For the past eight years or so, the Airport Way strip in Georgetown has held a growing reputation as Seattle’s last low-rent artsy-funky neighborhood.

The quarter-mile of old lo-rise buildings, across from the Georgetown Steam Plant, has been the awkward but loveable commercial core for an awkward but loveable population of metal sculptors, musicians, and painters. The strip’s storefronts came to house hip bars, coffee shops, a pizza place, a record store, a video store, and a Vespa scooter dealership.

Meanwhile, the bulky, sprawling brick buildings of the plant (also known as Rainier Cold Storage and Ice; originally the biggest of Rainier Beer’s three pre-Prohibition sites) housed art studios, band-practice and party spaces, and even another brewery (Georgetown Brewing, makers of Manny’s Ale).

But Airport Way’s status as a pocket of cheap thrills, unsullied by commercial megabucks, changed this week. The steam plant, plus a few peripheral lots, were bought by hotshot real estate tycoon David Sabey. (He’s also infamous as the final owner of the Frederick & Nelson department store.)

Sabey told the P-I he plans to turn the complex into “a mix of stores, light industry, offices and homes.” He says some of the current tenants, including Georgetown Brewing, might be invited to stick around.

But his staff also released a drawing of how the site might look when it’s done. The drawing’s full of “tasteful” landscaping and quaint flourishes, just like you see at every Ye Olde Factory, Ye Olde Cannery, Ye Olde Firehall, Ye Olde Flour Mill, Ye Olde Freight Yard, and Ye Olde Whorehouse in America that’s ever been “restored” for townhomes and gift shops.

Maybe it’s time for us all to hie it to Everett or Bremerton after all.