Tag Archives: st. mark’s

First year at Donna Jean’s Place, a Capitol Hill shelter where time is the most important resource

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(Image: Donna Jean’s Place)

By Moa Segerholt, UW News Lab

After being homeless three different times in Seattle, 60-year-old Benev Brandt says that Donna Jean’s Place is the best shelter she’s ever been in.

“Physically, I could find a safe place to sleep. And mentally, I could find a place to rest,” said Brandt.

Brandt says she has been homeless most her life and came to Seattle from California when she was 21. She has stayed at numerous shelters, but Donna Jean’s has provided her the most lasting healing, she says.

Donna Jean’s Place is a women’s emergency shelter that opened on northern Capitol Hill early this year as a collaboration between Operation Nightwatch and St. Mark’s Episcopal Cathedral.

Deacon Frank DiGirolamo, executive director of Operation Nightwatch, says he hoped that the shelter would help 100 women annually.

Since the opening at St. Mark’s last winter, the number has grown beyond expectations. DiGirolamo said that they’ve already helped more than 230 women at the shelter — named in honor of Donna Jean Palmberg, the widow of Operation Nightwatch’s founder — in the past year.

“This provides 7,000 nights of shelter per year, which sounds small – only 20 people per night, right? – But that’s 7,000 times that someone won’t be subject to being harassed or assaulted. So we think that’s a little seed of effort that can grow a lot,” Digirolamo said.

Donna Jean’s might also show that one of the most important resources a shelter can provide is time.

Continue reading →

Experience the ‘Overview Effect’ with the Terra Exhibit at Capitol Hill’s St. Mark’s Cathedral

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(Image: Terra Exhibit)

You don’t have to believe in anything to be in awe. And you might not think a giant globe hanging in a church would leave you in deep contemplation. But the Terra Exhibit currently installed through November 23rd at Capitol Hill’s St. Mark’s Cathedral is inspiring.

The 24-foot museum-grade Earth globe suspended from the central beam in the cathedral nave can have an other-worldly effect: Continue reading →

Donna Jean’s Place — hope for helping 100 women a year rise from homelessness on Capitol Hill

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(Image: Operation Nightwatch)

The plan for growing a Capitol Hill women’s shelter began when Frank DiGirolamo of Operation Nightwatch and Rev. Steve Thomason, dean and rector of 10th Ave E’s St. Mark’s, met at a clergy dinner and shared their work with one another.

Operation Nightwatch has been active for 57 years and began through street canvassing efforts, which they continue to this day on Capitol Hill.

“We spend a lot of time listening and reminding people that they’re loved,” DiGirolamo told CHS. “We’re always responding to the needs we hear about from the people we visit.”

Thomason said St. Marks had been a site for women’s emergency shelter for over two decades, but then COVID-19 hit.

“It seemed the natural thing for us to consider again, even if it’s not a long-term solution for that location. We’re hoping that the City of Seattle and King County, all of the organizations that are committed to addressing the housing crisis, will be in a very different place three to four years from now than we currently are,” Thomason told CHS. Continue reading →

Operation Nightwatch a growing Capitol Hill presence with Broadway Street Ministry, plans for new emergency shelter at St. Mark’s

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An Operation Nightwatch volunteer (Image: Operation Nightwatch)

Capitol Hill’s St. Mark’s will add a new women’s emergency shelter facility from Operation Nightwatch as it moves forward with a plan for new affordable housing to be developed on its North Capitol Hill campus.

Plans filed with the city describe construction of a “limited use emergency shelter with 20 beds and limited hours of operation” in the 1950s-era addition to the 10th Ave E property’s landmarks-protected St. Nicholas building.

CHS reported here earlier this year on a planned development and adaptive reuse project envisioned to create more than 100 affordable homes in a transformation of the nearly 100-year-old building.

In the meantime, the new shelter from Operation Nightwatch will call the St. Nicholas addition home. Continue reading →

The Lakeview ‘wedge’ house, Egan House latest historic home to hit Capitol Hill-area real estate market

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Listing: “The Egan House, with its stark geometric shapes and sleek black & white color scheme unapologetically emphasizes its stand-out qualities. While some details (floating staircase, open volumes,…) were aligned with a formal Modernist approach, others were imbued with romance and an art-first attitude.”

Spring 2024 seems to be a good season for those in the market for landmark-worthy homes for sale around Capitol Hill for under $1 million. The historic Egan House is now for sale along Lakeview Blvd E below the St. Mark’s greenbelt for $995,000.

The 1959-built modernist wedge was designated an officially protected city landmark in 2009 about ten years after preservation advocacy group Historic Seattle acquired the property in a $240,000 transaction.

The group says selling the Egan House now out of its portfolio fits in with its history of preserving and respectfully developing and improving properties, leasing them to generate income, and, eventually, selling them to reinvest the proceeds in the organization and new opportunities: Continue reading →

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

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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 →

St. Mark’s northern Capitol Hill affordable housing plan would create new four-story twin to adaptive reuse of old St. Nicholas building

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A four-story addition would rise behind the old St. Nicholas building under the plan

(Image: City permit filings)

Capitol Hill’s next major affordable housing development may come on the holy ground of North Capitol Hill.

Early permit filings show a plan for a four-story adaptive reuse project with around 109 affordable apartment units in a development that would create a new twin to the landmarks-protected St. Nicholas building on the grounds of the St. Mark’s Cathedral along 10th Ave E.

CHS reported here in November on renewed efforts around the long-planned development effort as Saint Mark’s Episcopal Cathedral announced it received a $100,000 grant from Trinity Church Wall Street, an organization that helps churches and faith organizations fund feasibility and predevelopment costs.

For St. Mark’s, proceeds from the development would provide crucial funding while also furthering its social mission by providing much needed new affordable housing in the city. Continue reading →

Gage Academy hosts its final Drawing Jam before move off Capitol Hill

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(Image: Gage Academy)

By next summer, the Gage Academy of Art will have left Capitol Hill. CHS reported here on the planned move for the school after decades on the St. Mark’s campus as the church prepares for planned housing development on its 10th Ave E property.

This weekend might be a fitting time to stop in to say goodbye as Gage hosts its final Drawing Jame on Capitol Hill:

The annual event is a celebration of the school and brings “artists and art-lovers of all ages together to enjoy the simple act of putting hand to paper, using different locales, subjects and events to engage the public in observational drawing.”

The arts academy has its future lined out with an agreement to move next year into a South Lake Amazon office building where the 35-year-old school will become the ground-floor presence below floors of Amazon workers above.

 
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With Gage Academy move and new grant, St. Mark’s moves forward on plan to develop ‘multigenerational housing’ on its Capitol Hill campus — UPDATE

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(Image: St. Mark’s)

Gage Academy and Bright Water School are creating new futures off Capitol Hill as St. Mark’s moves closer to creating new, affordable “multigenerational housing” on its 10th Ave campus.

The long-planned development effort is starting to speed up. The Saint Mark’s Episcopal Cathedral announced it has received a $100,000 grant from Trinity Church Wall Street, an organization that helps churches and faith organizations fund feasibility and predevelopment costs. The boost will start new wheels turning on a mission at St. Mark’s to put its northern Capitol Hill land to use helping to address the housing and affordability crisis in the city.

St. Mark’s says the grant will span a six-month period through April 2024 and support the completion of key assessments of the St. Nicholas portion of its campus including financial feasibility, geotechnical surveys, environmental and historic building rehabilitation studies.

CHS reported here in 2020 on the future of the campus’s St. Nicholas building that had been home to Gage Academy and the Bright Water School. The private Waldorf school Bright Water already made its move off the Hill. Now arts academy Gage has its future lined out with an agreement to move into a South Lake Amazon office building where the 35-year-old school will become the ground-floor presence below floors of Amazon workers above next year.

UPDATE: CHS failed to include Amistad School in our initial report. The “two-way (Spanish/English) immersion school serving toddlers, Pre-K through 8th grade” has made the campus its home and remains active on 10th Ave E. We’ll follow up to learn more about the school’s long-term plans.

Continue reading →

Capitol Hill fall tradition the Seattle Weavers’ Guild sale returns to St. Mark’s

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(Image: CHS)

An October cold snap will definitely put you in the mood. It is time again for the Seattle Weavers’ Guild Annual Show & Sale at Capitol Hill’s St. Mark’s.

The annual fall event offers access to the “northwest’s largest selections of handcrafted, handwoven items, including apparel, accessories, kitchen linens, table linens, baskets, home decor, tapestries, rugs, gift items, jewelry and more.” All items are handmade by the guild’s hundreds of Seattle-area members.

But the best part is meeting the creators and watching their busy hands at work. Here’s a CHS classic visit to the sale nine years ago. We can assure you not a lot has changed.

The free event takes place Thursday 5 PM to 8 PM, Friday 10 AM to 8 PM and Saturday 10 AM to 4 PM in Bloedel Hall below St. Mark’s at 1245 10th Ave E.

You can learn more at swg-sale.com.

 
🐦‍⬛ $5 A MONTH TO HELP KEEP CHS PAYWALL-FREE

Subscribe to CHS to help hire writers and photographers to cover the neighborhood. CHS is a pay what you can community news site with no required sign-in or paywall. To stay that way, we need you. Become a subscriber to help us cover the neighborhood for $5 a month -- or choose your level of support 🐦‍⬛