Well, that lasted a month. @jseattle pic.twitter.com/9yzvjzhwjj
— Ryan Packer (@typewriteralley) May 7, 2019
Usually when CHS hears about a sad passing in the Capitol Hill food and drink economy, we try to check in to find out more about what was behind the closing. The story isn’t usually a surprise. Slow business. Redevelopment. Life changes.
But we don’t have much more to add than some fancy words to the tweets about the end of Summit Ave’s A La Vida. Continue reading
Change coming to Summit Ave (Image: Itto’s Tapas)
2018’s year of mergers and acquisitions in Capitol Hill food and drink has continued into 2019. Another new owner on the Hill is hoping to take the take over and transition route to food and drink success.
Manager Jody Claggett tells CHS he has purchased Summit Ave’s Itto’s Tapas from longtime owner Khalid Agour and will set about a quick transformation and overhaul of the restaurant and bar into a more Spanish flavored A La Vida.
Claggett said the name for the tapas, gin, and wine bar was inspired by a customer who turned him onto new music and a song about the joy of life.
“Everybody that I meet, it’s just a great conversation,” Claggett said of life behind the bar and the counter after a career in tech. Continue reading
Thanks guys! pic.twitter.com/BvAnSuQiW6
— Robert Dalton (@nudesmurf) January 19, 2019
Seattle City Light says a gust of wind and a party tent caused a power outage that briefly knocked out power to more than 4,000 customers across Capitol Hill on Saturday afternoon.
Saturday, around 1 PM, near Belmont at Republican, a canopy tent was reported on wires after falling from a nearby building. A City Light crew was dispatched and electricity was quickly restored to thousands with the final 1,000 back in power by 5 PM.
CHS has reported on a variety of causes for Hill blackouts over the years. Continue reading
The city’s new effort to give neighbors an earlier say in shaping neighborhood development is playing out with plans for a seven-story, 34-unit condominium project on Belmont Ave E.
Developer Real Wave Capital and architect Workshop AD have been collecting feedback and will hold a community meeting Thursday night at the Capitol Hill library starting at 4 PM.
“We want to hear from the community about what you want to see at this property,” the developers for the Belmont Z condos write. Continue reading
When it comes to Capitol Hill design reviews, we don’t usually mention the developer’s Instagram. But Yu Xiahou’s feed is pretty amazing. The design for his proposed Bellevue Court Apartments? We’ll find out what the board thinks soon.
Xiahou’s four-story, 43-unit proposal for the western edge of Capitol Hill just off Belmont Ave E with — one November 2017 post to his Instragram feed promises — Gasworks and Eastlake views is slated to come before the East Design Review Board Wednesday night:
A coalition of veteran preservation advocates and a relatively fresh-faced nonprofit dedicated to Capitol Hill history has won its first round in what is hoped might eventually be a series of victories establishing landmarks protections for important neighborhood buildings.
The Seattle Landmarks Board Wednesday night voted unanimously to approve the nomination of Capitol Hill’s 94-year-old Roy Vue “garden apartments” for protections of its historic exterior, interior and landscaping features. The 600 block Bellevue Ave E apartment building will now move forward in the process with the board set to make its final designation on the property in coming weeks.
Eugenia Woo of Historic Seattle praised the building’s “high level of integrity” and said it was crucial the Roy Vue be protected in its complete “garden apartment” vision “because the garden, the courtyard, and the building were integral to the whole design.”
The Roy Vue’s unique flipped “U” design with a garden courtyard sited away from the street is the equivalent of the “Seattle freeze” of the city’s historic buildings, one board member quipped, with a dignified wall facing Bellevue but a hidden jewel of a garden tucked away inside.
Bolstered by public comment from many of the Roy Vue’s current tenants in support of protecting the building they call home, the vote marked the first successful step in a collaboration between the Historic Seattle organization that has long been dedicated to preservation in the city and the Capitol Hill Historical Society as the neighborhood group made its first foray into the official landmarks fray. Continue reading
An effort to extend landmark protections to the Roy Vue building marks the Capitol Hill Historical Society’s first foray into preservation, but it won’t be the last.
“This is a sign of our involvement in the community,” said Rob Ketcherside, vice president of the society and a CHS contributor on Capitol Hill history. He said the nearly two-year-old group is hoping to do more such work, as long as members of the all-volunteer organization can find the time for it.
“It’s not about trying to control every property in the city. It’s about holding on to the heritage properties we have,” Ketcherside said. Continue reading
A coalition led by Historic Seattle and residents of Capitol Hill’s Roy Vue Apartments has put the Bellevue Ave E building up for consideration for Seattle landmarks protections.
A plan for to convert the building to microhousing was stopped by a campaign led by building tenants, neighbors, and preservation advocates earlier this year.
A second report on the 94-year-old “eclectic Tudor Revival” structure was prepared at the request of property owner Alliance Multifamily Investments, according to the document (PDF) posted to the Department of Neighborhoods landmarks site. That report from July is now labeled as a “Historic Resource Report.”
DoNormaal
The old Summit Block Party is all growed up. Now branded as the Mercer X Summit Block Party, the 2018 edition that took place Saturday in the streets in the middle of one of the most densely populated centers of Capitol Hill featured bigger acts, deeper pocketed sponsors (thanks KEXP), and, still, no admission. Continue reading
(Image: Sun Liquor)
Sun Liquor Lounge, the Capitol Hill bar that went on sale for just under $200,000 earlier this year, might have found a new owner in Andre Sayre, a 30-year-old tech worker taking a break to find a new avenue in life.
“I enjoy the community aspect of a little place that everyone knows and loves,” he tells CHS about the planned purchase of the bar. “I wanted to do what I can to keep it around.”
There aren’t a lot of changes planned for the Summit Ave watering hole, the last vestige of Sun Liquor’s presence on Capitol Hill. Not everything from the bar was included in the deal. When the sales goes through, the old space will have a new name — Sol Liquor. Continue reading
