Metsker Maps finds its way to Alderwood mall

LYNNWOOD — For a store that helps you find where you’re going, Metsker Maps hopes you get lost for an hour.

The map shop that’s been a mainstay in Pike Place Market opened a new store last week across from REI at Alderwood mall. They’ve found that people who walk in the door tend to stick around awhile.

“If we can get you in the store, you’re going to see something that you’ve never seen before that you have to have,” said Jay Brown, who is a part owner. “So the casual shopper is definitely our friend.”

And the casual shopper can find a little of everything at the store. Maps and globes line the walls, representing anything you’d ever see on the wall of a classroom.

But there’s more. There’s maps of the moon, maps of Hawaii, maps of the San Juans. There is a map of the Puget Sound with nautical flourishes. There are fanciful maps with pirates and one of a fairyland with mythical and legendary creatures, people and places on an imagined island.

One map allows people to scratch off the countries they’ve visited, making it more colorful over time. Another map allows people to push plastic light-up pins into areas visited.

And then there’s the eye-catching wooden charts, nautical charts of painted and stained birch sheets glued together to give the maps a colorful depth.

“These wood charts are out just in the past couple of years and they’ve sold like crazy,” Brown said. “They’re good gifts and they look fabulous in the office or the den.”

Metsker Maps is the retail arm of Kroll Map Co., which can trace its history back to the 1880s in the Klondike Gold Rush era.

“My grandfather started working for Kroll Map in 1911 and bought it from Mr. Kroll in 1920,” said John Loacker, who owns Kroll Maps and a majority stake in the retail store. “My family has been involved for 95 years as the owner.”

Metsker Maps was a rival company that started in 1903 and the two companies competed for decades. Metsker Maps opened up a retail store in downtown Seattle 50 years ago.

In 1980, the Metsker family sold the retail store to a businessman, who eventually bought the map-making part of the business as well. That businessman sold the retail store to Kroll in 1999. Metsker Maps continued making maps for a few years, but eventually was sold to Historic Map Works, a website based in Maine.

When Kroll bought the retail store, Loacker gave part ownership to Brown, who had been a long-time Kroll employee whose aunt was once the company’s chief cartographer, and a couple of long-time Metsker employees.

“I think there’s six employees from that era still working there,” Loacker said. “That shows how devoted they are and how competent they are and how much they care about the product.”

Since the merger, something else happened: The internet. Or more specifically, maps becoming ubiquitous on the internet. And that caused a wave of map stores across the country to close.

But Metsker Maps and Kroll Maps continue. Loacker said the map-making part of the company has found a niche in building custom maps for businesses and organizations. Some of their recent maps include ones for the Gates Foundation, the Seattle Police Department and the Everett and Edmonds school districts.

“People are hungry for good cartography or we wouldn’t be expanding,” Loacker said.

The retail store has found its own niche. The store sells nautical charts — required on boats — and fold-out maps that can be taken on hikes. But it also sells maps that can be hung on the wall as a decoration to be looked at and studied.

“Maps are practical, cheap artwork,” Brown said. “Maybe inexpensive is a better word.”

Metsker Maps opened its first retail store outside of downtown Seattle last year at SeaTac Airport. It seemed like a natural pairing — a map store in an airport.

And it worked out well. So well, they they would have stayed except Delta Airlines is expanding at SeaTac and needed their store for a lounge area. The store closed last month.

“We got comments every day that it wasn’t only the best store at the airport, it was the best store at any airport,” Loacker said. “With those types of comments, we might go back.”

But they decided to go to the mall before the holidays. They looked at the Alderwood mall and Westfield Southcenter in Tukwila and eventually chose Lynnwood because of its location across from the REI store. It was also close to Brown’s home in Shoreline.

Alderwood is excited to add the store, said Brenda Klein, the mall’s general manager.

“They add a unique assortment of merchandise you don’t find everywhere,” she wrote in an emailed statement. “We know our guests will really enjoy their shopping experience.”

It’s a temporary location through the holidays; Metsker Maps plans to move inside Alderwood next spring to a smaller storefront.

“It’s the downside of selling maps for $9.95,” Brown said. “We’re not a jewelry store.”

While Brown is a big fan of maps, he adds one caveat: You need to read maps with a critical eye.

“If you see it on a map, people tend to think that that’s gospel,” Brown said. “They just trust that, oh yeah, that’s the way it is. There’s a book here titled, ‘How to Lie with Maps.’ You can change the font size and emphasize all sorts of things. Maps tell a story.”