West Seattle, Washington
29 Friday
Just got word from Sara Corn at Safeway regional HQ that the date’s set for the public meeting at which the company promised it would unveil full details of the proposed Admiral Safeway project before its Southwest Design Review Board meeting: That public meeting is now set for 7-9 pm September 18th at Hiawatha Community Center (one week before the SWDRB will consider the design).
Less than a week ago, we reported the Southwest Design Review Board told the developers of the 35th/Graham (map) mixed-use project it needed some work, so they’d have to come back for a second round of “early design guidance.” (WSB coverage here) Today, the city website shows the date for that has just been set – it’s been added to the agenda for September 11, which already had the next review for Spring Hill (BlueStar‘s mixed-use building at 5020 California, south of The Junction). Both projects will be reviewed that night at Hiawatha Community Center — 5020 California SW at 6:30 pm, 3420 SW Graham at 8 pm.
Obviously the name of this almost-done condo complex on the north edge of The Junction (just north of this site) has to do with the nearest cross-street; nonetheless, it was an odd coincidence that we noticed the sign for the first time while the car radio was playing a John Lennon-co-authored Beatles song.
That cupola at The Kenney, the century-old senior-care complex in Fauntleroy, is a West Seattle landmark. As part of the major redevelopment project that The Kenney is planning, the building it’s part of will be demolished – but hold on, the cupola’s not going away. WSB obtained extensive details of the proposed project, just as The Kenney starts applying for city permits (its project page is now online here) and rolling out the plan to residents, neighbors, and community groups. Read on to find out about the big changes in the works:Read More
Got a note with this photo, saying a demolition crew took down 4103 SW Edmunds (kitty-corner from the southeast side of Jefferson Square) today. As we’d reported previously, townhouses are planned for the site.
The concerns about the two major mixed-use (part residential, part commercial) projects on the Southwest Design Review Board‘s agenda last night were similar – particularly, how the projects will affect pedestrian flow once they’re built. But the results were quite different; one project is finally at the end of the process, while the other is just beginning what could be a long journey. Our full report, ahead:Read More
We first told you two weeks ago about some Junction businesses’ petition campaign against Conner Homes‘ request for the city to “vacate” that stretch of the alley between 42nd and California, south of Alaska, so that land under the alley can be included in the underground parking garage for its two-building development. (Read our original report here; read developer Charlie Conner‘s next-day “letter to the community” here.) Opponents including Elliott Bay Brewery and Liberty Bell Printing have continued to gather petition signatures, and the Junction Neighborhood Organization has posted the petition as well; now there’s word that the city’s deadline for comments on the request has now been extended to September 15. That of course means comments in support of it as well as against it; you can comment directly to Moira Gray at SDOT, which is reviewing the request, at moira.gray@seattle.gov. The project itself, meantime, is still in the design-review process. Here’s our coverage of the most recent meeting, in late May; the city has not yet posted a date for the next one.
Full report to come, but here’s the headline version: The two meetings (“early design guidance” for 35th/Graham High Point mixed-use project, “recommendations” for revised Fauntleroy Place) together lasted 3 1/2 hours. Results: High Point project (see the presentation) needs work, must come back for second round of “early design guidance”; FP (see the presentation) can advance to permit stage but with some tweaks. Details later.
Top to bottom, those are the views of Fauntleroy Place‘s proposed new design – its east side facing 39th SW, west side and southwest corner along 40th SW, and its south side along SW Alaska. Site work has been under way for weeks now but the project’s back in Design Review because of changes; tonight’s Southwest Design Review Board meeting is at 8 pm at High Point Community Center (here’s a map), and the PDF of the presentation is on the city website now (see it here). It’s preceded by the 6:30 “early design guidance” meeting for the mixed-use building proposed in High Point at 35th/Graham; the presentation for that project is not online as of this writing .
Two notes regarding proposed projects that the Southwest Design Review Board will consider in public meetings coming up this month and next: First, a change — The 9/11 date we first mentioned last week for the Admiral Safeway (photo above; the rendering for the new proposal is to be released at a community meeting sometime in the next few weeks) rebuild project has just been moved to 9/25, per the city’s Design Review-Upcoming page; on that night, after the Safeway project at 6:30 pm, it’s the next review for the Harbor Properties project at 38th/Alaska, both meetings at the Southwest Precinct. Meantime, here’s what’s on design reviewers’ agenda this Thursday night:
On Thursday, two major projects are on the Southwest Design Review Board agenda – the newest design for Fauntleroy Place (above, the most recent publicly released rendering) at 8 pm; the 35th/Graham High Point mixed-use project at 6:30 pm, both meetings at High Point Community Center. Chip Marshall from Lowe Enterprises, which is developing the HP project, gave WSB a tiny bit of a sneak peek today regarding the commercial part of the project:
At this point the commercial is only in the very rudimentary planning stages. It will be along 35th and a portion of Graham street with a public plaza space in-between at the junction of the two streets.
Of course we are at the mercy of what end users will want to locate there, but we believe that given its location on a busy street as well as being the gateway to High Point that it should be attractive to a number of potential tenants.
We have had a meeting with High Point residents and they expressed interest in a coffee shop, some form of food related business that could also serve as a community meeting place, a restaurant as well as possible live work spaces, all of which we are open to.
When last we checked in on the proposal to “upzone” California Avenue between Hanford and Hinds, and a bit further south on the west side of the street (city map at left) — first reported here nine months ago — city planners told us in mid-June that they were “writing the recommendation.” Now, almost two more months have gone by, while the signs and notices posted along that stretch of California SW continue to fade in the summer sun, so we called the city today to see where in the pipeline that recommendation might be. According to Bryan Stevens in the city planning department, the decision “should be published at the end of the month. Due to the complexity of the issues and the analysis that must occur, it’s not uncommon for a rezone request to take 10-12 months before it goes to Council.” (That refers to the City Council approval that would be required for a zoning change; a Hearing Examiner hearing would be scheduled after the recommendation is published, too.) If you missed the original round of reports on this, our coverage is archived newest to oldest here; the official city webpage for information on the proposal is here.
Two weeks into serious work at the Fauntleroy Place site (current status: big dirt piles, as seen above), we checked as promised with developers BlueStar this morning to ask if the Whole Foods trouble has led to any concern for them about the grocery chain’s participation in the project (mentioned here last night). BlueStar’s Eric Radovich says no — “We have a lease that’s signed and recorded” — 25 years — and adds that they’ve been working closely with Whole Foods in recent weeks to finalize the design, looking ahead to next week’s Design Review Board meeting (8 pm 8/14, High Point Community Center). He adds that Whole Foods is considering the design for this store to be something of a template for their next generation of stores.
Posted tonight on the P-I site – trouble for Whole Foods, which says it’ll be scaling back but doesn’t specify how. We’ll check with Fauntleroy Place developer BlueStar in the morning to see if they’ve received any assurances the project here won’t be affected. (The next project update was expected a week from Thursday, when the newest design for Fauntleroy Place is to go before the Southwest Design Review Board, 8 pm 8/14 @ High Point Community Center.)
Followup to the new development we reported yesterday in the plan to rebuild Admiral Safeway (new store plus 34 residential units, according to the city project page): We mentioned, we had a message out to corporate HQ to ask if a rendering of the proposed project is available, and now we have a response: Not yet, says Safeway’s Sara Corn, but she promises it will be unveiled at a community meeting before the Design Review Board “early design guidance” session for the project on September 11th. As soon as Safeway sets the date for that community meeting, you’ll see it here, as well as other places including posters at the store.
Just added today to the city’s Design Review/Upcoming schedule: The September 11th meeting of the Southwest Design Review Board now includes the first “early design guidance” session for the proposal to redevelop the Admiral Safeway site. This has been under discussion for a while, as we first reported last February (then in April, this WSB post asked for your thoughts about the site); the city’s official project page includes this overview of what’s being proposed:
Design review, early design guidance meeting for two new buildings; a one story, 58,750 sq.ft. grocery store (Safeway) with a four story, 34-unit residential structure attached and a one story, 7,000 sq.ft. retail building. Parking for 227 vehicles to be located on the roof and at grade. Project will require alley vacations and contract rezone. Existing 32,000 sq.ft. grocery store to be demolished.
The architects on the project page are Seattle-based Fuller-Sears; you can see some of their work at their website. The design-review meeting is set for 8 pm Sept. 11 at a TBA location in West Seattle; we’d mentioned earlier that the Spring Hill mixed-use building south of The Junction (5020 California) was already on the agenda that night (6:30 pm). We’ve got a message out to Safeway to see if any renderings for this proposal are available yet.
When we published this WSB story yesterday afternoon about some Junction businesspeople circulating petitions opposing the alley “vacation” proposed by Conner Homes for its California/Alaska/42nd buildings, we promised to share any response from Conner Homes as soon as we received it. So here’s the entirety of a letter e-mailed to WSB a short time ago:
August 1, 2008
Dear Neighbors,
We are aware that some of you are concerned about our proposed development at the junction of Alaska and California Streets.
Please be assured that it has always been our intention to build a project that enhances the Junction. We have tried to keep the community aware of our plans and, to this end, have already had a number of group and individual meetings to update residents and merchants as they have progressed. We will continue to do so.
However, if any of you feel that we have been remiss on this score, we will be happy to meet with you either in a group or separately, so please feel to contact me or Project Manager, James Miller directly and we will set something up.
I understand that many of you are concerned about the impact of the development on overall parking in the area as well as the effects of our proposed alley vacation.
In terms of parking, we want to make it clear that our development will INCREASE the number of parking spaces available to the public. The number of surface spaces will remain roughly the same and there will be a considerable amount of new parking for retail created in our proposed underground garage. As a result the current parking congestion will be lessened.
We have also heard that there are worries that our development will somehow lead to the development of the public parking lots owned by the West Seattle Trustees Parking Association. We do not know how this rumor got started but it is completely false. Our development will have absolutely no effect on these lots and as a member of the Association we are not aware of any plans to develop these lots.
As far as the alley vacation we are confident that this will be a real plus for the abutting owners representing the majority of the properties along the alley have supported it. Still we appreciate the concerns of some merchants about possible disruption to their business and we want to assure them that we will work directly with them to come up with a solution (turnarounds etc.) to mitigate those impacts.
We do want to be clear that this is not a permanent alley vacation but only temporary to allow completion of the underground garage. Once this process is complete (in around 10-12 months) the alley will be restored to a much improved condition.
Specifically, the overhead wires will be under grounded, the alley will be widened and pedestrian friendly amenities will be added. These mitigations, along with a pedestrian walkway between 42nd Street and California will make the alley a real asset to the community overall.
As an additional mitigation we have also agreed to commit substantial funds to getting the proposed public park across the street from our property off the ground to the benefit of all residents and merchants in the area.
It should be noted that the two large developments underway in the area will be completed before we begin construction so that overall disruption to the community will not increase.
Finally, we firmly believe that a quality development in this location will improve the Junction, both in terms of housing and new retail opportunities for all West Seattle residents, as well as provide increased business activity for existing merchants.
As long term owners of the property we are fully committed to improving the Junction and welcome any opportunity to work with you to achieve this end.
Thank you for your attention and we look forward to working with you to make this a project we can all be proud of.
Sincerely,
Charlie Conner
James Miller
Connerhomes.com
425-455-9280
That’s the alley stretching south from Alaska, between 42nd and California (Rocksport on one side, Super Supplements on the other). The company that wants to build a two-building development on both sides of that alley has just filed its formal request for “vacation” of that alley, in order to build one underground parking garage (including land that’s under the alley surface) to serve both buildings. SDOT review and City Council approval are required, and this afternoon, representatives of several Junction businesses and the West Seattle Junction Association told WSB they want you to help them fight against approval of that request. If it’s granted, they say, the alley will be closed for at least a year – and they say that will kill the businesses that rely on alley access for deliveries. Read on to find out about the action they want you to take if you support their campaign — and to get more details on exactly what is happening here:Read More
On the sixth day of demolition, the old Schuck’s/Hancock building is finally all gone:
That’s the view from 40th, looking east toward Fauntleroy/Alaska; here’s the front view from 39th (note you can see straight through to Bank of America):
And the giant pile of wood debris has now morphed into this giant pile of wood chips:
One more demolition note, on a separate project – thanks to “Chuck and Sally’s Van Man” for the tip that the 6053 California (at Graham) demolition is actually proceeding from the alley side – couldn’t get close enough for a good look but the dumpster tells the tale (as does the sun dappling through the yellow paper covering the California-fronting windows):
You can see a rendering of the future 6053 California development here; you can see the latest design proposal for Fauntleroy Place (which goes to design review 8/14) here.
First: The demolition work at the ex-Hancock/Schuck’s/future Fauntleroy Place site at Alaska/39th/Fauntleroy is in its second week, and as we’ve mentioned, it’s proceeded more slowly than many such jobs because so much of the old building is being recycled. This morning, en route back to WSB HQ from the Alki Car-Free Day announcement (report #1 here; report #2 in the works), we caught that photo of a grinder helping take care of the biggest pile, the wood debris. Second: We have word from Amy Lee Derenthal at The Kenney that: “We’re the first retirement community to join the Seattle Climate Partnership — the city’s arm to help employers reduce pollution that harms the planet.” She sends this photo:
That’s The Kenney’s facilities director Daniel Casey with Eva Nieto from the Dining Services staff. Food-waste recycling is part of what The Kenney is doing as part of its “greening,” along with using paper towels made from recycled fiber, switching to compact fluorescent light bulbs, and implementing energy-conservation measures such as turning off computer equipment at night. Casey is using a special database to track The Kenney’s “carbon footprint”; he also says the facility is looking at possibly installing solar-power features on the roofs of new buildings in the redevelopment project that’s coming up within the next few years (potentially doubling residential capacity, which is now at 180).
As demolition proceeds on the 39th/Alaska/Fauntleroy ex-Schuck’s (etc.), the project on the site of the ex-Schuck’s that was knocked down seven months ago at California/Charlestown (WSB coverage, with video, here) is close to completion. It’s been six weeks since our last update, so we just checked back this morning with the leasing agent for Charlestown Center, Joe Beynon, who says he can reveal two of the businesses that are going in — Anytime Fitness is leasing two-thirds of the top floor, a hair salon called Budget Cuts is leasing part of the first floor. Who else is moving in? Beynon says he’s “not at liberty to disclose that” just yet. The spaces will be turned over to tenants on August 7th.
At day’s end, when the heavy-equipment operators parked their rigs for the night, that’s what was still left at the future site of Fauntleroy Place — a massive mountain of debris, and the shell of the ex-Schuck’s/Hancock Fabrics building’s east-facing facade. Crews started tearing into the building around 10:40 this morning, as we showed you here; we checked back around mid-afternoon for another video clip — the progress here was coming from inside the building (keep an eye on the background for chunks falling down, especially one pulled from up top about a minute into the clip):
So there’s more work to do tomorrow. And as mentioned before, the newest Fauntleroy Place design gets a public hearing before the Southwest Design Review Board at 8 pm August 14th (two weeks from Thursday), at High Point Community Center.
(video no longer available due to Blip.tv shutdown)
WSB was there about 10 minutes ago as the backhoes finally started tearing up the former Hancock Fabrics/Schuck’s building at Alaska/Fauntleroy/39th that will be the site of Fauntleroy Place (Whole Foods, a new Hancock store, and almost 200 apartments). Demolition work at the site started last week and has proceeded relatively slowly because crews have cleared a lot of recyclable material from the interior. (Video added 11:43 am.)
Just out of the WSB inbox from “d“:
I wish I had had a camera with me this AM –
About 9, I was leaving the vet clinic across the street from the [Mural, ex-Petco parking lot] construction crane area and heard a baby eagle SCREAMING! It was perched at the end of the huge yellow crane – no mom in sight. I was so distracted by it as I drove by peering through my open roof that a construction guy yelled down to me to watch where I was driving! When I stopped and told him what I was looking at a few of the other construction guys gave me the impression that the eaglet has been hanging out there. Seems odd, but actually the crane has the same rough configuration of bare snags that eagles like to hunt from. I don’t know if the little guy (not so little actually) will be there again, but maybe folks could keep an eye out for it.
It was a VERY loud baby bird – probably calling on mom, as usual. :)
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