Author Archives: Mariah Joyce

About Mariah Joyce

Mariah Joyce is the CHS summer intern. You can get in touch with her via email at [email protected] or on Twitter @CHSintern.

SDOT ready to hear about more than pedestrian zone in Pike/Pine meeting

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IMG_4711-600x400Next week’s community meeting with Seattle Department of Transportation representatives, it turns out, will go beyond the Pike/Pine Pedestrian Zone.

Officials had said a discussion with residents and business owners would be the next step in sorting out to do with the Pike/Pine pilot of a closed street zone around the neighborhood’s nightlife core. But SDOT’s plans for Tuesday’s meeting include the pilot — and the large amount of feedback City Hall has received from workers, residents, and store owners alike on ways E Pike could be changed and improved. Continue reading →

11th Ave preservation and office development project passes first design review

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(Images: Ankrom Moisan)

(Images: Ankrom Moisan)

Wednesday's review (Image: CHS)

Wednesday’s review (Image: CHS)

The project to transform a landmark-protected 11th Ave auto row-era building that also played a big role in the growth of REI and was the longtime home to Capitol Hill’s Value Village will move forward in the city’s review process after approval of its preliminary design at a meeting Wednesday night.

The East Design Review Board signed off on the design that will change the old Value Village space into an office and retail project. Parking and impact on residential and commercial neighbors were discussion points during the meeting. The building’s preservation goals and landmarked exterior were also discussed.

“Preserve and enhance the defining aspects of the landmark building – that’s our main goal here,” said Mack Selberg of Ankrom Moisan architects. Continue reading →

Here’s what it looks like when Capitol Hill architects design their own office

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The architects at the Capitol Hill architecture firm Board and Vellum are enjoying the results of some of their latest work — their own new office space on 15th Ave E.

“We’re all beyond giddy,” said principal and founder Jeff Pelletier. “It’s rare for architects to get to design their own space, and we were just given a blank slate to do with what we wanted to do with it, and it’s just turned out fantastic.”

The firm was created more than five years ago in Pelletier’s Capitol Hill attic. Once they expanded enough to need a more formal office, Board and Vellum moved downtown for a year, then to a space in Capitol Hill off 16th Ave, where they stayed for the past three years. Pelletier says that office was made for about 11 people but was holding all 21 members of the firm. It got old quickly. Continue reading →

Meet the Capitol Hill woman set to take over as editor of The Stranger

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IMG_2838Seattle Times journalist and longtime Capitol Hill resident Tricia Romano will soon take over as editor of major Capitol Hill media conglomerate The Stranger. Romano talked with CHS about the culture of Capitol Hill, her experience as a journalist, and her plans for the alt-weekly.

“My challenge is to make The Stranger a thing you can read and learn about the city as a whole, not just Capitol Hill,” said Romano. “To be better, it needs to be a city paper.”

Romano started her career at The Stranger, a weekly alternative paper that has become a fixture of Capitol Hill, and will officially take the helm on June 29. In addition to working at The Stranger, Romano has been on the staff The Village Voice and The Seattle Times, and freelanced for The New York Times and The Daily Beast, among others. For the past few years, Romano has written for The Seattle Times. Continue reading →

E Union kids’ shop Magpie going out of business after five years in the CD

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(Image: CHS)

(Image: CHS)

Central District children’s toy and clothing store Magpie plans to close up shop — just as development in the area has hit full stride.

“It’s been a good run,” said owner Malia Keene.

Keene first opened the store in the fall of 2011 at the corner of 18th Ave and E Union St, and two years ago she moved it to its current location, 2002 E Union. Though Keene says that the neighborhood has certainly changed over the years and cited more people and more traffic, she says the development wave did not really change the kind of customers that came into the shop.

Recently, however, business has been slowing.

“In the last year it’s gotten much slower in the shop,” said Keene. “It’s really hard for retail.” Keene says she hears anecdotes from small businesses across Seattle that are struggling to stay afloat. “When I talk to businesses in other cities, it seems easier.”

Keene said the difficulty that her store and others like it face in Seattle may be an “unfortunate side effect” of the lack of expendable income that stems from a high cost of living coupled with a DIY culture. Keene thought another factor might be “perceived value” – she says that even if her handmade toys are the same price as a toy at a big box store, people will often be unwilling to spend that money on what they see as a luxury item.

“There’s this nice idea of having small businesses, but it’s not going to last,” she said.

Keene is not sure when Magpie will officially close — it could be as soon as this week. In the meantime, the storewide sale continues.

You can learn more at facebook.com/MagpieKid.

Seattle U protest continues as dean placed on ‘administrative leave’

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Though the dean of Seattle University’s Matteo Ricci College has been placed on administrative leave, the sit-in to protest what students say is a hostile climate at the school continues.

“This has never just been about Dean Kelly,” a student leader of the MRC Student Coalition said at a press conference the group held on Thursday.

“We haven’t been engaging in this sit-in for 23 days to be placated,” added another.

The MRC Student Coalition have been occupying Casey Hall for more than 20 days to protest what they see as a hostile and unsafe learning environment for minorities at Matteo Ricci College. The coalition claims that Jodi Kelly, dean of Matteo Ricci College, represents and has upheld that unsafe environment.

Interim provost Bob Dullea announced that Kelly was placed on paid administrative leave “pending the outcome of formal complaints that have been made.” Continue reading →

Rising price of heroin overdose antidote won’t affect SPD pilot program

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Even with the antidote, overdoses continue to plague the city and East Precinct. Wednesday night, police and fire responded to a reported double overdose on Lakeview Blvd. We're checking for more details on the incident (Image: CHS)

Even with the antidote, overdoses continue to plague the city and East Precinct. Wednesday night, police and fire responded to a reported overdose on Lakeview Blvd. We’re checking for more details on the incident.  (Image: CHS)

A price spike for a life-saving drug won’t hamper an important Seattle Police pilot program. The price of the heroin overdose antidote naloxone has “risen as much as 17-fold in the past two years” but SPD says the price increase will not affect its ongoing pilot program.

“Right now it is not expected to impact us,” a SPD spokesperson told CHS, saying that the supply of naloxone needed for the pilot was purchased before the price increase occurred.

SPD announced the pilot in March as a way to combat the all-too-frequent heroin overdoses on Capitol Hill. As part of the 6-8 month pilot, 60 bike officers carry nasal naloxone and administer the drug when they encounter someone suffering from an opioid overdose. The officers stay with the person until medics arrive.

The funding for the pilot came in part from The Marah Project, a non-profit named after former Capitol Hill resident Marah Williams. Williams died of a heroin overdose in 2012, when she was 19 years old.

While the pilot program will not be affected by the price increase, the SPD spokesperson said that it was too early to tell whether the price increase would impact the implementation of a more extensive program after the pilot has been reviewed.

So far, SPD says that the drug has been deployed six times and all deployments have been successful. According to the SPD blotter, the most recent deployment wasthree weeks ago when two officers administered naloxone to prevent a woman from overdosing near the Alaskan Way Viaduct. After nasal naloxone was administered, the woman’s breathing stabilized and she was transported to Harborview Medical Center.

KitKat, Capitol Hill’s Instagram cat, is missing

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(Image: kitkatseattle via Instagram)

(Image: kitkatseattle via Instagram)

KitKat, Capitol Hill’s resident Instagram cat, has been missing for three weeks.

Edward, KitKat’s owner and a resident of Capitol Hill, first reported her missing via the Instagram account he created to follow her escapades around Seattle.

“She loves to be outside with a ferocity and a passion,” Edward tells CHS. “She’s just an extraordinarily friendly cat.”

In the post, he said that KitKat had not returned home for a few days and asked that anyone with information about KitKat’s whereabouts let him know. Edward got some responses: one person reported seeing her at the intersection of 12th Ave and E Olive St, and another said they had seen her roaming without her collar. However, those reports were two and a half weeks ago and Edward says he has not heard anything since.

KitKat is a three-year-old tabby/Bengal mix and has been an outdoor cat for her entire life. Edwards says often he would get several concerned calls from people who thought KitKat was lost when they found her roaming in the city.

“On a weekend night I would get three to four calls from people who were concerned about her,” said Edward. That’s when he decided to install a GPS tracker in her collar and create the Instagram account to record her adventures using the tag #kitkattravels.

Edward says that KitKat has roamed everywhere, including the insides of other people’s apartments through windows the unsuspecting homeowners left open. In her travels, KitKat collects notes on her collar from the people who’ve encountered her, many of which Edward then posts on his Instagram.

While KitKat has been gone overnight before, this is by far the longest time she has been away from home.

Edward says that although he’s been doing the standard things like checking the pound and the deceased animal reports and putting up fliers, he suspects that her collar fell off and someone took the extraordinarily friendly cat home, thinking she was a stray.

Anyone who has seen KitKat roaming Capitol Hill without her collar should let her owners know by contacting the @kitkatseattle Instagram account.

13267733_1181545188522234_7966481580105887173_nLost (and found!) pets
While CHS free classifieds are getting re-tooled, you can still put the site to use spreading the word about a lost pet or found critter with a CHS Community Post. Here are some recent notices — this kitty was found, this doggie is lost. Spread the word. Check out Lost and Found community posts here.