(Image: CHS)

12 Ave’s Roy Street Commons stands out among Capitol Hill apartment buildings as the only building of its size on the Hill allowed to be fully dedicated to short-term rentals;. In the midst of the COVID-19 crisis, the building’s owners have again proven unusually innovative.

As the outbreak spread and rental business dried up, Roy Street became 12th Ave’s only COVID-19 Test Center.

Dr. Eric Friedland, an emergency medicine physician at Overlake Medical Center, opened the Covid Test Center out of the Roy Street Commons building that he and his wife own.

“I work in a hospital, so I don’t have a clinic to do this. I had an empty building and I thought ‘this is a reasonable goal,’ Friedland said. “A lot of people couldn’t get tested in March when the epidemic was really here so they want to know if they have antibodies or if they don’t. That was my whole goal, to try and provide the ability for people who didn’t have access to PCR testing who were sick in March to be able to figure out if they had the virus or not.” Continue reading →