West Seattle, Washington
25 Thursday
Alki Community Council president and city Parks Board vice chair Jackie Ramels tells WSB that acting Deputy Parks Superintendent Christopher Williams announced at tonight’s Parks Board meeting that the recast Statue of Liberty will be moved to the Alki Bathhouse next month, on an extremely meaningful date for the statue’s history … 9/11.
As mentioned below, tonight the Southwest Design Review Board took up – and spit out – the newest proposed design for a Petco store on the Charlestown Cafe site.
The meeting, in fact, started 15 minutes late, because of the architects’ tardiness. The project team “took a wrong turn,” we were told.
Eerily predictive, that turned out to be. Click ahead for a complete recap:Read More
No new news in it but we thought you might want to see the story just posted by the P-I.
Just back from three hours at the Southwest Design Review Board meeting on two WS projects — the headliner was the reworked design for the Petco store proposed to take over the Charlestown Cafe site — board members still have major concerns and are basically sending the new architects back to the drawing board for a third “Early Design Guidance” meeting (some projects only need one). Detailed report to come.
More information from the folks at the Admiral Theater about plans for its latest round of renovations, previously mentioned here and here. Biggest news: the Admiral’s Steve Garrett says they have the OK to reopen the theater’s long-closed balcony “once certain work is done” — but first, he says, they want to do some restoration work, including painting a mural in the balcony area, and they are looking for bids and proposals. Click ahead for a little more on that, including how to reach Steve if you want to bid, plus news of a prestigious premiere coming to the theater:Read More
Interesting quote from West Seattle’s Most Famous Politician in what The Big Blog says is an Esquire Magazine feature about “stylish” mayors (not available online so far as we can tell). We must admit, a decade and a half in WS but we have yet to find ourselves grocery-shopping at the same place and time as Hizzoner. (Did rub produce-browsing elbows with ex-police chief Norm Stamper once.) 9:47 PM UPDATE: Citizen Rain points us to examples of the mayor’s style in his online photo gallery, which is more up to date than many other parts of the city website – it actually has pix from his KIRO Radio guest appearance today. (And yet we couldn’t get timely, detailed city website updates during Windstorm ’06 …)
You may have read or heard something about a temporary traffic signal going in on the elevated portion of Spokane Street, better known as the last EB stretch of the West Seattle Bridge, formerly the West Seattle Freeway. We have doublechecked with WSDOT, which is working on traffic mitigation with SDOT, and they confirm for us that this is not so — quoting Erin Bogenschutz of WSDOT:
They are not removing any of the concrete barrier to allow eastbound vehicles on the elevated portion of Spokane Street to turn left to 4th Ave.
The City will install a new left turn signal for eastbound traffic on the ground-level of Spokane Street to turn left to 4th Ave. Currently, the signal prohibits left-turns. The new signal should be installed this afternoon.
Another example of how lucky we are to have diverse wildlife on the ground and in the air over West Seattle … WSB reader Luckie e-mailed us photos of woodpeckers she’d never seen around her house before. This one, we recognize as a pileated woodpecker; we see them occasionally, though Northern Flickers are more common. Seems they like ants; we’re plagued by more of those this year, so maybe that explains it.
Reminder for all our fellow bird fans, the West Seattle Birdcam is still going strong; you can check it out any time from our WS “Live” Cams page, and its operators have a photoblog, also accessible any time from our Other Blogs in WS page.
7:30 tonight @ Delridge Community Center, the West Seattle Skatepark Action Committee meets; WS-based city skatepark advocate Matt Johnston says it’s open to anyone wanting to join (or find out more about) a group of people “working hard to create safe public facilities for skateboarders in West Seattle, that respect the communities they are placed in, and provide healthy and active places for kids and big kids to enjoy this popular sport.” (You can read more about where WS falls into the Citywide Skatepark Plan here.)
The newest numbers, courtesy of the office of West Seattle’s County Councilmember Dow Constantine, show quite the ridership boom for the Elliott Bay Water Taxi this year: July had 36,885 passengers, up 20% from last year; total ridership for this entire Water Taxi season was at 88,336 as of the start of this month, a 27% increase from the same period in ’06. From here on out, comparisons will be more complicated, since as we first told you last month, the WT’s capacity got a big boost in time for Freeway Fright ’07. All the same, this bodes well for efforts to make it year-round and get it a new home.
9 am to noon today, 710 AM on your radio (streaming online too), Hizzoner will become the latest guest host to fill in for KIRO Radio’s vacationing Dave Ross. We would suggest calling in with questions, but looking at his all-star guest list, we suspect he won’t have time.
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