A visit to Harry’s Guest House and mixing uses on Capitol Hill’s Bellevue Ave

(Image: Harry’s Guest House)

(Image: Harry’s Fine Foods)

By Juan Jocom

The Harry’s Good Times family of businesses is growing. There’s a place to come and stay on Capitol Hill when everyone visits.

Harry’s Guest House was once home to a beloved neighbor. Now, it is part of Harry’s Fine Foods and of the few new places to stay on Capitol Hill where recent attempts to develop new hotel projects have been slow to take shape.

Jake Santelli and Julian Hagood opened their first accommodation-based business on Capitol Hill at the corner of E Mercer and Bellevue Ave in November. It is a two-unit bed and breakfast. As their Harry’s Fine Foods restaurant took shape in 2016 out of an old neighborhood cornerstore, Santelli and Hagood were pleased to make friends with the eccentric neighborhood longtimer next door. Winnie, they say, “dined with us, laughed with us, and ultimately became a symbol of community that made the corner of E Mercer and Bellevue Ave just a little bit sweeter.”

When they learned Winnie was moving out and leaving her beloved home behind, the Harry’s guys moved to make the house part of their presence at the corner. Continue reading

Regional Centers, Urban Centers, Neighborhood Centers, Industrial Centers, and Urban Neighborhoods — Outreach and feedback process begins on Seattle’s next 20-year growth plan

Officials are asking for people to weigh in and emphasizing five new “place types” in Seattle that they say will bring opportunities for new population growth in more neighborhoods as they roll out a proposed update to the city’s 20-year comprehensive plan.

CHS reported here on the Harrell administration proposal that will continue to lean hard on the densest cores of Capitol Hill and the Central District while making small steps forward in allowing multifamily-style housing across the city.

The Office of Planning & Community Development is launching an outreach and feedback process: Continue reading

Seattle’s new plan for growth will still lean heavily on Capitol Hill and the Central District’s dense cores

Under the new growth plan, affordable buildings like The Rise would remain constrained to areas like First Hill (Image: The Rise)

Capitol Hill’s apartment and job-rich streets will become richer and the redevelopment waves seem unlikely to slow under the draft comprehensive growth plan for the city.

The Harrell administration unveiled its proposal for Seattle’s next growth plan this week that sets the stage for 200,000 residents to join the city over the next 20 years and continues to lean heavily on Capitol Hill, the Central District, and the city’s most heavily developed neighborhoods, proposing small steps toward spreading apartments, townhouses, and duplexes into more areas while also trying to soften the blow to neighborhoods at the highest risk of displacement and gentrification.

“Having grown up in the historically redlined Central District, I’ve seen firsthand how our city and the neighborhoods that make it special have changed as we’ve experienced rapid growth and increased housing costs, with longstanding neighbors, families, and small businesses too often finding affordability out of reach,” Mayor Bruce Harrell said in the announcement of the just released draft. “This experience has informed my belief that we need more housing, and we need to be intentional about how and where we grow, addressing the historic harms of exclusionary zoning and embedding concrete anti-displacement strategies every step of the way.”

But the draft plan is not a reinvention of the city as we know it today and would continue many of the development patterns that have shaped modern Seattle. Nearly 70% of new construction expected under the draft plan would be constrained to “Regional Centers,” the plan’s new designation for the city’s most densely populated, high transit areas — Downtown, Lower Queen Anne, South Lake Union, University District, Northgate, Ballard, and, of course, First Hill and Capitol Hill — or less dense but still highly developed areas now called “Urban Centers” instead of “Urban Villages.” 23rd Ave from Union to Jackson is one nearby example. The “Madison–Miller” area north of E Madison is another.

Under the draft plan, the Capitol Hill-First Hill area of the city is projected to add 9,000 new housing units — second to only downtown — and 3,000 new jobs.

Zoning in many of these areas like Capitol Hill would remain capped at eight stories though there could be allowances for taller development near light rail stations.

The release of the draft plan and the environmental impact statement to follow marks the start of the end to a two-year process mandated by state law to update the city’s growth plan in compliance with new laws and regulations gating growth and climate change impacts. Continue reading

A 15th Ave E move as Rudy’s will jump across street to soon to open Capitol Hilltop development

(Image: Rudy’s)

Now they just need to make a space for ShopRite.

City construction permits show the first commercial tenant has been lined up for the opening-soon Capitol Hilltop mixed-use building on 15th Ave E. Rudy’s Barbershop, about to be displaced by another development from Hunters Capital on the other side of the street, is making plans to join the five-story, nearly 70-unit mixed-use apartment building with underground parking for 21 vehicles that has reshaped the corner of Capitol Hill’s 15th and Mercer where the old Hilltop Service Station used to stand.

The short move up the street into a new 1,100-square-foot barbershop ten barber stations, two hairwash sinks, and a new waiting and retail area will help add some stability to the street’s coming changes.

Rudy’s current 15th Ave E location is set to be demolished to make way for a coming mixed-use project that will also replace the street’s shuttered QFC grocery. Continue reading

A sixth story and a prized European hornbeam tree — Neighbors have their say on extra height for 15th Ave QFC redevelopment project

There are more powerful actions they can take but neighbors opposing a proposed sixth floor on the mixed-use development being planned for the old QFC block of Capitol Hill’s 15th Ave E got their say Wednesday night. Several neighbors supporting the plan and increased housing options on the busy commercial street on the edge of Capitol HIll’s single family-style house core also spoke up.

Around thirty residents voiced their opinions on the proposed mixed-use development as planners from the Seattle Department of Construction and Inspection took notes and coordinated the brisk Wednesday evening meeting.

While many criticized the idea of a six-story building rising above 15th Ave E, there were also plenty of attendees during the virtual meeting who expressed support for increasing housing density amid the city’s ongoing housing and affordability crisis.

“I live less than a mile from this proposed project. I think this is a great project. It should be approved as proposed,” said one. “This project is located in, and will add to an already existing business area.”

Capitol Hill developer Hunters Capital — whose mixed-use development up the street replacing the old Hilltop Service Station will wrap up construction later this year — is requesting a departure from area zoning for its QFC project to allow an extra sixth story of height. Continue reading

Reminder: Wednesday night land use meeting for proposed six-story 15th Ave E QFC redevelopment

Wednesday, the Seattle Department of Construction and Inspections will hold its public meeting on the land use application for the mixed-use development being planned to rise on the site of the former 15th Ave E QFC.

Capitol Hill developer Hunters Capital is requesting a departure from area zoning to allow an extra sixth story of height. Continue reading

As we drink to Linda’s 30th, raise a glass to 97 years and counting at 707 E Pine

Capitol Hill at Pine and Boylston, looking southwest at downtown, Seattle, Washington, July 22, 1991. 707 E Pine is in the foreground and Linda’s was about to be born. (Image: University of Washington Libraries, Special Collection)

So, you know the secret of how Linda’s has survived and thrived on Capitol Hill for 30 years Linda Derschang isn’t wrong when she says it is about people.

But the 1927-built store turned Middle Eastern restaurant with belly dancing turned grunge-era bar is also a key component.

Somehow over its three decades at 707 E Pine, Linda’s hasn’t directly faced the challenges that come with new landlords and new development plans.

King County records show the same family who gave Linda’s its first lease 30 years ago continues to hold the property. Continue reading

Social housing: Backers aim for Seattle vote on $53M business payroll tax to fund publicly owned affordable apartments and homes

A view from a unit in Broadway’s affordable senior community Pride Place

Seattle is building a Social Housing Public Development Authority to create affordable, publicly owned housing across the city.

Now, a proposal is being lined up for the fall ballot to pay for it by adding a new tax on the companies creating the city’s millionaires. There is political urgency with strong turnout expected for the 2024 presidential election. The city also has a housing crisis to solve.

The Let’s Build Social Housing ballot initiative unveiled this week would add a 5% tax on companies for every dollar over a million paid to a Seattle employee in annual compensation including salary, stock, and bonuses.

The House our Neighbors group behind the proposal says the tax would add up to around $50 million a year to fund the development authority and power its ability to borrow to build or acquire 2,000 units of housing over 10 years.

It could be a relatively small price to pay for a city stuck in an affordability crisis that is only getting worse.

“If we were honest with ourselves and the public, we do not have a plan to address our affordable housing needs at scale,” Tiffani McCoy, House Our Neighbors Policy and Advocacy Director said in a statement to media. “No level of government has a plan and the private sector cannot fill this need. This is where social housing comes in.”

The new tax could be seen as an extension of the JumpStart program created during the pandemic to fund social services and affordable housing. Continue reading

Seattle City Council looks at Connected Communities pilot to ease affordable housing development by ‘community-based organizations’

The Seattle City Council’s land use committee will discuss a proposal Wednesday afternoon that would create a new pilot program linking community organizations with developers to create affordable “equitable development” in neighborhoods across the city.

The “Connected Communities” proposal from land use chair Tammy Morales would create a pilot program that would run through 2029 or create 35 housing developments — whichever comes first — by pairing “community-based organizations with limited development experience” with nonprofit and for-profit developers “for development of low- and moderate-income housing with neighborhood serving equitable development uses,” according to a council memo (PDF) on the plan.

The program would ease the path for the projects by providing density bonuses “and other regulatory incentives.”

The pilot would “encourage equitable development, creating low-to-moderate-income housing ,social housing, and undo some of the damage created by historical redlining,” a briefing on the proposal reads.

Morales’s office says the program would also help solve some of the issues of funded equitable and affordable development getting bogged down by a regulatory environment “that can hinder, delay, complicate, and add cost to these projects.” Continue reading

On 15th Ave E, development faces debate over plans for a sixth story

 

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The people have spoken. A new mixed-use development set to rise on the block currently home to the empty 15th Ave E QFC, a collection of businesses including a Rudy’s Barbershop and local favorite ShopRite, and a handful of apartments will be the subject of a public meeting later this month after a petition drive and neighbors opposing the project’s plans for a sixth floor gathered signatures to force the Seattle Department of Construction & Inspections hearing.

“I’m concerned about the impact of such a huge structure on the small businesses and parking in this neighborhood,” one of the signees writes.

“I oppose a building of 6 stories,” wrote another.

The special meeting comes as a new addition to the months and years of planning required for Capitol Hill firm Hunters Capital to develop the property which also must pass through the city’s design review process.

The project is planned for the busy 15th Ave E commercial strip on the edge of Capitol Hill’s northeast core of valuable single family-style homes.

CHS reported here in October as the proposal was approved by the East Review Board in its early design guidance phase. Hunters and the Runberg Architecture Group are proposing to transform the old QFC block into new apartments, businesses, and plaza space they say would give the neighborhood a vibrant streetscape with a mix of trees old and new, small retail spaces to add to the street’s eclectic mix, and 170 new homes. Continue reading