Tag Archives: real estate

More news from Belmont at E Olive Way as Captain Black’s and Stumbling Monk team up to purchase property — UPDATE

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(Image: @rauschenbach)

Yes, brunch is coming back to the slope of E Olive Way at Belmont as Glo’s is teaming up with neighbor Captain Black’s for an indefinite pop-up breakfast stay.

But there is a much larger deal afoot. Ownership of Black’s and fellow E Olive Way neighbor and drinking spot the Stumbling Monk are linking up in a land deal that puts the venues in control of their destiny, purchasing the real estate that hit the market earlier this year for nearly $4 million.

“Well. We did a thing today. We are now proud building owners of the block that has been home to Glo’s, The Doctor’s Office, Stumbling Monk and Captain Black’s,”  Add3 founder and nightlife entrepreneur Brian Rauschenbach announced via social media. “We exercised our first right of refusal when the property went up for sale and was to be acquired by a group in Chicago/Cleveland for development.” Continue reading →

With Capitol Hill rental economy apparently pandemic proof, another E Olive Way project underway with plans for seven stories

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A massive 2019 real estate deal along E Olive Way is getting ready to bear mixed-use fruit some three years and a pandemic-shifted Capitol Hill development and rental environment later.

Plans filed this spring show what will come next for the 1600 block of E Olive Way: a new seven-story mixed use building that will spread across three parcels off the curving street to make space for around 160 new apartment units above street level commercial spaces for shops or restaurants and a two-level underground parking garage.

The project is the second major development to begin public planning this spring to rise along the curves of E Olive Way. CHS reported here on the plans for a new eight-story mixed use project being readied for the All Season Cleaners property just below Broadway.

Lower on E Olive Way, CHS reported here in April, 2019 on the $21 million deal for Vancouver, Canada-based real estate investment and management company Low Tide Properties to purchase the collection of commercial buildings including the Fred Wildlife events space. Continue reading →

Community Roots Housing is putting 15th Ave E’s Fredonia building on the market — It will be a stretch for affordable housing residents to buy it

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(Image: Community Roots Housing)

Affordable housing provider and developer Community Roots Housing has informed residents living in the 12 units of the Fredonia that it intends to put the 15th and Mercer three-story mixed-use building on the market. Residents right now caught in the middle of the process are hoping for more information — and more time.

The Public Development Authority tells CHS the 115-year-old mixed-use building has become too expensive to maintain.

“Selling a building is one of the hardest decisions we must make as an organization,” the developer, property management, and housing provider said in a letter sent to residents dated May 6th and provided to CHS by a resident. “You are very important to us as a resident and neighbor, so keeping you informed on the process and how you will be affected is a priority for us.”

“What exactly will happen at the point of sale is not yet known and will depend greatly on the buyer,” the message to residents reads.

Under Seattle’s Notice of Intent to Sell ordinance, notification was required by law but Community Roots Housing says it went beyond the requirements in providing the Fredonia residents the earliest possible information on the plans. Continue reading →

Judge denies class action in CHOP ‘deliberate indifference’ lawsuit against city

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SDOT officials were on hand as the city placed barriers around the CHOP protest zone in June 2020 (Image: @mmitgang)

A legal bid that could have added hundreds of Capitol Hill residents and businesses to the federal lawsuit against the City of Seattle over “deliberate indifference” in its response to the CHOP occupied protest zone in the summer of 2020 has been denied.

Meanwhile, a handful of Pike/Pine and 12th Ave small businesses that had been part of the suit have dropped out as it continues into its third year of litigation seeking damages from the city over the protest zone.

In a ruling earlier this month, a U.S. District Court judge denied the effort at class certification in the CHOP lawsuit, rejecting arguments from plaintiffs that people living and doing business in a 16-block area near the unrest amid dangerous clashes between campers, demonstrators, and police in the protest zone should be eligible to join the potentially multi-million dollar suit.

Judge Thomas Zilly ruled the lawsuit does not meet the requirements for a class action because of the specific damages to each plaintiff.

“Plaintiffs in this case claim they were subject to diverse harms (violence, vandalism, harassment, blocked streets and sidewalks, excessive noise, and reduced business revenue) caused by the City’s actions, or inaction, in relation to CHOP,” Zilly writes, noting that cases of class action precedent include plaintiffs alleging the same “unlawful harm” like “mass arrest without probable cause,” for example.

Former Mayor Jenny Durkan’s missing text messages from the period continue to loom in the background of the case. Continue reading →

Here’s what (good things) happened when residents of Capitol Hill’s La Quinta apartments couldn’t buy their (landmarked) building

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(Image: Viva La Quinta/Jesse L. Young)

Declared a historic landmark last year after a lengthy campaign coordinated by a group of residents, La Quinta apartments has been under new ownership since late August. Though its residents were unable to purchase the Spanish-inspired building for themselves as they had originally intended, one tells CHS the new owners have been respectful of their tenants and the historic property.

“At the start of the pandemic we heard word that the building was going to be sold,” said La Quinta resident Chelsea Bolan.

In response, Bolan and fellow residents of the apartments sprang into action with the Viva La Quinta effort, which sought to gain landmark protections for the building and to raise funds for its tenants to purchase the property themselves. CHS reported here on how Seattle’s Notice of Intent to Sell ordinance could help residents like those living in La Quinta buy time to bid on their home property.

But at La Quinta, that never happened. The building sold to a real estate developer. It turns out, so far, everything is fine.

Though the group was ultimately unable to purchase the property before it was sold to its new owners, they were successful in pushing for La Quinta to gain historic landmark status in collaboration with local development authority Historic Seattle. Continue reading →

Village Gardens — Seattle’s first ‘Community Preference’ homes — ready to hit Central District real estate market

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(Image: Village Gardens)

(Image: Village Gardens)

The expansion of light rail to the Eastside and opening of Judkins Park Station may be slightly delayed but growth and development in the area has already moved quickly ahead. A development on Yakima Ave S and a 15 minute walk from the station is hoped to help provide new homes for buyers to help slow displacement and rising costs in the area.

Mayor Bruce Harrell was on hand last week to cut the ribbon in front of the new Village Gardens development where ten of the new homes are reserved for income-restricted buyers and six are being sold at market rate in a project built on land provided by the City of Seattle for affordable housing, and funded by a public investment of $2.3 million including $1.2 million from the Seattle Housing Levy.

The homes will be the first in the city to be sold under Community Preference Policy, creating opportunity for those with historic ties to the neighborhood the first opportunity to purchase. Continue reading →

Local real estate company touches up new Capitol Hill home office

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Seattle-based real estate investment company Timberlane Partners has a new office on Capitol Hill. Timberlane purchased the 614 Boylston Ave E property for over $2.4 million in September. Shortly thereafter, the company began working towards office space renovations on the first level of the two-story building.

Despite its pristine exterior, the Boylston Ave E property is over a century old, having been built in 1906. It was purchased by the owners of brand design firm Phinney Bischoff in the mid-90s, and sold to Timberlane in 2021 after nearly three decades of ownership. Continue reading →

Capitol Hill’s Sam Hill mansion is back on the market for $16M but this time its new story rivals its history

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The house before recent upgrades. CHS has removed images from the new listing at the request of the brokerage. (Image: Wikipedia)

Capitol Hill’s Sam Hill mansion is once again one of the most expensive properties for sale in Seattle. But this time around, the sellers have a story as interesting as the 11,000-square-foot 1910-built stone structure.

The new listing hit the wire this week for the 814 E Highland property. The current price tag makes it the most expensive house for sale on the open market in Seattle at a cool $16 million.

The sellers? Current owners, spouses Boris Nikolic and Sam Jaradeh. Jaradeh is a real estate and design guy. Nikolic? Continue reading →

With nearly 100,000 behind on rent, Harrell makes Valentine’s Day extension of Seattle’s ban on pandemic evictions

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Mayor Bruce Harrell will extend Seattle’s eviction protections another 30 days into February but the new administration says it wants to do more to inform people about the rules and measure its impact on leases and real estate in the city.

The latest extension protecting residential tenants, businesses, and organizations from eviction during the pandemic will keep the restrictions in place through February 14th.

Saying his administration wants to better understand “the algebra behind it,” Harrell said the next executive order includes the creation of “an advisory group for the mayor composed of tenant advocates and small landlords,” and an evaluation of “Seattle’s intergovernmental coordination in receiving and distributing financial assistance to tenants and small landlords.” Harrell also promised a new online “portal” to provide information to tenants and property owners. Continue reading →

It’s not easy but homeowners can now erase remnants of Capitol Hill’s racist real estate restrictions

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“The Communist Party Newspaper, New World, published articles attacking racial restrictive covenants in 1948” — Racial Restrictive Covenants: Enforcing Neighborhood Segregation in Seattle

Language from Seattle’s history of racist property restrictions can now be removed from properties thanks to a new law. While there are likely plenty of them to be flushed out on Capitol Hill, property owners might face a challenge sorting out whether legal remnants of the racist restrictions are part of their home’s records.

The new option, created by state law which went into effect January 1, allows homeowners to petition the King County Superior Court to completely delete the passage from the deed. There is a $20 filing fee with the court. Then you still have to file with the Recorder’s Office to seal the deal.

The county will maintain the original documents for the historical record but the effort will allow property owners who want to move on from including the racist language in a new version of the deed.

Most prevalent from the early 1920s through the early 1950s, these covenants would appear in the house’s title, legally forbidding a homeowner from selling, leasing or giving the house to a black person. Often, the wording would also exclude Asians, Jews, Arabs, and in some cases any “non-caucasians.” It was one form of legal enforcement behind redlining, a practice commonly used by racists in Seattle and around the country. Continue reading →