Tag Archives: landmarks

With planned seven-story development inching forward, old Olive Way Improvement Company building faces demolition ‘under emergency conditions’

Posted on by
24

(Image: CHS)

With reporting by Domenic Strazzabosco

Failing masonry appears ready to rip apart Seattle’s web of public reviews, permits, and financing windows to move a major Capitol Hill development project forward at the corner of Denny and E Olive Way.

City permit paperwork shows demolition approval moving forward “under emergency conditions” on the more than 100 year old, historic — but not landmarks protected — property once home to Capitol Hill classics Holy Smoke, Coffee Messiah, and In the Bowl. The facade of the 1917-era unreinforced masonry building is falling off, according to the filings, expediting the long awaited demolition of the old structures.

Filings show a traffic control plan, right of way impact plan, and haul route map being submitted for approval.

A plan for developing a seven-story, 106-unit mixed-use apartment building at the corner awaits but any work on construction is still a long, long ways off.

The project has yet to begin the public review process and will then need to await the alignment of economic trends and financing windows that has left many Capitol Hill projects on the back-burner.

The property’s developer has declined to comment on the situation and also directed the contractor being brought on to handle the demolition not to speak with CHS about the project. Continue reading →

The Phillis Wheatley YWCA — How city’s effort to protect ‘a central hub’ in Seattle’s Black history could block affordable housing project

Posted on by
21

The building as it looks today

By Ayla Nye/UW News Lab

With an affordable housing project set to demolish the building, a December landmarks board hearing could determine the future of a 21st Ave property the city calls “a pivotal location in Seattle’s African American heritage.”

The Seattle Department of Construction and Inspections has taken the unusual step of delaying the development of a 49-unit apartment building just off E Madison to determine if the 108-year-old building should be protected on the grounds that the property holds historical and cultural significance, according to the SDCI.

The Madison Inn Work Release, formerly known as the Phillis Wheatley YWCA building, is up for a landmark nomination, a designation that could protect the building from demolition and many types of construction.

Stephanie Johnson-Toliver, president of the Black Heritage Society of Washington State, voiced her concern about the planned building demolition.

Johnson-Toliver is a fourth generation Seattleite. Her family moved to Seattle in 1913 and she has owned her house in the Central District for nearly 30 years. In 1945, her mother was a member of the Phillis Wheatley YWCA Girls Reserve.

“The Phillis Wheatley was created to meet the needs of Black women and children,” Johnson-Toliver said. “They helped shape young women’s opinions and attitudes and we’re socially uplifting them with education and recreation,” she said.

“Established from the ‘Culture Club’ in 1919, this site has been a central hub for black intellectual life, community gathering, black social justice and legal defense groups,” the nomination prepared for the city reads. “It initially functioned as a meeting point and community center, significantly contributing to the social fabric of Seattle’s African American community.”

Ben Maritz is the current owner of the Madison Inn property and the founder of Great Expectations, an affordable housing developer. Maritz has been developing the property since he bought it in July of 2020.

“We went through a whole process, including design review, and received the master use permit, I think, over a year ago,” Maritz said. Continue reading →

Upcoming landmarks meetings include nomination of Capitol Hill ‘Bel-Boy’ apartment house

Posted on by
2

(Image: King County)

While design review meetings for new development have slowed to a trickle, the winter will include hearings over potential landmarks protections for three properties around Central Seattle.

The Seattle Department of Neighborhoods last week announced two new area  nominations.

Next week, the Landmarks Preservation Board will consider the nomination of the 102-year-old Lake Court Apartments on the shores of Lake Washington in Madison Park.

In February, the board will consider a nomination for protections for a 1901-era, three-story apartment building at 1411 Boylston Ave owned by Historic Seattle. Continue reading →

City delays landmarks hearing for Capitol Hill work release facility that was once Seattle’s ‘Culture Club’

Posted on by
4

(Image: King County)

The Seattle Department of Neighborhoods has quietly pushed back a landmarks board hearing on a 21st Ave property the city calls “a pivotal location in Seattle’s African American heritage” that has most recently served as work release housing for the incarcerated.

CHS reported here in August on the 108-year-old Phillis Wheatley YWCA building slated for demolition at 21st Ave and Denny and the city’s plans for a hearing on possible landmarks protections for the structure planned for this week. Continue reading →

‘A pivotal location in Seattle’s African American heritage’ — Landmarks Board to consider old 21st Ave YWCA site

Posted on by
6

The Seattle landmarks board will consider a 108-year-old structure slated for demolition at 21st Ave and Denny for protections due to the building’s role in Black history in the neighborhood.

The old Phillis Wheatley YWCA will be considered by the board September 4th. In the nomination (PDF) prepared for the city’s Department of Construction and Inspections, the city argues that the building could be worthy of architectural protections as “a pivotal location in Seattle’s African American heritage” — Continue reading →

St. Mark’s affordable housing and adaptive reuse development on agenda at Seattle Landmarks Preservation Board

Posted on by

A rendering showing the planned massing of the new structure (Image: Atelierjones)

The Seattle Landmarks Preservation Board will be briefed this week on the planned redevelopment and adaptive reuse project envisioned to create more than 100 affordable homes on the St. Mark’s Cathedral campus on northern Capitol Hill.

The project would transform the landmarks-protected St. Nicholas building that has stood on the property for 98 years. CHS reported here on the project taking shape with designs calling for 109 affordable apartment units in a development that would create a new twin to the historic building.

Designated as a protected landmark in 1982, the St. Nicholas structure’s protections include the “entire exterior of the 1926 building” and “the entire site” but the restrictions do not extend to the structure’s interior. Continue reading →

CHS Classic | The Cayton-Revels House: a landmark to Seattle’s Black history on 14th Ave E

Posted on by

Susie Revels Cayton and Horace Cayton Sr. with family in 1904 (Vivian G. Harsh Research Collection of Afro-American History and Literature/Chicago Public Library)

Take a walk this Black History Month to visit Capitol Hill’s Cayton-Revels House.

Built in 1902, the Queen Anne Victorian-style house was once the home of Horace Roscoe Cayton, publisher of Seattle Black-owned newspaper the Seattle Republican, and his wife and associate editor Susie Sumner Revels Cayton. The 2021 landmark designation was a significant and necessary acknowledgement of Seattle’s Black history.

CHS reported here on the efforts of the 14th and Mercer structure’s owners to achieve landmark status and protections for the 1902-built house, honor the Cayton-Revels family, and recognize the legacy of the racial covenants that shaped Capitol Hill. According to the landmarks nomination, “the Caytons were one of only three Black American families living in today’s definition of Capitol Hill​ before racial restrictive covenants barred non-white residents in 1927.”

The news business
The Seattle Republican was one of the most widely-read newspapers in the region at that time. In print from 1894 to 1913, the Republican appealed to national and local audiences of all races, but primarily focused on local politics and the Black experience. Horace Cayton, born a slave on a Mississippi cotton plantation and educated at Alcorn University, made his way to the Pacific Northwest in pursuit of greater freedoms in the frontier-era West. As Seattle changed from a frontier town to a growing city with increasingly racist power structures and property covenants, Black families were pushed into the Central District, where the Cayton-Revels eventually relocated.

“The Caytons were one of the most well-known Black American families in Seattle at the turn of the 20th century because of their business and political involvements,” said Taha Ebrahimi, a Capitol Hill resident who researched and wrote the 142-page landmark proposal for the Cayton-Revels house. Continue reading →

No rush on new park for North Capitol Hill — no money to pay for it until 2029

Posted on by

The property from above in the summer of 2022

Sorry for the late notice — we just found out about it, too

It is extremely late notice but apparently there is time.

Seattle Parks says a meeting it is holding Wednesday night to update the community on design plans for a new city park on 1.6 acres of North Capitol Hill land formerly owned by the Bullitt family will include a call for patience — it won’t have the funding it needs to complete the project until 2029 at the earliest.

Superintendent AP Diaz and the city’s parks and rec department are holding the meeting on the important updates for the planned park in one of the city’s wealthiest neighborhoods with little public notice. It didn’t send details to media about the meeting and didn’t post about it on its social media accounts.

CHS has asked officials what’s up with the oversight and for copies of the materials to be presented so we can share the details more widely. UPDATE: Technical difficulties! Sounds like there is an issue with email coming into CHS. We’re taking a look at what’s up. In the meantime, the city says it will post a recording from Wednesday’s meeting later this week.

The land and 69-year-old home on the property left to the city after the death of philanthropist Kay Bullitt stretches out on the northwest slopes of Capitol Hill in the prestigious Harvard-Belmont Landmark District. CHS reported in 2022 on the early planning for the new park project including a survey that planners said showed preferences for developing the new park land “as a quiet, contemplative place” while making space for the Cass Turnbull Garden as part of the site, a project from Seattle nonprofit Plant Amnesty honoring its late founder. Continue reading →

Seattle City Council set to decide on rezone approval for 16th Ave’s Conover House redevelopment

Posted on by

(Image: Weinstein A+U)

Not a landmark: The Conover House (Image: City of Seattle)

For a 131-year-old house on Capitol Hill, a week here, a week there makes little difference.

But the 1893-built Conover House gained a few more days Tuesday when a small slip-up among the fresh faces of the newly seated Seattle City Council pushed back a key vote on the 16th Ave property that is destined to become home to a mixed-use building with dozens of new apartments above a new restaurant in a project from Jewish Family Service and its headquarters just down the street.

During Tuesday’s public comment in front of the first full meeting of the council in 2024, a diali-in speaker was mistakenly allowed to briefly speak against the proposed contract rezone of the Conover House property that would allow a proposed development that will include demolition of the historic but not landmarked house to move forward.

“Sadly, I’m here to testify in vain, a bit, to save a part of Seattle that is pretty much condemned to be destroyed and forgotten,” the speaker began.

Their impassioned plea for the Conover House was cut-off but the procedural damage was done.

Because the council’s role in the decision is to approve or disapprove of the city Hearing Examiner’s decision to approve the rezone, that short testimony against the change was a procedural no-no. President Sara Nelson and the council were left with no choice but to delay the vote for a week “to clear the ex parte communications” in the “quasi judicial matter.”

The decision to wait a week on the vote is likely delaying the inevitable. Continue reading →

The Bloch House is Capitol Hill’s latest landmark

Posted on by

(Image: Marvin Anderson Architects)

The Blochs (Image: Marvin Anderson Architects)

The latest landmark on Capitol Hill will be a Tudor Revival style home that has stood on a corner across from Volunteer Park for more than 115 years.

The Seattle Landmarks Preservation Board last week voted to designate the Bloch House at 15th and Prospect for landmarks protections of the structure’s exterior “and portions of the interior that include: the entry vestibule, foyer, main staircase, dining room, living room, study, rathskeller, and ballroom.”

The board agreed the house is “associated in a significant way with a significant aspect of the cultural, political, or economic heritage of the community, City, state or nation” and “embodies the distinctive visible characteristics of an architectural style, or period, or a method of construction. The board also declared the structure worthy of protections as an example of “an outstanding work of a designer or builder” — Congratulations, Clayton D. Williams and Arthur Loveless.

By the way, you’ve probably enjoyed some of Arthur’s other work in the neighborhood. Continue reading →