West Seattle, Washington
25 Monday
First headline from tonight’s Southwest Design Review Board meeting on Spring Hill, the mixed-use building proposed for 5020 California and adjoining parcels: This was a textbook case of why it’s vital to participate in public meetings if you really want to affect the outcome — dozens of concerned neighbors showed up, many of them spoke up, and board members took their key concerns to heart in telling the architects and developers to try a “fresh start” and come back for a second “early design guidance” meeting. Biggest concern – the fact that the 3 early design alternatives (above; larger images are shown later in this report) presented by architect David Hewitt for this 65-plus-foot-high building all put its tallest, most imposing side against the alley that borders a line of single-family homes along 42nd. Board members want the architects to come up with alternatives incorporating a less abrupt the transition from this building to those homes. FULL REPORT AHEAD, ADDED 2 AM:Read More
The mixed-use project that is proposed south of The Junction for 5020 California (map) and two adjacent properties (shown above), Spring Hill, goes before the Southwest Design Review Board tonight at Denny Middle School’s library, 6:30 pm. (Previous coverage: Neighbor organizes opposition, Jan. 1; our first report on the proposal, Oct. 20; city project page here.)
Thanks to SW for e-mailing WSB to say work has really intensified today at the mixed-use project site at 35th & Avalon. We last discussed this project in mid-December, when the city granted a permit for shoring/mass excavation/erosion control. As you can see from the photo (taken from the bus stop on 35th, looking northeast at the site), all sorts of heavy equipment is there today; a new check of the city files reveals they’ve just applied for the building permit too. You can check architect Mark Travers‘ website to see what the future building is supposed to look like (we’re still wondering if they’re really going to build another Starbucks so close to the drive-thru!).
Mentioned the impending demolition yesterday … went by a few minutes ago and the teardown was in full swing. Always amazing to see how little time it takes to bring down these old wood-frame homes (this one was built in 1918). A few more teardown pix, and our rambling digression:Read More
3700 block of Beach Drive – the “no parking” signs and hay bales are an unmistakable sign of backhoe-en-route; update’s on Beach Drive Blog (including a link to the upcoming townhouse project). We’ve watched this one because our original West Seattle residence was next door, way back when a grungy convenience store was on the site across the street that is now known as Cormorant Cove Park (nothing like the beach’s next convenience store!).
Continuing our series of late-night followups when there’s no urgent news at this hour — we noticed today that construction is moving fast on the townhouses at the ex-Guadalajara Hacienda site in the 5900 block of California. First, from last February, the old restaurant’s festive facade just after it closed and the sign came down:
And the townhouses-in-progress, today:
The first Southwest Design Review Board meeting of the new year, one week from Thursday, is scheduled to look at the Spring Hill apartment/retail mixed-use building proposed for 5020 California and 2 parcels south of that address (area photo above; developers BlueStar told WSB last week there’s no project rendering yet). As mentioned in our December 11 update, it’s now outlined as a 6-story building with 90 apartments, 100 parking spaces, and 4,000 square feet of retail. Area resident Mary wanted other neighbors to know that she’s drafted a letter opposing it and that they can contact her if they want a copy of it or are interested otherwise in joining forces:Read More
Thanks to everyone who e-mailed to say the crane equipment has arrived at the QFC/Office Depot megaproject site in The Junction. WSB contributing photographer Christopher Boffoli took the above photos from the 9th floor of Alaska House (the ex-Huling/Gee land and Fire Station 32 are in the background). Christopher also reports that there’s a traffic alert in connection with this: “41st St SW is closed between Alaska and Oregon. 42nd SW is open but electricians are working on the west side of the site and have the sidewalk closed.” Another of his photos:
More info from Christopher: “It looks like they’ve poured a large footing in the very bottom and middle of the building site to which they are attaching a crane in sections. It looks like this large, yellow crane will be a fixture on the West Seattle skyline for the foreseeable future. Workers erecting the crane told me that it will be 140 feet high when completed.” Three more photos ahead from different perspectives:Read More
Three Harbor Ave notes tonight: First, property in the 3200-3300 block potentially earmarked for an apartment building called the “Aqua Bella” (rendering above from the real-estate listing’s flyer) is now up for sale, $6.4 million dollars. Second, a hearing is set before the city hearing examiner January 15 for a proposal to divide 1 parcel of land in the 2300 block into 7. And third, a rumor that’s been going around for at least five months seems to have gained a grain of potential reality — a Salty’s hotel — right now, of course, West Seattle has only one motel/hotel, the former Travelodge that is now “Seattle West Inn and Suites” (as we reported here in July). Tonight’s article mentions the Alki hotel proposal too, but as an informed observer notes to WSB, Alki zoning is NC-1, which wouldn’t allow a hotel, while Harbor Ave is NC-2, which would.
As mentioned earlier, Mike Gain and Roger Cayce granted our request for an interview about their proposal to upzone a stretch of California Avenue south of Admiral, and sat down with us for an hour and a half at midday today. Here’s our long-form writeup:Read More
After last month’s contentious public meeting regarding the proposal to upzone both sides of California between Hanford and Hinds (and a bit further south on the west side), longtime West Seattle real-estate/property-management partners Mike Gain and Roger Cayce offered to talk personally with anyone who has questions about what they hope to do. So we took them up on it, and they just spent an hour and a half talking with us. First headline: It was suggested at the last Admiral Neighborhood Association meeting (WSB coverage here) that they withdraw the proposal and start over again; they told WSB today they’re not going to do that. But they had plenty more to say (and info to offer) — much of it, we think, that provides previously unreported context for what they want to do and why; we are writing up a full-length report that you’ll be able to read in a separate WSB post later this afternoon.
Since the Christmas-lights touring is over, we’ll be featuring follow-ups in the WSB late-night spotlight when there’s no breaking news. Tonight: As the photo above shows, the site is scraped clean and no more debris remain at the site of the burned-out ex-Schuck’s at California/Charlestown, two weeks after the building teardown began (our report with video, here). Next up, construction of the two-story commercial building planned for the site.
Here’s the latest on Fauntleroy Place, the mixed-use megaproject with the future Whole Foods Market that’s been in the works almost 2 years for Fauntleroy/Alaska/39th. Eric Radovich with BlueStar Management, the FP developer, tells WSB today that they’re still hoping for groundbreaking by April, as reported in our last update in September. But first – the project has to get through one more key public meeting, for which the date has just been set — the Southwest Design Review Board “recommendations” meeting for Fauntleroy Place has is now on the city schedule for February 14. As noted on the BlueStar site, the architect on the project has changed to CollinsWoerman, but Radovich says the rendering above from the previous architect is still fairly true to the plan — 5 stories, Whole Foods and a new Hancock Fabrics store at ground level, more than 150 apartments above, parking garage with room for more than 500 vehicles (city project page here). We also asked about BlueStar’s more-recently revealed West Seattle mixed-use project, Spring Hill (no relation to the future restaurant) at 5020 California just south of The Junction (as reported by WSB here and here) — the first Design Review Board meeting for that is listed on the city site as January 10th, but Radovich says that might be changed to later in the month. He also says there’s no publicly available rendering for Spring Hill just yet.
2 sizable projects in the south half of West Seattle got a second look from the Southwest Design Review Board tonight. One will be the new home of Swedish Auto Repair, at 7901 35th, currently home to the ex-Adventist church building and a Mars Hill bus pen; concerns from board members and neighbors have sent it back to the drawing board for one more round of revisions, particularly regarding the need for its 30-plus-foot-high L-shaped building fronting 35th and Kenyon to be more streetfront-friendly. However, city planner Holly Godard did laud the project for its voluntary “green” features such as solar panels and rainwater-collecting barrels. So that one will be back for one more SWDRB meeting. This next project, though, got the green light:
That’s what you’re going to see in a year or two at California/Graham, kitty corner from the almost-condos of Strata, north of the ex-Chuck and Sally’s. We knew this would be “live/work units” as well as townhouses, but now we have even more details:Read More
Tonight, the Southwest Design Review Board is set for its final recommendations on the project planned for 6053 California, currently home of the former Butcher Block Espresso/martial arts/butcher shop/etc. building shown above (future townhouses and “live/work” units), and 7901 35th (ex-church, future auto repair). The meeting starts @ 6:30 pm in the library at Denny Middle School (different location than usual).
DEVELOPMENT NOTE: You’ve probably noticed that crews also have torn down the ex-Mailbox West/Eyes Rite building as well as the old green rentals in the 4100 block of California. (Rowdy reminiscences on the latter have turned up in comments here, by the way.) And now the city building permit for the mixed-use replacement is official.
BUSINESS NOTES: The newest WSB sponsor, Curious Kidstuff, has added a coupon to its ad on the right sidebar – click the ad or this link and print the ensuing coupon to take it in for your 20% discount, through Christmas Eve. … Another WSB sponsor note: Click! Design That Fits in the Admiral District has just launched a blog – including a preview of the Christmas cookies that proprietors John and Frances Smersh will be offering during tonight’s final Late Night Thursday shopping event at the store … Belated anniversary congratulations to Beato, which has been open one year as of last night; next big occasion is a special New Year’s Eve menu that’s linked from the WSB Holidays page, where we’ll be adding more WS NYE festivities as we find them. Also on the Holidays page — we are working today to wrap up the Christmas Eve/Day info list of grocery-store and coffee-shop hours (just heard from WSB sponsor Hotwire, which will be open 8 am-2 pm Christmas Day).
COMMUNITY NOTES: Just added to the WSB Events page, the free “Giving Back” dinner and entertainment event at Southwest Community Center tomorrow night, and another fundraiser coming up January 19 for the West Seattle High School Travel Club.
(which we were, on Saturday) … an excavation/”shoring” permit has just been issued for the vacant parcel at 35th/Avalon – if you drive by there frequently, you have probably noticed there’ve been stirrings of work. We discussed this project very briefly toward the end of this post three months ago; here’s another look at the architect’s current webpage for what’s proposed at that corner.
Experimenting with yet another video host – let us know how/if this one works for you – we’ve also uploaded the same clip to YouTube in case you’d rather watch it there (click for that version). Here, we captured the first moments of the backhoe biting into the building (click the pic to play the clip):
We also ran by a little while ago for this photo of the progress made in the past few hours – the facade’s all gone:
If you missed earlier coverage of what’s planned for this spot — per the city project page, it’s a two-story commercial building with retail, a restaurant (TBA as far as we know), and “medical-services offices.”
Just back with pix and video. Demolition of the building started about an hour ago. Here are two photos of the Demo King backhoe starting its work – video to come.
The demo crew also wanted to warn drivers that trucks will be coming and going over the next couple days, every few hours, to pick up debris, so the California/Charlestown intersection may be a little more precarious than usual.
It was really exciting about an hour ago – got a note from Todd that a backhoe had shown up at the burned-out ex-Schuck’s (California/Charlestown) — we stopped what we were doing, grabbed the cameras and raced (well, as fast as legally possible) down because this is one demolition we don’t want to miss — unfortunately, as we, and Todd, subsequently found out, looks like the backhoe is just scooping up the debris cleared from inside the building last week. (We’re going to check again in a bit just in case.) Thanks to Todd for the tip and the photo.
The view this morning from the alley behind 4116 California, where the old green rentals are coming down to make way for apartments and retail (we mentioned the demolition permit just two days ago).
Last night’s Admiral Neighborhood Association meeting spent more than an hour focusing on the much-discussed upzoning proposal for both sides of California between Hanford and Hinds (and a little further south on the west side, as shown on the city map at left). At the heart of this discussion: What happens next? Association president Mark Wainwright thinks the property owners, represented by Josh Stepherson (who attended last night’s meeting) and longtime local real-estate/property-management partners Roger Cayce and Mike Gain, should pull the proposal and start over. But that was just one of the suggestions at last night’s meeting.Read More
We first told you in October (detailed report here) about Spring Hill, the development planned for the area shown above, in the 5000 block of California, just south of The Junction (map). The developer is BlueStar Management, same firm behind Fauntleroy Place, future home to Whole Foods, 170 apartments, etc. Now, a date is set for the Southwest Design Review Board to give “early design guidance” on the project — January 10. According to the city project page, the scope of Spring Hill (no known relation to the future restaurant) has grown a little since our original post – it’s now described as six stories, 90 apartments, 4,000 sf of retail, 100 parking spaces.
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