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95 Slide corner the next on a busy block to become home to mixed-use development

(Images: Alex Garland for CHS)

(Images: Alex Garland for CHS)

Screen Shot 2015-03-16 at 9.15.47 AMHere is another watering hole you can add to the roster of Capitol Hill bars where the patrons know the days are numbered before development brings last call.

CHS has learned that the property owners of the corner of Harvard and Pike have plans for a six-story, mixed-use development joining a block already in full construction Beast Mode.

The corner today is home to 95 Slide, local investor and entrepreneur Marcus Lalario’s sports bar born of the former Hunters Gatherers Lodge and the War Room clubs. It will likely be a year or two before construction can begin given the timeline of similar projects in the neighborhood.

The early plans for the development call for construction of a “30,000 sq ft, 6-story, mixed use building with 70 units and no parking spaces.”

The block is already filled with activity as the massive Pike Motorworks building moves into its fourth quarter of construction on an ambitious preservation project and development that will take up most of the surrounding block with spaces for retail, restaurants and hundreds of apartments. Developer Wolff Co. is busy bringing nearly 300 apartments to market and filling 19,000+ square feet of retail in the development:

The Pike Motorworks Building will be built with a diverse array of commercial spaces for lease. Ranging from ~300 s.f. street-front retail nooks to sprawling restaurant and bar areas with +22′ ceilings, timber beams, south-facing patio space and exposed brick, Pike Motorworks will be the hottest retail location on Capitol Hill.

Three underground levels of parking will make room for around 225 cars.

Interesting neighbors: the layout for the ground floor of Pike Motorworks

Interesting neighbors: the layout for the ground floor of Pike Motorworks

A company backed by the family of Seattle restaurant owner George “Papou” Serpanos owns the 95 Slide property east of the Pike Motorworks project and is currently moving the new project at the corner of Harvard and Pike forward working with Jeannette Architects. We’ll reach out to see if we can learn more about the plans and the timing. Pho Le’s restaurant also calls the corner home.

Rendering of what the construction around Linda's will look like... any day now

Rendering of what the construction around Linda’s will look like… any day now

While Pike Motorworks has taken up most of the block where a BMW dealership once called home, the corners and a few chunks were held onto by landowners. On the northwest corner, the building home to Linda’s Tavern and bodega the Pine Food Store also still stands with no announced plans, yet, for a development to rise in step with the Pike Motorworks walls surrounding it. Tavern owner Linda Derschang recently revealed she negotiated a one-year demolition notice clause in her most recent lease for the space that requires her landlord to give her advanced notice of any sale of the property. Her rent also doubled, she noted.

On the northeast corner, a seven-story project at the corner of Pine and Harvard is also nearing completion. Much-loved pizza and bar spot Bill’s Off Broadway tells CHS it plans to be back at the corner it called home for 39 years before kick-off on the 2015 NFL season. That project, like Pike Motorworks, is also taking advantage of the Pike/Pine program that allows developers to build with extra height in exchange for preserving the look and feel of street level facades.

Though both have hosted thousands of Capitol Hill sports fans over the years, 95 Slide and Bill’s are cut from much different cloth. 95 Slide has managed to hold onto some of its velvet rope and dance club roots with an emphasis on reserving VIP tables for popular events like ultimate fighting that moved beyond the more traditional sports bar fare of the NFL, etc. Over on E Olive Way, Kessler’s has also opened up as a TV sports-focused venue but you probably won’t find any VIP tables at the “catch-all” sports bar. Meanwhile, adding RuPaul Drag Race and reality TV programming to the “sports” mix seems like a sure hit if requests for ideas for places to watch sent to @jseattle are any indication.

With nothing more than early filings in the process, 95 Slide will likely be part of the neighborhood for several more seasons. If you want to plan a bittersweet bar crawl, add it to a night with stops at the Rhino Roomdevelopment info here — and the Redwoodhere — as you ponder mortality and whether or not to have another beer.

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DB McWeeberton
DB McWeeberton
9 years ago

Wonder how long the Starbird Apartments will hold out?

Maybe it can be preserved as a historical model of old-timey life on Capitol Hill, and people can live in it for a month for a TV show like this:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_1900_House

Wes
Wes
9 years ago

My favorite thing about this project is that it doesn’t have any parking.

pragmatic
pragmatic
9 years ago
Reply to  Wes

Agreed.

RWK
RWK
9 years ago
Reply to  pragmatic

I agree too, in this case. The Pike Motorworks building will have lots of parking, and I would imagine some of that might be available for residents of the 95 Slide site.

Alan
Alan
9 years ago
Reply to  RWK

Bob, It’s unlikely that any spaces would be ‘available’ to residents of new building at the 95 slide site. Most buildings, especially new ones have strict policies of not renting parking to people outside their building. Besides it’s just silly to allow a building to not put garage space in.

Danny
Danny
9 years ago

Couldn’t be happier to read this. 95 Slide attracts some of the worst clientele in the entire neighborhood and has no respect for any of the nearby businesses or residents. Now if they just close early, it will be even better. Good riddance!

Lots
Lots
9 years ago
Reply to  Danny

Ha, I remember when this was said when War Room was closing, also when Hunter’s Lodge was closing. People really dislike people in that building.

Brian
Brian
9 years ago
Reply to  Lots

All 3 businesses are the same owners.

Johnny C.
Johnny C.
9 years ago
Reply to  Danny

Amen Danny. I couldn’t be happier.

dc
dc
9 years ago
Reply to  Danny

agree. and as another reply points out, it was the same with war room and HG.

Ever since Maharaja left that corner has been “avoid if at all possible” for me.

rageofage
rageofage
9 years ago

Sung to the tune of “Little Boxes” by Malvina Reynolds:

(Big) Little boxes on the hillside,
(Big Little boxes made of ticky tacky,
(Big) Little boxes on the hillside,
(Big) Little boxes all the same.
There’s a green one and a pink one
And a blue one and a yellow one,
And they’re all made out of ticky tacky
And they all look just the same.

You get the design review you deserve.

COMTE
COMTE
9 years ago

Change those latter lines to:

There’s a beige one and a beige one,
And a beige one and a beige one…

And you’ve just about got it right.

Dod
Dod
9 years ago
Reply to  COMTE

FTW.

M.C.Barrett
M.C.Barrett
9 years ago

This place contributes nothing to the positive character of the hill and has always seemed, from the outside, to be quite tolerant of the most intolerant elements of our neighborhood’s nighttime guests. I’ll be more than glad to see it, and the perpetually disgusting sidewalk mess in front of it every morning, gone.

ADH
ADH
9 years ago

Before it was the War Room, this was gay space. It was briefly a queer club called Spintron. Before that, it was a gay bar called the Brass Connection.

hillex
hillex
9 years ago
Reply to  ADH

Also BLU video bar for a while.

Glad I caught this comment, I always thought Spintron was in the Ego/Sugar/Lobby space.

offthehill
offthehill
9 years ago
Reply to  hillex

Spintron was in the space occupied most recently by the Lobby

Mr Paddywacks was in this spot as well after the Brass Connection left. It’s been a ton of different places. Maybe building apartments there will finally make the space friendly?

Cat
Cat
9 years ago
Reply to  ADH

Yes. And I’m sure the complainers all moved there knowing it was a bar, since it has been for about 40 years.

michael n.
9 years ago
Reply to  Cat

Oh yes, that long gone Brass Connection; 30 plus years ago, the Hills answer to the quest for an upscale Gay Nightclub, circa Portland or Vancouver B.C. It may have been noisy at times but it was truly part of the Hill, it had for the times a gathering of the beautiful people, didn’t have a lot of bad acts going on after closing. Like the now gone Thumpers, one of the few places in town which had a decent bar with a better food menu. I remember sitting in the old Baghdad Cafe, almost directly across the street on a sunny late Spring Sunday and while looking out their window saw a tall thin man in a flowery Mother’s Day print dress, with straw bonnet, garnished with a floral arrangement, carrying a large bouquet of Spring like blossoms, gliding along a quiet Pike Street at Broadway, powered by those laced up roller skates as he made his way serenely down Pike….ah the Seattle and The Hill of yesterdays. On a Sunday, very quiet to the business and busyness compared to what you see today.

Timmy73
Timmy73
9 years ago
Reply to  ADH

“Blu” a video bar that I believe was opened out of spite due to a fall out with a Manray connection was there while Spintron was in the old Lobby space, as noted by others.

Jack
Jack
9 years ago
Reply to  ADH

Oh yeah, the Brass Connection. They used to double-ID black folks. We called it the Ass Infection.

boozecruise
boozecruise
9 years ago

Yeah, 95 Slide makes for TERRIBLE neighbors, especially on the weekends. I’d take more construction noises over the parade of newly 21 year olds with tiaras on puking outside of my window any day.

RedFox
RedFox
9 years ago
Reply to  boozecruise

Why would you move to the Pike/Pine corridor if you don’t like the sound of loud bars at night? What, did you seriously think it would be quiet?

Jim
Jim
9 years ago
Reply to  RedFox

EXACTLY.

Danny
Danny
9 years ago
Reply to  RedFox

I think the point that boozecruise is trying to make is that noise is one thing, but that’s only one of the things that makes 95 Slide an awful neighbor. The clientele on weekends is absolutely awful. In the 6 years I’ve lived across the street from them, I can’t even count anymore how many physical fights and people getting arrested that I’ve witnessed, and the staff does nothing about it. Not to mention that after 2:00am, they let people just hang out right outside of the bar in giant masses, and they completely trash the entire area for the next 2 hours while they attempt to sober up enough to go home. I actually like the night life scene around here, but 95 Slide contributes absolutely nothing to it, unless you count reinforcing negative stereotypes on bro’s and woo girls.

RWK
RWK
9 years ago
Reply to  Danny

I agree. Boozecruise didn’t really mention the noise….probably he/she accepts that to some degree in that “nightlife” area. It’s all the other antisocial behaviors (fighting, puking, etc) that are unacceptable.

boozecruise
boozecruise
9 years ago
Reply to  RWK

Danny is 100% correct. I don’t mind the noise, I would have left long ago if I did. I do mind the complete lack of respect from the establishment and their patrons for anyone and anything on the block. The masses at 2 am Danny mentioned are absolutely insane. More often than not police have to line up on the sidewalk to prevent people from taking over the entire street while “security” or whatever from 95 Slide do nothing. Oh and if you like firecrackers at random times of the year live near 95 Slide.

RedFox
RedFox
9 years ago
Reply to  Danny

I just remember talking to a bartender at The Canterbury a couple of years ago about people who moved in above the bar and then started complaining about noise levels from people smoking outside. There’s something really disturbing to me about new residents to Capitol Hill who move into an apartment in the thick of the nightlife scene and then are angry when it won’t conform to them to their wishes. Firecrackers are one thing, but in the 10+ years I’ve lived on Capitol hill, Pike/Pine has ALWAYS been rowdy and loud on the weekends, and if you didn’t consider that first before moving in, then you’re just foolish. People go to that area to have fun — if you want a quiet neighborhood, move to Bellevue.

DB McWeeberton
DB McWeeberton
9 years ago
Reply to  boozecruise

With expensive apartments rising all around 95 Slide, its days were probably numbered anyway. No one in the new buildings was going to want to live right above a rowdy bar with a rooftop deck like that.

D DelRio
D DelRio
9 years ago

I was told that when that building was the gay disco called The Brass Connection, that it was the first gay bar on Capitol Hill. Before that I was told that most gay bars in Seattle were located in Pioneer Square. So sad to see a building with so much history in the gay community go. I guess that is progress

offthehill
offthehill
9 years ago
Reply to  D DelRio

I could have sworn Tugs and the Elite were gay bars on the hill before the Brass Connection. I know somebody who WOULD know. I’ll ask him

Bill
Bill
9 years ago
Reply to  offthehill

“Tugs Belltown” was on first ave before it moved up on the hill. Also the place was known as the “Brass Door” before they added a restaurant and changed the ‘Door’ to ‘connection’ Had a lot of fun in both of those places in the early 80’s.

BS
BS
9 years ago

Capitol Hill is ride on the schedule to become the next Williamsburg, Brooklyn.

Capitol Hill Resident
Capitol Hill Resident
9 years ago
Reply to  BS

You’re completely right about that. I just visited Williamsburg again last year and all I could think was…it’s just like Capital Hill…

RWK
RWK
9 years ago
Reply to  BS

Is that a bad thing?

rageofage
rageofage
9 years ago
Reply to  RWK

If it drives up prices and drives out middle-class income residents then it is a bad thing.

Dave
Dave
9 years ago

Awwww. I remember when it was BLU. It was one of the few bars that I could get into with my fake ID. I remember being 18, in a new city, visiting my first gay bar and being so nervous and excited at the same time (it was a terrible fake). I think I still have a matchbook from that first night I took home as a souvenir. I know it has been a lot of different places since BLU but that’s what the space will always be to me.

I actually liked 95 Slides to watch sporting events especially with the lack of sports bars on the Hill, but I never visited the place at night. And I also gaffed at the “No Parking” statement – how is that possible?!?

Jeff
Jeff
9 years ago

It use to be the Brass Door.

One of first gay bars on Capitol Hill.

KINGDOME NEVER FORGET
KINGDOME NEVER FORGET
9 years ago

I love the *name* “95 Slide”. Great Kingdome memories. Pretty cool when Derek Erdman’s lesser known sport stars art was there too (not sure if it still is).

trackback

[…] of the Gay Ghetto. Even the Pride Parade has moved off the Hill. Mourn the loss of your favorite watering holes, sure. Feel some nostalgia for the days past. But let’s not grieve the fact that gay […]

CD206
CD206
9 years ago

lol at saying 95/HG/Warroom didn’t add anything to the nightlife of Cap Hill. Could you be more clueless? Go live in the dead ass part of Belltown or something. That place has been throwing legendary nights since long before you came to the hill.

dc
dc
9 years ago
Reply to  CD206

LEGENDARY

Old-Timey
Old-Timey
9 years ago

Wasn’t it the Brass Door, then the Connection, then the Brass Connection? Those days are a blur ;-) It tried to be a bit hoity-toity at first, but then in it’s last days as the Brass Connection it lost all of it’s aspirations to glamor and has fun theme nights. Monday night was 75 cent well drinks, and EVERYONE on the hill was there: Gay, straight, and everything in-between.

R Place used to be on the same block, down on the corner. Then they moved to their current location, which was developed by the Tugs folks, but never occupied by them.

sadday
9 years ago

Just what the Hill needs, more construction and less parking! Nice job, Seattle! Just how big are these construction kick backs that they get free range of the whole city!

trackback

[…] the Linda’s Tavern block fills with new development, Linda Derschang said rising rents could eventually force her bar out of the bar’s longtime […]

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[…] former Mercedes dealership is getting similar treatment and the corner where 95 Slide now stands has been sold and is also being lined up for development. The changes are flowing up and down Pike. CHS reported […]

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[…] first reported this spring on the plan to develop the old pre-1940 building at the corner of Harvard and Pike currently home to sports bar 95 Slide. […]