Tag Archives: central district

‘Rare central Seattle find’ — With $2.8M listing to sell some of its land, church neighboring Uncle Ike’s begins longterm plan for new home

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Mount Calvary is selling land across the street on 23rd Ave for $2.8 million that will be the start of its plans to find a new home away from 23rd and Union

A $2.8 million real estate listing is a harbinger of things to come at 23rd and Union. The Mount Calvary Christian Center, which unsuccessfully battled the neighboring Uncle Ike’s pot shop in court, is beginning the process of finding a new home closer to the areas where most of its congregation now lives.

“We’re still very much a part of the community,” Nicole Bascomb of Bascomb Real Estate Group and a member of Mount Calvary tells CHS, “and we’re going to be there for a while.”

But change has begun. Bascomb, daughter of longtime Central District real estate agent Paul Bascomb, has listed her church’s Joshua Generation Teen Center property on the west side of 23rd Ave across from Mount Calvary for $2,824,250. Continue reading →

Central District e-bike showroom Electric Lady shutting down

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Alex Kostelnik is getting out of the e-bike biz

One of the more future-looking retail ventures in the area is calling it quits. Here is why Electric Lady, the Central District e-bike shop in a building part of the wave of new development at 23rd and Union, is going out of business.

“(T)he business is doing well financially, but he is not enjoying the work needed to navigate what he sees as an unreliable industry where companies start up, go under, fire staff and get bought constantly,” the Seattle Bike Blog writes aboutowner Alex Kostelnik’s decision.

But Kostelnik tells SBB he was also having trouble connecting with his customers:

“They’re first time riders, but they’re not first time riders that are stepping up to the plate to hear about the community or join the community. They’re sort of strange outsider, know-it-all lonely people who aren’t really part of our community, and I don’t know where to begin with them.”

It’s not all sour grapes. Kostelnik will continue to run 20/20 Cycles just up the E Union hill and plans to include some electric bike models in his inventory. Continue reading →

Central District’s Union Market held up at gunpoint in Tuesday morning robbery

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Police were searching for a suspect seen fleeing on foot through the icy slush after a Tuesday morning armed robbery at the Central District’s Union Market.

The just before 9:30 AM hold-up of the corner market involved a suspect seen pointing a handgun as he grabbed cash from the register of the corner store at 21st and Union. Continue reading →

CHS Pics | Earl’s Cuts and Styles making temporary move before new life in Liberty Bank Building

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It’s almost moving day for Earl Lancaster

After nearly 30 years of business, Earl’s Cuts and Styles won’t be cutting hair in the Midtown Center at 23rd and Union after this weekend. But its new home across the way in the Liberty Bank Building isn’t ready for the legendary barbershop just yet.

After Saturday’s final day of business in its original home, Earl’s is moving across the street to a temporary shop in The Central building. Earl Lancaster said he hopes the stay will be short and that he should be in his new shop in the Liberty Bank Building by the end of March. Continue reading →

Capitol Hill Historical Society | 13th and Jefferson Park – Part 1: Opening Day 1895

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YMCA Baseball Field, ca 1902 (MOHAI 2002_3_1644)

Below is a present day view of Championship Field, the soccer field for Seattle University. We’re looking northwest from near the corner of 14th and Jefferson.

Seattle University Championship field, looking northwest from the southeast corner. Former location of YMCA Park (Rob Ketcherside)

In September 1895, a new athletic field opened here in the two big blocks bound by Cherry, Jefferson, 12th and 14th. At the time Capitol Hill didn’t exist; James Moore platted Capitol Hill in 1901. But there were plenty of people living near the Broadway streetcar operated by Union Trunk Line (UTL). Starting in 1890 they could transfer at Madison Street to the cable car and head out to a new baseball ground on Lake Washington.

This new field in 1895 meant no transfer, though. The Broadway streetcar started at UTL’s James Street Powerhouse on Broadway, making the trip to sports entertainment for Broadway residents just as close as people living downtown. The powerhouse pulled a cablecar from downtown and fed electricity to streetcars to Madrona, Mount Baker, and Beacon Hill. The ballpark was known as YMCA Park and later Athletic Park, and its entrance was at 13th and Jefferson. Continue reading →

Tired of baking French pastries on the Hill, Mariela Camacho brings pan dulce to the people

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“It’s also about food justice,” Mariela Camacho says. “I want to give this to a community that doesn’t have a lot of food that is healthy and accessible to them.” (Image: Margo Vansynghel for CHS)

The sky is invariably dark, the atmosphere eerily quiet when Mariela Camacho gets to the commissary kitchen at 3 AM. No buzzing of mixers yet. No butter sizzling in pans, radio in the background, or cooks chopping onions, or bakers kneading dough. Usually, it’s just her and her diablitos (smoked paprika croissants), conchas (sweet bread rolls with crunchy toppings) and roles de canela (cinnamon rolls). One by one, Camacho loads them onto trays that go on top of the warm oven for proofing, the final rise before the final bake.

While the pastries rise, Camacho mixes the dough for sweet buns and bread, assembles pink cakes and alfajores, and chops up queso oaxaca for empanadas.

“And that’s just a regular day,” Camacho says. It’s 11 AM, and she’s worn out after a Sunday morning of baking. Her cheeks rosy from the work and oven heat, she’s loading up big boxes with bread, sweet buns and pastries to be whisked off to her wholesalers across the city: La Marzocco Cafe, Elm Coffee Roasters, Resistencia, Little Neon Taco, Addo, Bait Shop and Damn The Weather. Her wholesaler’s list has been growing quickly since she started her on-demand and pop-up bakery Comadre Panadería last spring.

Her pastry pop-ups, at Little Neon Taco, Dorothea Coffee or Broadcast Coffee, are increasingly popular as well. During her next pop-up, planned for Sunday, January 27th at Broadcast Coffee’s Jackson roasting house, Camacho will be selling cardamom orange conchas and a raspberry/beet niño envueltos.

Comadre Panaderia Pop-up

Continue reading →

Seattle’s MLK Day march carries message of support for I-1000

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2019’s Seattle MLK Day march crossed Capitol Hill with a message about specific, immediate change in the state of Washington — Initiative 1000.

“Every year we aim to create tangible change in our community,” organizers wrote about the 2019 MLK Day events and Monday’s march. “This year we are backing I-1000 which would redefine affirmative action in Washington, providing equal opportunities through recruitment, hiring, outreach, training, goal-setting and other methods designed to increase diversity.” Continue reading →

Sunday afternoon driveby rattles Central District — UPDATE

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Neighbors and families are wondering when city officials will speak up and do more about ongoing incidents of gun violence after a driveby shooting rattled nerves and sent kids scrambling Sunday during a soccer game at Garfield High School and as many took part in MLK Day weekend events and activities in the area.

Teams and parents fled the field as 911 callers reported a round of gunshots from a car speeding away on 23rd Ave just south of the high school around noon Sunday. There were no reported injuries but responding officers found shell casings across a block of Alder between 24th and 23rd Ave. Continue reading →

‘I got a little disrespected earlier today’ — Video shows how sitting in front of a Central District auto parts store got SPD cop demoted for retaliation

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In full uniform and armed with his service weapon and a can of La Croix, Seattle Police’s  Frank Poblocki sat in a rolling office chair outside the AutoZone at 23rd and Jackson in the Central District on a clear but cool February day. “I got a little disrespected earlier today. So I’m going to hang out,” Poblocki told one passerby.

“I’m just cold kicking it.” Continue reading →

Lost in progress at Midtown Center: a 23rd and Union small business and a Central District post office

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(Image: CHS)

As much as some neighbors may be looking forward to the demolition of the old Midtown Center shopping strip at 23rd and Union, the end isn’t much to celebrate. You can feel the missing systematic safety net for Seattle’s small businesses as one small shop owner struggles to sort out what comes next. Other changes will be inconvenient and, for some, further evidence that Seattle — and the Central District — is tossing aside community elements as it reaches for continued growth and development.

“Please help me. Please don’t forget about me,” Saad Ali pleads. The owner of the 99 Cents Plus store in the now mostly vacant shopping center is happy to finally hear from a journalist. Attention from Seattle City Council member Kshama Sawant has helped, he says, but it hasn’t helped him find a new place to move his store or any opportunities for grants or financial assistance to weather the change. More useful, he says, has been recent conversations with a few officials from City Hall who are looking into ways to help Ali move.

Continue reading →