State Rep. Nicole Macri has responded to survey results that show some Montlake residents — and their supporters across Seattle — would do pretty much anything to save the Montlake Market from being torn down and eliminated during construction of new SR-520 improvements through the area.

Macri announced a new limitation on 520 construction spending in the House transportation budget that requires WSDOT to “work with the Montlake Market to keep it open through the year.”

“Further, WSDOT is required to work with the City to allow food vendors in the area and develop a communication outreach plan to the community to solicit community input as to the food services provided,” Macri’s announcement reads.

The proviso is part of a $10 billion transportation budget proposed by House Democrats that “makes investments in each part of the state to get people where they need to be and get goods shipped around the world. It includes major funding to remove fish-barriers on state roads as part of the broader solution to helping our struggling orca population,” Macri said.

While it seems a tempest in a teapot, residents have told WSDOT they are willing for the state to spend millions in possible construction and delay costs to save the market which has been planned to be removed to make way for the $455.3 million in projects to create an improved Montlake Boulevard interchange, a landscaped lid over SR 520, a bicycle and pedestrian “land bridge” east of the lid, and a three-lane West Approach Bridge South over Union Bay for eastbound traffic.

CHS reported on the various options for keeping the market and WSDOT’s efforts to gather neighborhood feedback here. You can read WSDOT’s report on the community feedback here (PDF).

The WSDOT Accountability Coalition says it has run a survey of its own showing neighbors are “highly frustrated with the mega-project’s design & construction methods, including the unnecessary condemnation of the Montlake Market property for staging.”

The Montlake Blvd Market, or Hop-In, lists an opening year of 1936. The property’s owner has been Lynne Parrott, a Clyde Hill resident and Bellevue developer Kemper Freeman, Jr.’s niece, according to King County records. The property has a taxable value of around $1.4 million.

Construction is slated to start later this year and the work could wrap up in 2023.

PLEASE HELP KEEP CHS PAYWALL-FREE!
Subscribe to CHS to help us pay writers and photographers to cover the neighborhood. CHS is a pay what you can community news site with no required sign-in or paywall. Become a subscriber to help us cover the neighborhood for as little as $5 a month.