(Image: Seattle Fire)
A boarded-up home destined for demolition to make way for a new 13th Ave townhouse project burned overnight as Seattle Fire assumed a “defensive” strategy to protect nearby homes and structures.
According to radio updates, a neighbor called 911 just before 1 AM to report flames coming from the abandoned 122-year-old house. Continue reading
Skidmore Janette character sketch for a project planned for the corner of 13th and John
A pair of development proposals about a quarter-mile away from each other on Capitol Hill’s 13th Ave will add a few dozen new housing units to the neighborhood and are making their way through the city’s design review process, though only one of them will appear before the East Design Review Board.
131 13th Ave E
A proposed project on 13th Ave E near the intersection with E John will come before the board Wednesday night in the body’s ongoing virtual review sessions.
On the block currently are a mix of single-family and multi-family homes. The proposal calls for tearing down an existing two-story building and detached garage. The structure was built as a single-family home in 1912, but has since been carved up into three apartments. The 1903-built home on the corner would remain in place and neighbor the new project.
Developer G2 Development proposes an eight-story building, with room for 46-48 units, depending on which development option goes forward. None of the options include any parking for cars. The development is just up John from busy Capitol Hill Station. Continue reading
(Image: CHS)
With reporting by Ryan Packer
A neighborhood fight to save two 40-foot-tall Norway Maples in the planting strip along Capitol Hill’s leafy 13th Ave E will end with the city deciding to stick to its plans for removal despite taking “a second and third look” at the situation, according to an email from the Seattle Department of Transportation.
CHS reported here on the argument from a group of neighbors and arboreal advocates trying to save the trees that the city said needed to be removed to make way for sidewalk and curb improvements part of redevelopment and construction of new townhouses on the street.
“Despite the follow up step to involve SDOT Engineers in additional Divisions to look with fresh eyes for other options, SDOT has made the determination to allow the removal of these trees,” an email sent Thursday by the city reads: Continue reading
(Image: Cakes + Trees)
(Image: CHS)
By Jethro Swain
13th Ave’s new Cakes + Trees is attracting pastry-lovers with its homestyle cakes and keeping them coming back with a changing menu, pop-up dinners, and an array of indoor flora for sale.
“Once we got the place and started building it out, we really focused on making a little spot where people could walk in, forget about all the crap, indulge in a piece of cake, enjoy the plants and just not worry about things for a minute,” said Alison Odowski.
The new shop, located on 13th Ave just off of E Jefferson, opened earlier this summer from Seattle food and drink veterans Odowski and Erik Jackson. Jackson has been a chef in Seattle for over 20 years, and Cakes + Trees is the couple’s second small business venture, after creating Good Day Donuts in White Center.
Odowski and Jackson lived in Capitol Hill for three years before moving south to be closer to Good Day Donuts, so they’re familiar with the area.
“We weren’t specifically looking to be over here, or anywhere, but this space [we’re in] dictated the move because we fell in love with it,” said Odowski. “It’s really old, the building was built in 1910, which I love. With so much new stuff in Seattle it’s also fun to be in something really old.” Continue reading
By Ryan Packer
The fate of two Norway Maples along one of Capitol Hill’s most leaf-covered residential streets seems sealed— but some neighbors are hoping to influence the decision at the last minute. 13th Ave E, with its unique curving streetscape, features a lush tree canopy along most of its length.
But a project moving forward to replace two houses currently occupied as duplexes with five rowhouses has led the city toward the determination that two 40-foot-tall trees in the planting strip along 13th cannot stay. With the new homes comes rebuilt curb ramps, and ripping up the sidewalk to install new ramps will do too much damage to the trees, according to the City of Seattle.
“After more than a year of review of the project site and design requirements, there were no options to meet SDOT Traffic or Urban Forestry standards for public safety and accessibility without removal and replacement of the trees,” reads an email sent by SDOT Arborist Ben Roberts that was posted by a concerned neighbor at the site within the past few days. According to the city, a notice was posted alerting nearby residents that the trees would be removed, but that notice is no longer there as of this week.
Continue reading
Developer Bradley Khouri discusses shadowing at Wednesday’s design review session (Images: CHS)
Saying that they felt the project’s design made a commendable effort to fit into the “changing” neighborhood around it, the East Design Review Board Wednesday night signed off on the early design guidance proposal for a five-story apartment project destined to join a block of 13th Ave E and neighbor landmark co-op The Maryland.
In front of a packed audience of Maryland residents and residents from single family homes and other apartment buildings in the neighborhood, Bradley Khouri of Capitol development and architecture firm b9 made his case that the 614 13th Ave E project planned to add 20 market-rate apartment units to the street had been shaped for the block just north of E Mercer and was respectful of its future neighbor, The Maryland co-operative. “We feel that we are trying to be very deferential to it,” Khouri said.
It was one of many moments that drew mostly quiet groans from some in the crowd who were waiting for their turn to speak during public comment to echo the issues around height, bulk, and scale CHS reported on earlier this week. Others said they were pleased at some of the rapid progress Khouri and b9 had already made to listen to concerns about the loss of trees and greenery and make a project that lives up to the area’s zoning potential without completely altering the block’s character.
Not everybody was satisfied, of course. “There’s an amazing kind of porch transitional zone,” in the area, one speaker said, lamenting the project’s impact to the street’s “neighborly porchiness.”
“I think you’re maximizing profit,” another said, with complaints about the project’s plans to rise to five stories and to not be set back far enough from adjacent buildings.
“You shouldn’t be maximizing. You should be fitting it in.”
The board’s decision moves the project forward in the design review process where the next round will focus on tweaks suggested in the early design guidance session and elements like materials and finishing. The next review is not yet scheduled.
Plans for 13th Ave E
The future view on 13th north of Mercer
It takes a brave person to develop a five-story building on 13th Ave E between a landmark 1910-built cooperative and a $1 million home. Many neighbors are looking forward to meeting him Wednesday night at the latest gathering of the East Design Review Board. Meanwhile, First Hill’s famous pavement parks will soon have more residents to enjoy them as a triangular lot where Union meets University is reviewed for a six-story, mixed-use addition to the neighborhood.
13th Ave E
The historic cooperative The Maryland on 13th Ave E just north of E Mercer has 20 units. Residents in most if not all of them have already written to the review board to lodge their complaints about the project’s height, bulk, and scale in this quiet patch of Capitol Hill between the Broadway corridor and 15th Ave’s commercial district.
There are also concerns about the loss of sunlight and the leafy lot where behind an old garage where the project is planned: Continue reading
(Images: CHS)
Even as its neighborhood grows up around it, 13th Ave’s Saint Nicholas Cathedral continued 77 years of tradition Saturday with a day of crafts, caviar and vodka.
The annual Taste of Russia celebration on Capitol Hill usually coincides with the relatively gargantuan Greek Festival down in Montlake. On 13th, the lines were shorter and you could find way more caviar. Uncle Vanya’s Vodka Hunt surely finished off any regrets over missed gyros.
Consecrated in December 1937, Saint Nicholas has remained part of the neighborhood long after the communities it serves have drifted off the Hill and even as other are connections to the Motherland have been targeted for protest. Still, it remains an active and colorful neighborhood landmark — especially on the yearly Taste of Russia Saturday.
Last year, a construction project some 80 years in waiting was finished to complete the original plans for the cathedral.
The cathedral is located at 1714 13th Ave. You can learn more at saintnicholascathedral.org.
More pictures, below.
