Tag Archives: 17th ave

Capitol Hill’s Gaffney House makes new home for Morningside Academy

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(Image: Morningside Academy)

(Image: Morningside Academy)

By Cormac Wolf, CHS Intern

A school that has found new places to live around Seattle including a stay decades ago on Capitol Hill is making its triumphant return. Morningside Academy, a private school teaching students in elementary and middle school, is celebrating their move into the historic mansion at 17th and Madison. The 1906-built mansion is a designated Seattle historical site, and prior to 2019 served as Gaffney House, an assisted living community for those with memory care issues.

Established in 1980 in a Wallingford living room, Morningside moved to Capitol Hill and was based there for its first two decades before moving to South Lake Union in 2003. Now that they’re back on the Hill after 20 years they plan to stay put for a while.

Morningside provides catch-up schooling for students struggling in traditional learning environments. The school has a student/faculty ratio of roughly 10:1, and enrolls fewer than 90 kids. Starting tuition is $23,600.

It’s the kind of school Capitol Hill and the Central District might be seeing more of in coming years.

Continue reading →

911 | 17th Ave shooting, 14th Ave death investigation

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See something others should know about? Email CHS or call/txt/Signal (206) 399-5959. You can view recent CHS 911 coverage here. Hear sirens and wondering what’s going on? Check out Twitter reports from @jseattle or join and check in with neighbors in the CHS Facebook Group.

  • 17th Ave shooting: Police say a man suffered non-life threatening injuries to his hand and torso in a Friday afternoon shooting in a 17th Ave parking lot. According to the SPD brief, the victim told police he was shot in a dispute with the occupants of a vehicle that fled the scene in the 1700 block of 17th around 2:35 PM. A search for the suspects was not successful. Police are asking anyone with information about the incident to call the SPD Violent Crimes Tip Line at (206) 233-5000.
  • 14th and Denny death investigation: Seattle Fire says SPD is investigating after a man was found dead Wednesday morning in the 1800 block of 14th Ave near E Denny Way. According to Seattle Fire, a 35-year-old male was found dead at the scene. Witnesses reported a man who appeared to have been homeless found in a an apartment building stairwell around 11:30 Wednesday morning. There were no reported signs of foul play. We’ve asked SPD for more details.
 

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A decade later, checking in on what comes next for a Capitol Hill development once at the center of the Seattle debate over microhousing

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Thanks for the questions in the CHS Facebook Group about the changes at the property

An East Capitol Hill apartment development that became a centerpoint in Seattle’s early debates over microhousing has had an interesting decade and what comes next might say a little about the tiny apartment units and the industry that created them.

Neighbors around 17th Ave E and E Olive St. began asking questions about the twin apartment buildings last month as plywood went up and the property was fenced off.

A decade ago, neighbors and anti-growth advocates cited the 1720 E Olive St. congregate housing project as an example that the city wasn’t doing enough to limit microhousing — especially near areas of single family-style housing and complained that the buildings were poorly made and that the tiny living spaces would become undesirable to residents.

The 60 units across the two buildings at 17th and Olive average 138 square feet apiece, according to King County records. Continue reading →

Residents of Capitol Hill’s La Quinta fought to have their building saved — Now they’re getting a new La Quinta building behind the old one

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(Image: Viva La Quinta/Jesse L. Young)

While residents at one historic Capitol Hill apartment building are calling for their building to be saved from market forces that will likely bring costly upgrades and higher rents, tenants at another “saved” landmark building are going to get new neighbors.

Early filings with the city this summer show plans for a new twin apartment building taking shape to join the landmark-protected La Quinta apartments at 17th and Denny.

According to the early paperwork, developer DEP Homes is preparing a plan to demolish a set of old houses that have served a range of capacities from duplex and up over the years to make way for a new apartment building on the land behind the Frederick Anhalt-designed La Quinta and its clay tile roof, its dozen two-story apartments, and its large central Mediterranean Revival courtyard. Continue reading →

A visit to the new Volunteer Park Cafe, carrying on the tradition of ‘a cozy corner spot’ on Capitol Hill

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You might think, with Canlis alums and a Yakima winery owner as the new creative forces behind the neighborhood favorite, the new Volunteer Park Cafe would have three-star, four-course ambitions.

It’s a much softer affair.

“I’m just hanging out, doing my thing, trying to make a beautiful space for people,” Melissa Johnson tells CHS about the cafe that has reopened under new ownership and with an overhaul of the 1904-built cornershop house at 17th and Galer.

Baker Johnson and pastry chef Crystal Chiu have teamed up to create a new vision of the neighborhood cafe — “a fresh start,” Johnson says, “bountiful, and bright, and ever-changing.” Continue reading →

Thanks to Seattle’s Notice of Intent to Sell ordinance, residents hoping for chance to buy their Capitol Hill apartment building get window of opportunity

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Earlier this month, CHS reported on Capitol Hill’s La Quinta apartments hitting the market and the hopes of residents of the landmarks-protected building at 17th and Denny to have a shot at purchasing the property even as its listing was already live and a sale nearly ready to close.

Thanks to Seattle’s still relatively new under-used Notice of Intent to Sell ordinance, those residents now have at least 30 days to organize a possible bid.

According to an aide to City Councilmember Lisa Herbold, her office looked into the planned sale after learning of the situation through CHS’s coverage and found that at least one unit in the building is renting at rates affordable to those earning no more than 80% of the area median income, requiring the building owners to participate in the Notice of Intent to Sell program. Continue reading →

Overhauled Volunteer Park Cafe — and Pantry — reopens on Capitol Hill

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(Image: CHS)

The spirit of Groucho’s lives on at 17th and Galer. The Volunteer Park Cafe is open again on Capitol Hill.

Melissa Johnson and Crystal Chiu are so busy in the overhauled kitchen and the cases are so full that they have barely had time to update the website or post operating hours. Those things will come.

UPDATE: “Now that the cat’s out of the bag, will we see you this weekend? We’ll be here with pastries, snacks and drinks galore (wine pours by the glass included 🍷) and AC,” the cafe’s latest update to Instagram reads.

For now, the Canlis veterans are learning the ropes of operating this new iteration of the neighborhood favorite. VPC is now the Volunteer Park Cafe and Pantry, a nod to aspirations to revive more of the cornershop spirit of one of the last spaces of its kind in a city that used to be a little more mixed in its “Neighborhood Residential” uses.

Restarting that history has been a chore. James DeSarno, principal at D3 Architects and co-owner of the Freehand Cellars winery, purchased the 1904-built, two-story market and apartment on this corner of northern Capitol Hill’s single family-dominated residential zone in a $1.4 million deal that was in the works for months after a previous plan to purchase the property fell through. DeSarno said his plan for VPC was to try to keep a good deal of the relationship with the neighborhood in place with cafe and coffee offerings but add a renewed focus on wine featuring his Yakima Valley winery’s creations.

For its start, the Volunteer Park Cafe is focused on daytime offerings and its pastry case along with a well-stocked selection of bottled libations. Continue reading →

They won landmarks protections — Now residents of Capitol Hill’s La Quinta apartments want chance to buy the building

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(Image: Viva La Quinta/Jesse L. Young)

With an early start, the residents and neighbors of Capitol Hill’s Frederick Anhalt-designed La Quinta apartments have already worked together to win landmarks protections for the 1927-built complex at 17th and Denny.

Now they are in a rush to try to rally together to buy the landmarked building before a sale closes that will move the property into new hands after the death of longtime owner Ken Van Dyke in early 2020.

Residents have started a petition calling on the ownership company set up for the building to hold off on a planned sale and give the neighbors a chance to match the price:

Less than two weeks ago, we discovered that our home was being put on the market. As tenants, we are willing and able to purchase La Quinta collectively, as a cooperative. However, our landlord has refused us the opportunity to purchase, preferring to sell to a buyer who can purchase in cash. Continue reading →

Landmarks process begins for Capitol Hill’s La Quinta Apartments — UPDATE

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In December, CHS told you about the neighbors at 17th and Denny’s Frederick Anhalt-designed La Quinta apartments working together to win protections for the 1927 building.

Wednesday, the U-shaped structure with a clay tile roof, and a dozen two-story apartments around a central Mediterranean Revival courtyard, plus a thirteenth unit perched above the building’s garage will face its first review in the Seattle landmarks process.

According to the nomination report prepared for Historic Seattle and the VIva La Quinta group pushing for the landmark designation, many of the building’s original tenants were immigrants and families with young children. According to the report, much is unchanged about the property — even a rose still growing there is an original.

We’ve embedded the nomination report below. Continue reading →

Long live Capitol Hill’s La Quinta — Residents rally (early!) to make 17th and Denny Anhalt apartments a landmark

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(Image: Viva La Quinta/Jesse L. Young)

Hoping to head off yet another story of a lovely, old building being torn down to make way for a new brick of ceramic and fiberboard, residents of the La Quinta apartments have started a drive to have their building recognized as a landmark.

The building at 1710 E Denny Way was built by prolific Seattle developer Frederick Anhalt in 1927. The U-shaped building with a clay tile roof holds a dozen two-story apartments and has a large central Mediterranean Revival courtyard. A thirteenth apartment is perched over the building’s garage.

It changed hands a few times until it was purchased by Ken Van Dyke in 1982. Van Dyke died earlier this year, leaving residents worried that the new owners might want to redevelop the property.

Chelsea Bolan, who has lived in the building since 2003, said they don’t know for certain that redevelopment was planned in the immediate future, but they started hearing rumors from people in contact with the new owners.

“He suggested, if we wanted to do a landmark, do it now,” Bolan said. Continue reading →