Since Velo Bike Shop pedaled off Capitol Hill to Belltown in March, the 8,000 square feet of prime real estate at 11th and Pine remains empty.
Will Nelson, who’s managing the space with property owners Legacy Companies, said he is working out lease terms with a tenant in a deal that could break any day, but declined to drop any hints.
A construction permit was filed with DPD that describes a “change of use from retail to bar/restaurant” in the Velo space. Nelson said he could not comment until a lease was signed. For now, the first floor of the 1906-built structure remains tenant-less.
Meanwhile, 11th Ave continues its pace as CHS’s most rumor-filled street lately — this fall, we reported on a telephone survey that sparked rumors of a grocery store on the Pike/Pine street near Cal Anderson.
Across the street, this mixed-use preservation and development project is set to add additional retail and restaurant space to 11th Ave — as well as new residents living at this edge of the Pike/Pine nightlife area.
Above the fray, the Stranger continues to operate out of the top two floors of the building. Nelson said the alt-weekly staff will be staying in the building for the foreseeable future — we’ve been told “Seattle’s only newspaper” is in the midst of a long-term lease. There was buzz recently about work crews spotted outside the Stranger offices, but Nelson said the work was general maintenance to fix a leaky roof and repair old windows.
“The Stranger had 20 receptacles to catch water at one point,” Nelson said. “It’s just long overdue work.”
Nelson is also shopping around a “creative space” in the basement of 1021 E Pine.
Legacy also owns the Value Village building next door. Legacy owner Tom Ellison also owns the Value Village company.
the Stranger should take it over and make their operation even more of a fishbowl reality show / performance art piece.
I hope The Stranger opens a bar/restaurant/coffeeshop downstairs where instead of tips, people write angry anonymous comments on post-it notes.
I know! I know! How about a bank?!!!
I think a burger joint would be good
How about a $13 burger joint that sells lattes? There’s just nowhere on CapHill to get a burger or latte– at last!
perfect!
What we need here is a police station.
How about a twenty FIVE hour diner?? Eh???
No more bars! Seriously, you can’t walk ten feet without another place to get trashed. No wonder people are treating our neighborhood like a place to come, get wasted, and behave badly before going to wherever it is they actually live. Didn’t there used to be a limit on liquor licenses?!!
No kidding….it’s getting ridiculous, you can’t do anything on CapHill anymore but eat and drink. What about actual STORES to shop for things we need (besides cutesy boutiques full of “stuff”) !
Like a Walmart Express? That’d wad up a few panties in the hood.
I agree, the neighborhood really could use something other than bar, bar, bar, bar, bar, bar, grocery store, bar, bar, bar, bar, bar, bar, restaurant. Enough already…
I miss the Fred Meyer that’s now a QFC in Broadway Mkt. I’m sure the only reason Kroger re-badged it as a QFC was so they could raise the prices from Fred Meyer level to bloated QFC level. They knew they could get away with it because there’s no competition.
I think it had more to do with the size of the space. As big as it is it’s nowhere near the size of any of the Fred Meyers I’ve ever been to and I’ve been to a lot of them. QFCs in general tend to be half the size at most compared to a Fred Meyers.
At least QFC has that lower level, which offers many of the household items that people need….not everything, but a pretty good selection.
Yes, they do, but it’s all at QFC prices, which are higher than Fred Meyer prices. It’s true that the Fred Meyer was much smaller than the average Fred Meyer, but so what? It did very well for years, and had a big variety. Kroger is the largest grocery chain in the US. With their buying power, they could easily undercut everyone, but they don’t want to. They know people in Washington are used to getting soaked on groceries, so they changed it to QFC just because they could get away with it. And of course, they can. Even Safeway charges more here than almost anywhere but Alaska. A friend who works at their corporate offices told me the Seattle area is their most profitable region. Guess why? Because we get soaked on groceries in WA.
[…] New big bar or restaurant opening in former bike shop space?, CHS asked in July. The answer? Yup, a bar: […]
[…] about what was coming next for the relatively gigantic empty bike store earlier this summer as we first caught wind of a project underway. The Stranger, with offices upstairs, sorted out who had started banging away down […]