(Image: Wayne Walsh via Flickr)
Since the new year, reports of gunfire and increased criminal activity around 23rd and Union have amplified calls for police and property owners to ramp up safety efforts in the heart of the Central District even as millions of dollars in development spending flows into the intersection. The sprawling Midtown Center property on the southeast corner has lately been a source of concern for neighbors in the area.
Midtown owner Tom Bangasser tells CHS he is taking steps to try to curb nighttime crime. Last week, Midtown shop owners put up larger “no loitering” signs and Bangasser said he has met with police to discuss stepping up loitering enforcement, especially at night. Still, Bangasser said he can’t control deeper issues in the community.
“We’re about to spend $215 million on this new jail center, maybe that should go into jobs,” he said. “Some of these guys are just hanging out because they don’t have jobs.”
To increase nighttime visibility on the property, Bangasser said he has asked shop owners to park their cars on the street instead of inside the lot. While Midtown does have outside security cameras, Bangasser said he was planning to upgrade the camera system in the coming weeks.
Last week, CHS readers reported lights were out around the property when police responded to the most recent shots fired on the block. Bangasser said that while the lights are on his property, the light poles are city owned and must be serviced by Seattle City Light. After about three weeks of being out, Bangasser said crews made the repairs last week and the sensor-triggered lights should be on every night from now on.
Bangasser and other neighboring business owners and neighbors agree it will take more than lights and signs to make the area safe and help it thrive as a community hub for everyone living in the area. Once part of a notorious criminal drug market, more recent incidents like the 2013 arson fire that destroyed and ended Med Mix’s run in the neighborhood have been often painful reminders of inequity.
On Saturday, the Union Street Business Association held a community meeting at Midtown Center to discuss the future changes on the block. After years of anticipation, some of those changes are already starting to coalesce.
The new project on the northwest corner will join this Lake Union Partners apartment project on the southwest corner of 23rd and Union.
A new mixed-use development is planned to rise at the Midtown property across the street from development already underway. Meanwhile, plans for the mini golf-themed event space Smash Putt to move into the empty post office space will bring more people and more activity into the area, like Uncle Ike’s pot shop (a CHS advertiser) started to do last fall.
Bangasser said he’s not sure how he’ll proceed with selling the Midtown property since City Council members declined his bid for an upzone until he could show more concrete development plans.
For now, Bangasser has stopped pursuing the upzone, saying it won’t stop his plans to sell off his property for redevelopment. “Something’s got to happen up here soon,” he said.
Years ago an off-duty police officer was hired to walk the MidTown property. Seems like it’s time for Bangasser to bring an officer back. Lights and camera are a step in the right direction, but a person of authority hired to keep an eye the property and ensure the safety of Midtown renters, patrons and neighbors would be an investment that would show Bangasser actually cares.
Mr. Bangasser says that some of the people loitering on his property are there because they are unemployed, and seems to think that it is the government’s responsibility to find them jobs. On the contrary, I think it is the individual’s responsibility to find employment, but somehow I doubt the loiterers are even looking for a job (at least a legal one).
You are conflating someone making the broad connection between lack of legal job opportunities and crime with the crime situation at this exact location. He seeks to call attention to his perception that some of those loitering may not have anywhere else to be. If you believe that had some of these individuals (going with your conflation) been raised with a silver spoon in their mouths and currently had positions as CEOs, that they would still choose to loiter at 23rd & Union, that is your fundamental belief that criminals are born rather than made.
In as much as financial gain is a prime motivation of crime, then financial opportunities for all, including job training so people can be on a level playing field with each other, would be a step in the right direction.
The government doesn’t give someone a job, rather the government (which could include partnerships with non-government organizations), would offer mentoring, job training, information, training on interviewing, prosecution for discrimination in hiring, and a fair minimum wage.
I applaud that he is bringing up systemic issues. You, however, appear to have given up. Now the government wouldn’t need to be involved if others were. What will you do besides throw people away as aimless, incorrigble, etc.
By the way, not all loiterers are criminals. It’s a city, and sometimes people stand outside in groups. Perhaps you have done that radical act as well.
That’s not what he’s doing. He’s shifting the blame and pointing fingers at others Instead of taking responsiblity for what’s happening on the property he owns. Also, it’s not the governments job to go around and hold people’s hands while they walk through life.
I would guess that those loitering are up to no good and wouldn’t take a job if their lives depended on it.
They have jobs. They sell weed.
Again, this is a conflation of macrocosm with microcosm. Key word in your comment is “guess” (how scientific).
The sooner Bangasser is out of this neighborhood the better. He doesn’t give a crap about the area. He only cares about the money.
If he had shown more care about the neighborhood before his investment, that would have been a good sign. Still, he’s there now, and however self-serving, seeking to reduce crime in a certain area. Still, if there is that element, it would just move to an area he didn’t care about. Truly “not in my backyard”.
Hey Max, do you live near 23rd and Union? I might be wrong but I’m going to assume you don’t. Those of us who do live here and deal with the gun shots and drug deals and fights and robberies and car jackings and groups of guys loitering don’t want them here. Since you seem to be so supportive of them and want to better their lives, why don’t you go invite all of them to come hang out at your house or across the street from where you live?
Is there a rule on this blog that one can only comment on events that occur at intersections one lives at? I’ll assume since you around 23rd & Union that you will have zero comments on any other part of the area.
And I was saying the developer has a “not in my backyard” attitude. While seeming to look at the issue on a broader level, I would expect he would be satisfied if it moved down the street away from his development. Rather than actually address it on a broader level.
Also, others are affected by an area besides those who live right there, such as those driving or walking through it (or wanting to but afraid to).
Speaking of neighborhoods, would you move to a lower crime area if you could? Would you be wrong to do that?
And I suggested more police would fix that. How else do you think “the issues happening on the lot of private property located at 23rd and Union” can be fixed?
But since you said “it’s not the governments job to go around and hold people’s hands while they walk through life,” you and the people in your neighborhood should pony up and hire private security to fix the crime in your area. My area is doing just fine. Thank you.
Do you want to shell out more taxes to pay for more police and overtime? Something tells me you don’t.
Besides, I don’t experience the crimes and disturbances you mentioned in my neighborhood. So maybe the people in your neighborhood should pony up and hire private security.
Way to cherry pick (and misunderstand) my points and selectively respond to things I didn’t say. No point in a discussion.
Max, my response was to Nick
Tom, you clearly missed the topic of this entire blog entry. I’m specifically addressing the issues happening on the lot of private property located at 23rd and Union.
so what are you doing about it or are you just like him only caring about yourself jw?
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23rd and Union is a far cry cleaner than it’s crack then heroin heyday. The one difference in the area from last year is the new Marijuana dispensary. I have seen a lot of people who bootleg weed now with their other drug products. With weed and liquor available on this corner, there should no doubt be security guards there. Many years ago the police pattiwagon was always parked in Richlen’s. Maybe they should start doing it again?
I don’t smoke pot but I can assure you that the issue here is not the sales of marijuana or anything even related to that dispensary.
Truth. These guys (or their older relations) have been hanging on this corner for pretty much the entirety of the nearly 11 years I’ve lived in the neighborhood. They were a little more discrete for the couple of years SPD established their “satellite precinct” office at Midtown, but since that was shut down, and the USPS processing facility went away, there’s been a definite resurgence.
And while I agree Bangasser could – and should – be doing more to discourage their loitering on his property, ultimately this is a larger social issue that far exceeds his personal responsibility and even that of adjacent businesses. Obviously, the increased pressure that will be a natural outgrowth of the ongoing development around the intersection will have some positive effect, but in reality it will only move the problem elsewhere without doing much to address the underlying causes.
All this discussion is fine and I don’t necessarily disagree with a lot of it, but my concern right now is my immediate safety. There have been multiple shootings coming from Bangasser’s property in the last couple of months. The last one had 20+ shots fired. Right now I don’t care why. Its an important conversation, but right now I care about not getting caught the cross fire. Me, my neighbors, my neighbors kids……… we all live here.
I can’t believe that Mr. Bangassar’s response is a larger no loitering sign, asking people to park somewhere else, and then blaming City Light for the lack of light. He is sitting on a huge asset that is going to make him huge money. I don’t begrudge him, but how about spending a few dollars now on his own lighting? Why hasn’t an upgraded camera system been in place since these recent shootings started? Security systems don’t have to be very expensive. I’m not seeing him do anything that makes me think he really gives a damn about the safety of those of us that live next to his property. I have a duplex that I rent out, and if that kind of public safety risks were going on there, I’d be all over it trying to figure out what I could be doing. He’s sitting on property worth millions of dollars, and his response is a bigger sign. give me a break.
I agree.
It is funny I was born and raised in the area as well as my parents, and nobody gave a crap about the area until the clear people moved in. And yes I still live in the area.
And of course you, your family, and your neighbors were helpless to do anything for yourselves, weren’t you? You just had to let it be a nasty area because the “clear people” hadn’t noticed it?
Maybe you need to do a little history on Seattle, from the 1920 to the 1970’s black people were not allowed to rent or buy any where else in Seattle, this was our “designated” area to live. So, we had no choices as others to move out of the area. As far as it being run down and we as a people not doing anything, if you have no help from your city government, what do you think we as a people should have done? No, wants to live in run down communities, and no one wants their community stripped from under them either, to the point where your community does not exist because people finally realize that a part of town they never came in to actually has very good property and worth a lot of money. Go to Seattle Civil Rights and Labor History Project and educate yourself.
And yet, in Madrona West of 34th, it has been predominately black and lower income for the better part of 50 years and it has always been clean, safe and invested in by the people who live there.
Kristi, if you want to live in the past and make yourself a victim, that’s your choice, but no one wants to hear it. Anyone can have a nice neighborhood, and it’s not the government’s job to create that. The government can provide funding and services – which they did, as you would know if you are being honest with yourself – but it’s up to the residents to follow up on it.
But it’s a new era. You can fight old battles and resent the newcomers or you can join in the neighborhood. The latter just makes you bitter and disenfranchised, the former empowers you.
We can debate this all day, but everything that black people had in that neighborhood was taken away from them. I don’t have a problem with change what I have a problem with is that no one saw fit to do something until they moved majority of the black people out. Now that real talk!
These are not old battles these are battles that we as people still have to fight. Victim Not by any means. Speaking the truth yes. I can tell you know nothing about the history of this area because if you did you would know that the people who did stand up and try to fight, were killed, life E. Pratt who was gunned down at his house. Victim no, bitter no, angry yes, because of the way all this so called progression went down.
“We’re about to spend $215 million on this new jail center, maybe that should go into jobs,”
Too late. It was a voter approved initiative. That’s how democracy works. Maybe next time you should break out the crocodile tears earlier in the process?
And Kristi, you speak the truth: NOBODY, including the born-and-raised residents, cared about the area until “the clear people” (whatever that means, but I assume it means those dreaded “gentrifiers”) moved in. It’s funny how much a little community pride and civic engagement can change a place, isn’t it?
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