The City of Seattle announced Monday it is acquiring three nearly complete Capitol Hill developments to be turned into “new income- and rent-restricted housing” as part of a first round of acquisitions powered by millions of dollars of local, state, and federal funding.
CHS reported here on one of the developments part of the acquisition — a microhousing project on Boylston Ave E that had been teed up to include two of its 60 units under the city’s Mandatory Housing Affordability program.
The seven-story project is being acquired by the city and will be used to offer housing to “adults experiencing homelessness or at extreme risk of homelessness” and will be operated by the Low Income Housing Institute. Continue reading →
North Capitol Hill’s freeway lid will complement Montlake’s, but not until 2030
By Ryan Packer
With work well underway in Montlake adding a new freeway lid that will also sit under a newly reconstructed Montlake Boulevard, the Washington State Department of Transportation is still progressing forward with its plan to complete what it calls the “Rest of the West” projects. Earlier this year, WSDOT announced that the schedule for completion of the segment of 520 over Portage Bay and the accompanying freeway lid at East Roanoke Street would be delayed by a year, with the opening date pushed from 2029 to 2030.
(Image: CHS)
When North Capitol Hill’s freeway lid is complete at the end of this decade, it will completely remake the street grid around E Roanoke Street, providing bike and pedestrian connectivity that just doesn’t exist now and stitching the city back together a little. 10th Ave E and Delmar Drive E will be joined together by an open space lid almost as large as Roanoke Park to the north of it. Pathways on either side of the central green space will allow people walking or rolling to take shortcuts across the lid. Continue reading →
Thanks to a CHS reader for this picture from the scene
The 24-year-old shot dead at an E John bus stop early Tuesday morning on Capitol Hill has been identified but few details have been publicly released in the shooting as authorities complete their investigation and weigh any charges in the case.
The King County Medical Examiner’s office says the 24-year-old has been identified as Jayson Williams. Williams died early Tuesday after being shot in reported self defense during an attempted armed robbery at 10th and John.
Investigators say Williams died of multiple gunshot wounds. Arriving officers reported the 24-year-old down and shot in the stomach, according to East Precinct radio reports from the night. He was pronounced dead by the time he was taken to Harborview by Seattle Fire. A second male involved in the alleged stick-up reportedly fled on foot and was not injured by the gunfire. Continue reading →
A busy new center of food and drink activity in the middle of the Pike/Pine nightlife and entertainment district is not a restaurant you can visit. Instead, they bring “homemade” food to you.
Shef, a startup with an Airbnb-like platform for home cooked meals, as Forbes put it, is busy on 10th Ave.
“Many of the “shefs” in Seattle cook out of local commercial kitchens and drop their food off at our drop-off locations. Our primary drop-off location in Seattle is currently the one on 10th Ave,” a company spokesperson tells CHS. Continue reading →
Seattle Police are investigating after a fire was intentionally set inside a four-story apartment building under construction near 10th and Roy Monday night.
Seattle Fire says its investigators ruled the just before 10:30 PM fire incendiary and say it was set intentionally in the interior of the building under construction just north of where Broadway jogs to become 10th Ave E.
SFD was able to knock down the flames but not before an estimated $4,000 in damage to the structure. Continue reading →
The St. Nicholas building, north of the cathedral (Image: St. Mark’s)
By Jethro Swain
A major gift is helping an important Capitol Hill spiritual community shape the future of its 10th Ave E home.
This fall, Capitol Hill’s St. Mark’s Episcopal Cathedral was donated full ownership of the St. Nicholas school building by the Laura Ellen and Robert Muglia Family Foundation. The property is worth $8.4 million according to the latest county appraisal.
The St. Nicholas building, adjacent the church and purchased from the Cornish College of Arts in an LLC partnership by Saint Mark’s and the Muglia Foundation in 2003, is primarily used by two independent schools, the Bright Water Waldorf School and Gage Academy of Arts, but is also a hub for a variety of nonprofits in the community. Continue reading →
The St. Nicholas building (Image: The Bright Water School)
There could someday be more than housing for more than the Maker at St. Mark’s Cathedral but any possible changes are still years off as the congregation of Saint Mark’s is beginning considerations of what to do with a signature part of its 10th Ave E campus, the St. Nicholas building. A consultant has recommended changing the building into a multi-family residential development.
The building at 1501 10th Ave E, just north of the cathedral proper, is home to the Gage Academy of Art and the Bright Water Waldorf School. Both of these schools have leases that run through 2023, and the church is in the early phases of deciding what to do with the building when those leases run out.
Even though the consultants have made a recommendation, the Very Rev. Steven Thomason, dean and rector of St. Mark’s stressed that the church is still weighing its options, and that nothing is happening in the immediate future.
“We are not making any decision, any time soon, about what to do with the building,” he said.
The church’s involvement in the property stretches back to 2003. At the time, St. Mark’s and a group called the Willow Trust purchased the building from then-owner Cornish with an eye toward converting it into a parish life center. The church wasn’t ready to move forward with the life center at the time, and so they began renting it out (technically subleasing it, since the building is officially owned by an LLC made up of the church and the trust and then leased to the church) to Gage and Bright Water.
Now the members of the Willow Trust, who have thus far remained anonymous, are granting full ownership of the building to the church. So, the church is beginning consideration of what it will do with the property. Continue reading →
Since March, Capitol Hill has been without access to perhaps its greatest retail asset — the busy shelves of the Elliott Bay Book Company. Elliott Bay turned its business on a dime earlier this year providing online and curbside service to readers even as COVID-19 restrictions required it to close the store to customers.
Now the favorite book shop is back with a big first step in fully reopening.
“We are ready to open our doors to you again!,” the retailer announced Wednesday afternoon. “We are limiting the number of people in the store, so if you’d like to be sure to get in, schedule an appointment.” Continue reading →
The horse racing-themed Hot Tip is considered the granddaddy of solid-state pinball machines
Williams Electronics is credited with creating the first mass-market pinball machine with solid-state technology. The microprocessors introduced more complicated play including lighting effects, sound, and speech. A new pinball arcade bar dedicated to honoring those silicon roots is being readied to flip flip, ding ding in the heart of Pike/Pine by this summer.
“It was the first time that things became software computerized,” Joe Ricci tells CHS. He and a group of fellow first time bar owners are hard at work shaping Solid State, a new arcade, drinking, and Cup Noodles venue being planned for 10th Ave in the Jack building between Pike and Union.
The pinball wiz… no, we won’t do it… expert Ricci already supplies some of your favorite games on the Hill at the Raygun Lounge. He hopes for Solidstate to add to the arcade community already on Capitol Hill with a connoisseur-level collection of games and by taking a craftsman’s approach to the machines with the highest level of fine tuning, maintenance, and repair. Continue reading →
The Capitol Hill food and drink midway is down a sideshow and now lacks in the bright yellow neon and waffle department.
The Hill expansion of Sweet Iron has shuttered leaving a small retail hole in the commercial space of one of the largest preservation incentive-boosted developments in Pike/Pine.
We haven’t heard back from ownership about the shutdown but the original downtown Sweet Iron from the Jeffrey family remains open. Continue reading →
The City of Seattle announced Monday it is acquiring three nearly complete Capitol Hill developments to be turned into “new income- and rent-restricted housing” as part of a first round of acquisitions powered by millions of dollars of local, state, and federal funding.
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