City updates: 5020 California land use; Kenney street vacation

5020nightview.jpgFrom this morning’s Land Use Information Bulletin, just sent by the city: First, key land-use approvals have been granted for 5020 California SW, a 91-residential-unit/4,000-sf-retail project south of The Junction, once being developed as “Spring Hill” (rendering at right) by BlueStar, the original Fauntleroy Place (Whole Foods etc.) developers, then foreclosed on last year, as reported here. The decisions are linked here; the contact listed for a project is a representative of Shoreline Bank, which owned the site (home to three vacant multifamily buildings) at last report, and put it up for sale last fall (reported here). – we have a message out to ask if they plan on proceeding, but in the meantime, the city documentation notes that anyone interested in appealing the new decisions has until February 22nd – how to do that is explained here. (P.S., before you ask, nothing major new on the Whole Foods site, just a continually growing sheaf of legal documents in the ongoing lawsuit – 269 separate documents; we check the file frequently.) 11:35 AM UPDATE: Just talked to Shoreline Bank’s contact re: 5020 California. He says they are pursuing the permits while continuing to offer the property for sale; the bank does NOT intend to develop the site itself.

Also from the land-use bulletin: The city has officially received the street-vacation petition for 46th Place SW (Google Street View map), as part of The Kenneys redevelopment. That means it’s time for public comments. The petition, and comment process, are explained here, on the notice.

3 Replies to "City updates: 5020 California land use; Kenney street vacation"

  • ABH February 8, 2010 (4:02 pm)

    We live in the area (near Gatewood) and have been embarrassingly uninformed about this project… my fault for not keeping up better with this blog.

    After reading through the older posts in the blog, I’m interested in hearing thoughts of others in the neighborhood. It seems like very few people are bothered by this– or perhaps they are just in the dark, as I was? Would like to learn more from others who have been at some of these meetings/discussions.
    Thanks!

    • WSB February 8, 2010 (6:35 pm)

      ABH, I can’t really summarize people’s thoughts for you but I can point you two places – 1. The Morgan Community Association, if you’re not already involved with them http://morganjunction.org has been involved in arranging some discussions separate from the official public process, as well as updates at their meetings. 2. Just want to be sure that you found our archive category for all previous reports – this particular item wasn’t archived there but will be as soon as I check off the tag! This goes newest-to-oldest and includes stories dating all the way back to the very first preview we wrote when we learned the project was in the works and arranged an interview with The Kenney’s CEO Kevin McFeely:
      https://westseattleblog.com/category/the-kenney

  • ABH February 9, 2010 (11:56 am)

    Thank you very much! I will look into the Morgan Community Association.

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