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CHS Community Post | Central Area David and Goliath Fight in Progress: Why should anyone living on Capitol Hill care?

Neighbors alongside Swedish Medical Center: Cherry Hill are not sleeping well. They are spending many evenings a month meeting in small groups, and hours of their time trying to motivate neighbors, who are unaware of the waking giant in their midst. The giant is a medical center, a “Major Institution”, which has applied for a “Major Institution Master Plan”, or MIMP, in order to increase the size of their campus by nearly 100%. MIMPS are meant to allow Major Institutions to grow larger than for-profit businesses are allowed to, in residential neighborhoods. The idea is that Major Institutions, like schools and hospitals, benefit the surrounding neighborhood and the city, at large, so the zoning of certain areas is waived to allow the beneficial institution to expand. This is the idea. The reality, in this case, is different because a for-profit corporation is pushing this development.

We need to go back a couple of decades to see how this ‘Major Institution’, became a front for a corporation. A couple of decades ago, The Sisters of Providence Hospital, at the time, sold nearly half of their campus to the for-profit developer, Sabey Corporation. The sale was necessary because Providence couldn’t fill their hospital beds with patients. There was no need to expand at that time, quite the opposite. The egregious thing about this expansion is that the hospital, as a care-giving, doctor-visiting-patient-in-room sort of thing is not what is growing. What is being proposed are doctor’s-office towers, research facilities, and laboratories. In other words, support facilities. Swedish: Cherry Hill would not be the only facility benefiting from these support businesses. These would be rent-paying, medical-retail businesses, filling the office towers as for-profit tenants in a for-profit scenario on the property that was once a care-giving-doctor-visiting-patient hospital. Sabey Corporation is taking advantage of the MIMP process and trying like hell to build enormous office towers in the middle of Seattle’s oldest, residential neighborhood. We are trying to stop them.

We are trying to stop them because, if their plans are realized, the whole of our neighborhood, just south of Capitol Hill will be destroyed. It will happen slowly until these 110-year-old Victorian homes will be a distant memory; along with tales of how one used to be able to drive from Ezell’s to the freeway in ten minutes. The current Draft Environmental Impact Statement for this MIMP clearly states that intersections, that are, currently, passable by traffic, will become impassable. Traffic in and out of our neighborhood will be at a standstill. Pollution will rise, pedestrian traffic will suffer, beautiful homes will be sold and razed for a larger ‘Medical Center’ footprint, crime will go up, more home-owners will sell. It’s formulaic.

There has been a lot written and a lot of talk, lately about developers having their way with Seattle. This is one more reality episode of “Developers Gone Wild”, and they are drunk with power. We are over here in The Hood, fighting for our homes, for our streets, for our air-quality, and for our sanity. We are extending an invitation to our neighbors on The Hill to take an interest in our struggle to keep corporations out of the MIMP process, to hold Swedish: Cherry Hill to livable heights, bulk and scale of development as befits this venerable neighborhood. Come to a meeting of the Citizen’s Advisory Committee as they try to sort this thing out with Swedish and Sabey. If you have a free evening this Tuesday, September 30th, come on down and check out the action. It’s getting good. You won’t be disappointed.

-Abil Bradshaw

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3 Comments
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Warren Munzel
Warren Munzel
9 years ago

It seems like a few details are missing. If I want to attend the meeting mentioned in the article, I have the date, but what time is the meeting and where is it?

jseattle
Admin
9 years ago
Reply to  Warren Munzel

Date: Tuesday, September 30, 2014
Time: 6:30 – 8:30 PM
Place: Swedish Medical Center
Swedish Cherry Hill Campus
550 17th Avenue
Swedish Medical Center Education and
Conference Center Rooms A and B

resident
resident
9 years ago

Sabey knocked down a designated historic landmark in Georgetown some years back. They hired KPFF to “study” the building and come up with the justification that the building’s collapse was eminent–you can hire a reputable firm to rationalize any outcome you want. Then Sabey filed a complaint against themselves to get the DPD emergency order for demolition, so that the public could not have time to weigh in and demand an EIS on the basis of an archeological/historical site. The Landmarks Board was lied to about the constraints as to why the buildng could not be rehabbed. The plan was to build mixed use condos/offices on a parcel that wasn’t even zoned for it, and the planned structure was too tall for FAA standards. In shorts, Sabey is not to be trusted. They do not care about what the community thinks, except to placate them into submission as the development plans speed along.