Tag Archives: central district

Seattle Neighborhood Economic Recovery Grants include thousands for new Broadway murals, Capitol Hill small biz e-commerce, and support for a new 12th Ave ‘community market’

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Director Egan Orion and a BIA cleaning crew (Image: Broadway Business Improvement Area”

A $1.35 million round of Neighborhood Economic Recovery Grants from the city will include money to boost business friendly organizations active around Capitol Hill and the Central District.

The awards announced this week as one of the final acts of Mayor Jenny Durkan’s term are built from funding through the Coronavirus Local Fiscal Recovery Fund (CLFRF) established under the American Rescue Plan Act.

“Neighborhood business districts in Seattle are the heart of our neighborhoods and centers of community, commerce and culture, which is why we quickly directed federal funding to established business districts who have been working tirelessly to extend lifelines to local businesses and revitalize our neighborhoods,” Durkan said in praise of the federal support.

Project grants were awarded to organizations including $25,000 to create a Central Area Chamber business directory, $75,000 to Simply Soulful to “convert the old restaurant space into a commissary kitchen and popup event space to help BIPOC businesses revive and grow,” $85,000 to Wa Na Wari, and $25,000 to the Community Roots Housing Foundation to support a new pop-up market “along Howell Street mini block that will showcase BIPOC businesses.” 12th Avenue Recovery, an organization granted $75,000 to hold “a summer community market, activate and beautify 12th Ave Square Park & 12th Ave Street with landscaping and tables and chair.” Continue reading →

A debate over height for the Central District’s Acer House and its Afrofuturist plans

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This rendering of the Acer House design proposal shows how the building would — or would not — fit in at 23rd and Cherry

By Sarah Goh, UW News Lab/Special to CHS

Earlier this year, Capitol Hill Seattle reported on the development of Acer House, an affordable housing project with Afrofuturist design and a focus on equity. The project has passed the early stage of the design review process but there are more challenges from City Hall and the community the plan must overcome. The biggest? A tussle over how tall the building can rise to make room for more units of housing.

“The process in Seattle is really lengthy and very expensive.” Ben Maritz, the Capitol Hill developer of affordable housing behind the project says, “It’s a real problem for many small developers.”

The development team behind Acer House has been in the process of attaining a rezone to allow them to build up to 55-feet instead of the 40 currently allowed. Only blocks away, the zoning allows for 55-foot development. They submitted their rezone application to the Seattle Department of Construction and Inspections (SDCI), but received an early negative response.

In the west part of the commercial zone, where the Acer House project stands, the allowed height is 40-feet. However, in the same commercial zone in the east, the allowed height is 55-feet.

Martiz says when you look at the data of the demographics between the east and the west, the west consists of mostly Black property owners.

“Two thirds of the land owners are Black,” Martiz says. “Whereas in the east, only a third of the population is Black.” Continue reading →

Métier Brewing Company will bring Black-owned beer — and Japanese street food — to new Central District taproom in 2022

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A 20-year resident of the Central District will open a new flagship taproom for one of the few Black-owned beer breweries in the nation early next year on E Cherry.

Rodney Hines calls Métier Brewing Company “purpose-driven” and said he chose expanding the brewery with a taproom and Japanese street food in the Central Area with the intent of recognizing the history of the communities there while also being present as a Black business owner in the neighborhood.

“A moment of tension for me is when I walk around my neighborhood and when I think of whether new people who see the street signs honoring Rev. McKinney at Mt. Zion Baptist have taken a moment to know who he was. I fear that there’s a lot of new energy, a lot of new people… that can be good. It can be better if people can pause and look at history of who was here and give some respect for that.”

Métier debuted in 2018 in a business partnership with Hines and Todd Herriott, owner of E Union’s bike shop/cafe/training facility Metier Seattle. It shares a name with the bike venture and has based its production at a bike-friendly spot along the riding trail in Woodinville but Métier Brewing is all about Hines and the beer.

2022 will be a massive year for the company. By the end of next summer, Métier and the Seattle Mariners will open the former stadium district Pyramid Alehouse as Steelhead’s Alley, a new beer-focused pre-game hangout honoring the Seattle Steelheads Negro League team that once played its games at Sick’s Stadium on Rainier Ave.

But before it looks back with nostalgia, Métier will push forward with the new E Cherry taproom and microbrewery slated to open in early 2022. CHS first reported here in October on early plans for the E Cherry property formerly used as an auto garage and blacksmith studio.

Now the project is taking shape as a 2,000-square-foot “community gathering space featuring rotating taps of the brewery’s award-winning brews” in the new commercial development from Capitol Hill-based developer Liz Dunn. Continue reading →

Police find lots of shell casings, no victims after gunfire in Garfield High School parking lot — UPDATE

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Seattle’s 911 dispatch lit up with calls late Thursday afternoon after gunfire in a parking lot at a still busy Garfield High School.

There were no reported injuries in the incident reported just after 4:30 PM and students on campus including a basketball team busy at practice were ordered to shelter in place as police investigated the incident. Continue reading →

Second round of 2021 Neighborhood Matching Fund grants include $25K for summer series to celebrate new (covered!) Volunteer Park Amphitheater

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Construction is supposed to wrap up soon on the new amphitheater

Nearly $900,000 in grants through Seattle’s last 2021 round of Neighborhood Matching Fund awards will power new events at the Central District’s Langston Hughes Performing Arts Institute, a new arts showcase at Capitol Hill’s Gay City, and a performance series next summer to celebrate Volunteer Park’s new $3 million amphitheater.

“Gay City: Seattle’s LGBTQ Center is thrilled to partner with the Department of Neighborhoods to produce the first annual Emerge Arts Cohort and Showcase, a program for BIPOC LGBTQ+ performing artists that offers production support, artistic mentorship, and business and sustainability training,” Bekah Telew, director of development at Gay City said in a statement. “The City’s investment in supporting BIPOC LGBTQ artistic voices in this holistic way is directly responsive to the needs of BIPOC LGBTQ artists, who continue to be disproportionately impacted by the pandemic.”

The matching fund awards include nearly $230,000 in grants across District 3 that will help groups create several new events and the new performance series in Volunteer Park. Continue reading →

Police: Women in their 70s up early for church robbed at gunpoint

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Police say two women in their 70s were robbed at gunpoint Sunday when they were on an early walk to prepare their Central District church for morning services.

According to the Seattle Police report on the hold-up near 22nd and Yesler, the women were targeted in the robbery involving multiple suspects and vehicles as they were walking on the street just before 6 AM: Continue reading →

No injuries as police investigate 23rd and Jackson drive-by — UPDATE

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(Image: SDOT)

There were no injuries and no reported significant damage in an overnight drive-by shooting at 23rd and Jackson.

Police shut down the area around the intersection around 2:45 AM Monday after multiple callers reported five to ten shots in the area. Continue reading →

Born in the Central District, Bruce Harrell is Seattle’s next mayor — UPDATE

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Bruce Harrell has won again.

The veteran politician’s opponent Lorena González conceded the Seattle mayor’s race Thursday after the latest count of ballots by King County Elections showed that the moderate-leaning trends from Seattle’s Election Night would hold.

“This campaign is over but our work continues because the struggles people in Seattle face remain,” González said in a statement. “Together, we shaped the conversation on our city’s most pressing issues, and Mayor-Elect Harrell made commitments in response to our pressure to not criminalize poverty, to expand progressive revenue sources, to demilitarize the police and invest in alternative responses to public safety calls, and to rapidly create appropriate shelter and not forcibly sweep the unhoused from public spaces.”

The latest tally shows Harrell with 62% of the vote. King County says turnout landed about where it was expected in the city at 54%. The Capitol Hill ballot drop box was typically busy, collecting more than 10,000 ballots — more than 6,000 on election day. Continue reading →

Threat forces evacuation at Garfield High School — UPDATE

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Students at Garfield High School were evacuated from classrooms Thursday after a threat made against the school, a Seattle Public Schools spokesperson tells CHS.

The evacuation order came around noon with school officials going class by class to order students to assemble on the nearby sports field while Seattle Police searched the 23rd Ave campus. Reports from students described police search dogs on the school ground. Continue reading →

Midtown Square’s new mix at 23rd and Union to include Arté Noir, Jerk Shack, Raised Doughnuts, and The Neighbor Lady

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Trey Lamont and Jerk Shack are coming to 23rd and Union (Image: @jerkshackseattle)

Last week, CHS reported on progress in opening Midtown Square and what role the new, for-profit developed 23rd and Union complex will play as the Central District continues to address affordability and displacement in its communities.

Below Midtown Square’s 428 market-rate and affordable apartment units, surrounding a quasi-public central plaza, and above a huge underground parking garage will be a mix of organizations and businesses the developer Lake Union Partners says will also better represent the surrounding communities than the original plans for a big chain pharmacy.

Like the efforts to bring more affordable housing to the area, community groups and leaders have called for more opportunities for BIPOC small business owners to be part of the waves of development reshaping the Central District. The recipe can be delicious. Communion, opened by veteran Soul Food chef Kristi Brown in 2020 across the street in the affordable and equitably developed Liberty Bank building, was named one of the 12 best new restaurants… in the world. Meanwhile, Black-owned food and drink has also made new homes at 23rd and Jackson.

(Image: CHS)

Here’s a look at the arts and commercial mix coming 23rd and Union:

  • Arté Noir: The key street level corner space looking out onto 23rd and Union will become home to a new arts center and shop from the nonprofit focused on “Black art, artists, and culture,” that also helped the development select nine artists to create installations and giant murals that adorn the seven-story buildings that make up the complex. Plans filed with the city describe a large presence for the project in the form of a 3,200-square-foot art gallery. Lake Union says the space originally lined up to be home to a Bartell’s was divided into four commercial shops including Arté Noir plus “three other locals we are in discussions with right now.”
  • What about Bartell’s? A Lake Union representative said the chain “bowed out a long time ago due to changes in leadership” and “other things that were going on internally.” Bartell’s was eventually acquired by Rite-Aid. Lake Union began negotiating with the CVS chain but the rep says the Seattle developer “decided that national stores like that are more than we are willing to deal with for now.” The change pushed Lake Union Partners to find a new solution. “Seems like it was meant to be given the art focus on the overall project,” the representative said. “We are very happy things are working out like this.”
  • Jerk Shack: Trey Lamont is expanding with a second location of his Carribean restaurant set be located on the edge of the development’s internal plaza. Continue reading →