18 Replies to "West Seattle development: Views of the old and the new"

• Sara October 23, 2014 (7:16 pm)

  Just hate it. Three stories would have been fine/great. But now that it’s winter you can really see the shadows that it casts as the sun sets more southerly. The approach from the east really showcases the issue. Very sad about this. Goodbye sunlight in the junction. My husband calls it the “Rentonization” of West Seattle. Apologies to proud Renton residents.

• CB October 23, 2014 (7:40 pm)

  Never thought I’d see that “den of thieves” torn down. Good riddance… West Seattle moves onward and upward.

• notarty October 23, 2014 (7:48 pm)

  the california ave bldg is so not special.

  blah. blah. blah building.

• Chas Redmond October 23, 2014 (8:00 pm)

  I’ve been torn between calling this the “Ballardization” of West Seattle or the “Rooseveltifiction” of West Seattle. They both seem to have a slight ring to them. The most changed so far is the old Leary Ave south of Market in Ballard, though 20th Ave NW and California Ave SW are probably a close second. Roosevelt has undergone so many changes over so many decades that it’s “sorta” expected of that very fine corridor.

• WSobserver October 23, 2014 (8:41 pm)

  I can hardly believe that The Hole is no more. Doesn’t seem real, like that building is a mirage.

• Plf October 23, 2014 (11:44 pm)

  Hate hate hate it
  The junction and west seattle has lost all character and charm
  Traffic, crime, continue to escalate
  Developers who have no ties to our community, we could have taken some lessons from portland
  I for one after 40 years can’t wait to get the heck out of dodge,
  Future generations will be ashamed of what we allowed on our watch

• John October 24, 2014 (7:34 am)

  @Pif,
  Such hate and reckless disregard for facts, the Junction has “lost all character and charm” -what about the entire two west side blocks of California that remain unchanged? and crime is down, not up, just reporting of crime is up.
  –
  Good bye and good luck in finding your own untouched Mayberry.

• fiz October 24, 2014 (8:45 am)

  Ugly color.

• It's a city! October 24, 2014 (10:09 am)

  I love it. Good for the economy, good for business, and I know I’ll probably get kicked out of West Seattle for daring to say this, but I like current architecture and I’m glad housing has advanced far beyond things like City Watch and Jefferson Square. And I am not at all nostalgic for the run-down Petco building with its long blank wall on California or the blighted vacant car lots.
  I’m sick and tired all to those who whine about “ballardization” or “roosiveltification” or whatever nonsense term the haters want to make up. To go around insulting other neighborhoods while presenting no ideas of your own is lame and pointless.
  There is no magical place out there that never changes and never grows and will always always always be your personal idea of perfect. That’s not reality. Growth is good, and I’m happy we’re getting some of it here. And spare me the nonsense about WS being “destroyed” or “ruined” or whatever. I love it here, I love that it’s a growing neighborhood, and it irks me that so many comment here just to say how much they hate my neighborhood.

• John October 24, 2014 (12:40 pm)

  Thank you “it’s a city”.
  –
  West Seattle has become a vibrant community with an array of foods and services never seen here before. Our new density, the people who choose West Seattle and move into our new housing are the ones that make much of this possible.
  –
  I understand Seattle’s new district election is approaching with our local pols vying to establish themselves, but please lets not Balkanize our city.

• WSFoodie October 24, 2014 (2:08 pm)

  I love all the growth in West Seattle, and think the new buildings are and will be an improvement on what was there before them. I just wish parking would have grown as much as occupancy.

• Vincent Dakotah Langley October 24, 2014 (3:42 pm)

  By now my long-time room-mate and I have watched the old Huling Brothers Chevrolet Dealership building on West Seattle’s Fauntleroy Way, S.W. be torn down over this past week. We have watched all of this from our apartment right across the street from it, to the south of it.

  I wonder about some people who get on here with a screen name only and they have so much to say about the fact they are so glad and happy that things are changing here in the West Seattle area. With this, I just want to say that I, too, am REALLY very glad and happy that some things are FINALLY beginning to change here in the West Seattle area — and, I am also more than happy to get onto this West Seattle Blog and say that same thing, with my real name “signed” to it!

  I’ve only been on computers since 2008 (I never had a computer or access to one before that) and, on the computer — on any website — I have never “hidden my own identity” behind any screen names, not for any reason or reasons, at all.

  I first came to the West Seattle area in 1974 (at that time I lived on S.W. 45th Avenue, just a couple of houses off from Erskine Way), and, back then, I didn’t really much like the fact that there wasn’t a whole lot over here in the West Seattle area, such as any of the so-called “big box” stores and the like. However, this, with me, is pretty much because, for most-all of my adult life, I have been nearly a 100% housebound person for medical reasons and, for the same reasons, I have never been able to own or drive any motor vehicles. So, hardly ever being able to get much of anywhere in the first place, I trust that you can simply see why I, in particular, have always kind of thought that there isn’t a whole lot of “convenience”, anyway, over here in the West Seattle area — at least, compared to many other areas.

  I do love the local businesses around the West Seattle area and I know that many of them have been here for many, many years — through generations of the same family owning them and operating them, even! That is so very nice! Unfortunately, though, I can almost-never patronize any of these local businesses simply because I am a person on a rather low, fixed monthly income. Sometimes I wish that I could patronize them and by that be giving them my business, however, I’m stuck home so much of the time, just unable to go out anywhere, that I guess that it doesn’t matter that I’m not out there, shopping and so-forth, locally. I DO admire all of these local West Seattle businesses, though — and the fact that they have stayed in business for so long, as they have done! Where I live down here on Fauntleroy Way, S.W., for years now I have had to do just about all of my shopping on-line, having things that I buy delivered right to my home. This, again, is basically because of my lack of transportation, to otherwise be able to get things home that I do buy. I don’t really much like that, though — just the very idea of my not much being able to shop locally, right in the area where I live.

  My long-time room-mate and I are very probably going to have to leave this West Seattle area before too much longer into the future now. This is because rents are getting so high here, pretty much. Where we live, our rent has gone way, way up in the time that we have lived here. We don’t know where we will go, where we can still continue to afford to live. However, certainly not Ballard and certainly not Seattle’s Roosevelt neighborhood or area!

  You people of this West Seattle area, with all of this new construction and the like going on around your local area here, things will only get better for you that what they are now. This is basically how I feel about it all — just speaking for myself, anyway.

  …Those buildings right across S.W. Edmunds Street from us (the old Chevrolet dealer and
  so-forth), they have been “home” (by way of
  break-in, or, in another word, burglary) to many “people?” who are acute alcoholics and drug addicts, “doing” drugs such as heroin, “meth” and other so-called “hard-core” drugs like that, over there. It has all made for this neighborhood down here where we live a really very dangerous and just plain “DIRTY” neighborhood, indeed! It seems that no-body here in this West Seattle area EVER speak of any of this, however, many of those chemically-dependent “people?” that I am speaking of here are the same people that you see up on the streets of West Seattle, selling that certain newspaper that is known as “Real Change”. All that they sell that paper for is to get their next round of alcohol to drink and to get, say, their next heroin “fix”! My room-mate and I know this simply because we have known, out here on the streets of this West Seattle area, many of these “people?”, who are homeless and they drink all of this alcohol and “do” these so-called “street drugs”, all the time. We would very much like to help them somehow, however, they make a game out of all of that with other people around them in life and, if you want to try to help them like we have, they will only lie to you about everything and gladly TAKE YOU, for as much of your money that they can get — and that’s all that they care about! So, with at least some of these “people?” finally having to move on and go somewhere else, in this respect the West Seattle area will be getting to be a better place than what it is now. We’ve seen so many people around West Seattle fall for these chemically-dependent people — and, many of the same people fall for them, time and time again! …It’s REALLY very sad, we feel.

• Kyle October 25, 2014 (10:23 am)

  We’ll that was a refreshingly interesting WSB comment by Vincent! Thanks for telling like it is!

• Vincent Dakotah Langley October 25, 2014 (4:36 pm)

  Thank you, Kyle! Certain things around this West Seattle area have ALWAYS been on the “hush-hush”.
  I don’t know why, really. However, anyway, I noticed that when I first came here in 1974. I didn’t much like it then, so, at that time, I left here for Bremerton, Washington in Kitsap County and I then lived in a dormatory room over there, at Olympic College, where I went to college at that time. I didn’t return to the West Seattle area until 1999 and it’s much the same “on the hush-hush” thing over here, still. I’m mostly in (housebound), though, so I don’t get exposed to much of it, any longer. …Sometimes I THANK GOD that I’m for the most part housebound like I am!

• AlkiGrl October 25, 2014 (6:32 pm)

  Yuck.

• Vincent Dakotah Langley October 25, 2014 (8:28 pm)

  Yuck? That’s a nice comment here! That place down the street from us — the place that everybody was calling “the hole” for a while, because that’s what it was, a big, rather deep hole — located at the corner of Fauntleroy Way, S.W. and S.W. Alaska Street? You know the place. Well, anyway, for several years around here (in this
  Fauntleroy Way, S.W. and S.W. Alaska Street area), many people kept saying that the State of Washington was soon going to be building a minimum security state prison in that location and that, during the day, level 1 sex offenders were going to be out on the streets around here, walking the streets and frequenting the local area businesses all day, every day. For a time, at least, we didn’t know what to think, my long-time room-mate and myself. We had to just simply figure, well, the State of Washington must know what they are doing! We’ve heard so much “YUCK!” down here for many of the years that we’ve lived here now, we’ve just about ‘had it’ with all of this — and, THAT’S YUCK! The only place where we’re now finding accurate information about things going on around the West Seattle area, finally, is right here on the West Seattle Blog and in the West Seattle Herald newspaper.

  I’m getting off from here now and just reading because I guess that I’ve said enough on here. It HAS been my experience in the past, anyway, that perhaps NO-ONE around the West Seattle area wants to hear any of this that I know of and write some of, anyway. So, “I’m gone.”

• G October 25, 2014 (8:49 pm)

  I’m not sure about the whole gist of your comments, Vincent, but you’re right about the “hush, hush” mentality in West Seattle. Feels like junior high school on a larger scale, and yes, it is quite odd.

• Vincent Dakotah Langley October 25, 2014 (9:58 pm)

  “G”, there is no “gist” (I don’t know what that word means) to what I’ve written here other than my
  long-time room-mate and I, we have grown really very weary of so many people around us here in this West Seattle area just plain lieing to us all the time about what is going on around here, in the way of all of the new construction and whatever, in the area.
  Anyway, I already said that I’m off from here for now — so, as I said before, “I’m gone.”
  I do thank you really very much for your comment to me and you have a nice night! Peace be with you!

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