Bank said they would put them in touch with a company that submits bids to the Small Business Administration. Then Chase Bank met with them and indicated interest in January. "They show up here, it's a beautiful sunny day, the parking lot is full...in January.. the nursery looked beautiful. We had plants in and they were like 'Wow, this looks like something we would be interested in.' " But still, they heard nothing definitive.

They had done a major display in mid February at the Northwest Flower and Garden Show and won a lot of awards. "Here I am setting up this display and I don't even know if we're going to exist in six months," said Bruno.

"So, I get a phone call while our display is up from Chase Bank that says, 'We're going to finance this and we're going to finance your expansion.' But they said there's a lot of if, if, if. We had to do an environmental study and that was if S.B.A. approved us because Chase wasn't going to do the whole loan, and if, the appraisal came back to show it would be worth it, and if all their finances looked in order. I was jumping through hoops giving them everything they could ever possibly want."

Finally last week, Smith signed the papers. He's now the owner of the land and the project is going ahead. Smith said, "I don't want another giant apartment building to go up and I will go into debt until I'm 85 to save the nursery. West Seattlelites don't want another apartment building. They want their nursery."

The expansion plans will go ahead in late August and it will take 6 months to complete. The plans have been changed a little from the original concept.

There is no longer an apartment for Smith. The fire suppression system alone would have cost $150,000. But it will be a greenhouse, offering more storage, plenty of house plants (they sell through their stock almost completely every week), a coffee area, a gift area and the garden tools will be in the existing structure. "They will be able to grab a coffee and wander through. This is going to be their park," Bruno said laughing.

The new space will offer a classroom area and allow an emphasis on patio gardening, fiberglass planters, and gardening for people in all the new apartments coming. It will also allow them to bring in plants earlier that need it should it be cold or rainy.

The whole staff is excited about the changes coming and Bruno said, "Our goal is to make West Seattle Nursery a destination store."