We found Dunn, center, in a hard hat this summer (Image: CHS)
Chophouse Row, right, will inject some 27,000 square feet of commercial space into Pike/Pine
You’ll have to wait a few more months for the ambitious Pike/Pine marketplace, mews, and office space development Chophouse Row.
Developer Liz Dunn tells CHS that construction delays and issues with street work in the area have pushed the project back from its planned fall 2014 opening to a debut in early 2015.
Leasing materials for Chophouse Row now advertise a February 2015 move-in target.
Chophouse Row a new Pike/Pine-era office, retail and restaurant development that will utilize the neighborhood’s preservation incentives to build to five stories on 11th Ave. Chophouse will feature an impressive roster of food and drink projects. CHS reported that the anchor restaurant for the development will be a new venture from Ericka Burke of Volunteer Park Cafe. Playing a smaller part is Kurt Farm Shop, a cheese and dairy counter from farm to table champion Kurt Timmermeister. A Bar Ferd’nand sibling and a bakery and cafe concept from the people behind Le Gourmand and Slate Coffee will round out the food and drink offerings. Developer Dunn is is bringing together the concepts in a Capitol Hill complex that ties together like-minded small businesses, restaurants and shops. Niche Outside is the first retail element announced for the project. Expect a couple more to be squeezed in. The Slate Coffee and bakery project Amandine has announced a plan spring opening.
The mews of Chophouse Row will also connect with Dunn’s Piston Ring development along 12th Ave (soon to feature a new doggy day care and dog-friendly bar), E Pike home of Cupcake Royale and her recently acquired Baker Linen building.
The old auto row-era structure integrated into the Chophouse development was once home to Chophouse music studios. The project was designed by Sundberg, Kennedy and Ly-Au Young and Graham Baba.
Meanwhile, we’re hearing another Hill complex is close to completion and preparing to open soon. Expect to make your first visit the Starbucks Melrose roastery project some time in early December.
And the Central Agency building overhaul is also on track for a December opening — we broke the news on the development in summer 2013 and told you here about the new food and drink complex that will be home to the new Lark, some new Lark siblings and Vancouver BC-based Meat & Bread. Here is an announcement from Lark on the project’s updated timeline:
The final details are coming together in Lark’s new home in the Central Agency Building! Lighting is in and furniture is being delivered daily—it’s looking wonderful. This all means that Lark’s time on 12th Avenue is coming to its end—the last day in the original space will be Wednesday, November 26.
Chef John Sundstrom and the entire Lark crew have been honored to host so many special dinners in the original location—they look forward to reminiscing with guests about great meals shared with friends and loved ones. They also look forward to welcoming in regulars and new friends alike to the gorgeous space when it opens in early December!
The new Lark, with its additional seats and expanded menu, is set to open the first week of December, along with Bitter/Raw. Look forward to new dishes like Lark’s very first burger, made with onion jam and smoked mayonnaise on a housemade duck cracklin’ bun, and truffle-salted sunchoke chips as well as Lark classics like the hamachi crudo with fennel and the foie terrine with spiced quince. Lark will be open daily from 5pm to 11pm.
Up at Bitter/Raw, the menu is chock-full of unique bites like Spanish mackerel tartare and chilled mussels with green curry mayo, as well as raw bar classics: oysters, clams, geoduck, chilled Dungeness crab, caviar, and the like. There’s also the whole charcuterie side of the menu, with imported hams, handmade landjager, lardo “cinnamon toast,” and ‘ndjua with toast and green chickpeas. Bitter/Raw will be open daily from 5pm to 11pm.
Make a reservation for one last dinner (or two!) in the beloved old space, and get excited for the grand openings of the new projects!
Slab Sandwiches + Pie is looking like a mid-December opening.
The small Chophouse delay isn’t likely to dent Dunn’s reputation for great projects. The developer was recently highlighted by Bloomberg as one of three female developers reshaping Seattle.
20+ parking spots gone and no new parking for a HUGE office development and adjacent businesses lose=fail=more $ for developer!
Oh dearie me, what will the world come to??? People might be forced to walk to their destinations in Seattles most walkable neighborhood!
Every project with no parking is progress. Progress toward a future significantly less reliant on cars and more concerned with creating places worth being in. I promise you that dense, car-free mixed use development is fantastic for nearby businesses. And if you think the costly inclusion of parking wouldn’t have simply been passed on to tenants thru higher rent, I have a bridge to sell you. Irony=bemoaning a lack of expensive parking because you say you care about small businesses.
Unless you think people can walk from the Eastside, businesses can’t rely exclusively on people within walking distance of their stores. This may sound shocking to those who live in the area, but not everyone does. And some people actually have to drive to the Hill to eat or shop. And if they drive, they need to park.
If you actually ask some of the businesses, they’ll tell you that when you take the parking away, they get less foot traffic.
Big picture though, what you bring up is more of an endictment of a sub par regional transit system than evidence toward the need for parking. And beyond that, our region, and even our city, are at much lower densities than they should be. Higher densities means more foot traffic and bikers, both of whom are proven statistically to be more likely to patronize shops. The answer then, is more density and more transit, not more traffic and sprawl encouraging parking spaces.
If the intent is for all businesses to sell small items, then sure, regional transit could work.
And if the only type of people living here are apodment dwellers, the need for furniture or other items that may require a car are probably minimal. But families might need more groceries, people with houses or condos may have needs for furniture, plants, whatever.
What’s the source for bikers and foot traffic being more likely to patronize shops? I’m going by some reporting on this site, where business owners have said that the worst thing about construction is the loss of parking killing their traffic. Even in the higher density parts of the Hill, relying exclusively on foot traffic and bikers isn’t a risk I’d want to take as a store owner.
Quite a few studies have reached the same conclusion. Quick Google search yielded these:
http://www.peopleforbikes.org/statistics/category/protected-bike-lane-statistics
http://www.citylab.com/commute/2012/12/cyclists-and-pedestrians-can-end-spending-more-each-month-drivers/4066/
http://bicyclecoalition.org/facts-biking-improves-business/#sthash.GLcDWZt1.znPy3B9q.dpbs
why so negative?
the building includes parking.
there’s a net loss of 7 spaces. I suspect businesses in the area will benefit from the draw – it’s going to be a huge attraction for the neighborhood.
It’s mostly for tenants/residents, not for customers- which is a good. There’s only about 10 parking spots, at least 1 of them is an ADA spot. There was no way to fit more than 10 spots due to utilities and existing structure.
The most irritating thing about this debate is attitude that anyone who owns a car is an evil and worthless piece of crap. There are a lot of people in neighborhoods directly around Capitol Hill who walk/bike/use the bus to get to work. But we also need things like groceries, pet food, cat litter, laundry detergent, etc., and we cannot get those in our neighborhoods. Keep in mind that these same neighborhoods have horrible bus service. I used to drive to Capitol Hill once per week to get everything I needed. I could park the car in one spot and walk to all of the stores that had the necessary supplies. While I was there, I would even occasionally treat myself to a meal in one of the great restaurants or buy something at one of the locally owned small businesses. There are a few things that have changed that habit. The first is the militant anti-car attitude that makes me feel like loser for even daring to drive one day a week to buy groceries, even though I am committed to walking to work every day. The second is that it is pretty challenging to drive anywhere near where the streetcar has gone in. The third is that there is no parking unless one wants to pay a couple of hours of their salary. The end result is that I now have to drive further and to several locations to get what I need. I guess the upside is that I am saving money because I no longer eat in the Capitol Hill restaurants or buy things in the shops.
I agree with you about the militant attitude of some people who seem to think that everyone should be either walking or biking. It’s really arrogant and irritating. A city should be able to accommodate all types of transportation, and not cater to one particular group. It’s a personal choice if someone wants to continue to drive a car, and that person should not be vilified. And for some kinds of people (elderly, disabled), it’s just not possible to walk or bike.
Can’t we all get along?
I am annoyed by the anti-car attitude too. I think people forget that we’re looking for a middle ground, not extremes. (Only sith deal in absolutes.) Our cities have been built around the car, but I do agree that now we need to build them to minimize car usage (I’m an environmentalist, sorry!) … that doesn’t mean to eradicate them completely! The speed, reliability, and strength of vehicles have allowed us to build the modern city, to shuttle resources and people to and fro.
See pro-ped and biking people could say the say thing about drivers; that it’s irritating and arrogant for drivers to demand tons of easy, free parking spaces. The fact is that Seattleites have long lived a fairly watered-down urban experience, where driving and parking are much easier than they are in other more established, urban cities. That has had the effect of spreading us out, increasing congestion and reducing political pressure to give us a great transit system. That’s why I like where we are headed now, which is promoting density and transit over ease of parking – because density and transit bring positive externalities (walkability, safety, health, etc). Parking brings negative externalities, mostly because it encourages more driving and leads to bad urban form and unsafe streets full of fast-moving cars.
This is my draw-a-line-in-the-sand moment: All modes of transport should not be equally balanced. That sounds really weird to say, but the fact is that we DO need to prioritize modes, and those modes are walking, then biking, then transit, then cars. Why? Because “balancing” modes really ends up meaning cars still get priority. Prioritizing peds and bikers makes walkable communities substantially more vibrant. Prioritizing cars leads to congestion, sprawl, empty, dead city space (for parking lots) and unsafe streets.
This isn’t even really that controversial. Vancouver BC is very clear about its ped priority. NYC just instituted a city-wide 25 mph max speed limit. Any time you see road diets, you are witnessing ped/bike priority, and that’s a good thing. Let’s keep it up here in Seattle, it WILL benefit us in the long term.
The QFC parking subsidy if I shop there works for me if I have to drive. It’s $4 extra if I stay an hour for a meal or another errand — surely not *hours* of your salary?
(I was convinced by Shoup’s book that parking shouldn’t be free-at-use, which reduces the sting of paying for it.)
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