7:54 AM: Thanks for the tip. A downed tree is causing trouble on W. Marginal approaching the onramp for the 1st Av S Bridge.

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6:07 AM Good morning!

WEATHER

More intermittently rainy weather – breezy – high in the 40s.

BRIDGE FYI

Emergency training – potentially including “fake smoke” – will be happening on the high bridge the next two mornings, as noted here.

BUSES, WATER TAXI, FERRIES

Metro is on its regular weekday schedule. Watch @kcmetrobus for word of trip cancellations.

Ferries and Water Taxi: WSF is still running a two-boat schedule on the Fauntleroy-Vashon-Southworth run. Check here for alerts/updates. The Water Taxi is on its regular schedule.

BRIDGES AND DETOUR ROUTES

625th morning without the West Seattle Bridge. Here are views of other bridges and routes:

Low Bridge: Automated enforcement cameras remain in use; restrictions are in effect 5 am-9 pm daily – except weekends; the bridge is open to all until 8 am Saturday and Sunday mornings. (Access applications are available here for some categories of drivers.)

The 1st Avenue South Bridge (map):

South Park Bridge:

West Marginal Way at Highland Park Way:

Highland Park Way/Holden:

The 5-way intersection (Spokane/West Marginal/Delridge/Chelan):

Are movable bridges opening for vessels? The @SDOTBridges Twitter feed can tell you; 1st Ave. South Bridge openings are also tweeted on @wsdot_traffic.

See all local traffic cams here; locally relevant cameras are also on this WSB page.

Trouble on the streets/paths/bridges/water? Please let us know – text (but not if you’re driving!) 206-293-6302.

6:08 AM: Good morning, Today’s forecast is for the same weather pattern we’ve been seeing – the sunniest weather will be in the afternoon.

ROAD WORK

Delridge project – As announced, 7 am today is the scheduled start of the closure of SW Genesee west of Delridge, continuing through the weekend. See the new detour map here.

36th/Oregon – The repair work is done and this stretch of street is expected to reopen sometime this morning. (UPDATE: It reopened at 7:30 am, SDOT says.)

Alaska/44th – More work on westbound Alaska this weekend, starting early Saturday.

TRANSIT

Buses and ferries are on their regular schedules today. Watch @kcmetrobus for word of bus cancellations, @wsferries for major WSF changes.

BRIDGES AND DETOUR ROUTES

473rd morning without the West Seattle Bridge. Here are the views of other bridges and routes:

Low Bridge: 26th week for automated enforcement cameras; restrictions are in effect 5 am-9 pm daily – except weekends, when the bridge is open to all until 8 am Saturday and Sunday mornings. (Access applications are available for some categories of drivers.)

West Marginal Way at Highland Park Way:

Highland Park Way/Holden:

The 5-way intersection (Spokane/West Marginal/Delridge/Chelan):

And the 1st Avenue South Bridge (map):

For the South Park Bridge (map), here’s the nearest camera:

Are draw/swing bridges opening for boats or barges? See the @SDOTBridges Twitter feed. (1st Ave. South Bridge openings also are tweeted on @wsdot_traffic.)

See all local traffic cams here; locally relevant cameras are also on this WSB page.

Trouble on the streets/paths/bridges/water? Please let us know – text (but not if you’re driving!) 206-293-6302.

(SDOT MAP with travel times/ Is the ‘low bridge’ closed? LOOK HERE/ West Seattle-relevant traffic cams HERE)

6:58 AM: Good morning! No traffic or transit alerts for our area so far.

The long-awaited West Seattle Trader Joe’s at 4545 Fauntleroy Way SW opens at 8 am. Mark says he got there at 4:30 am to be the first person in line. As of about quarter till 7, when we photographed him in the golden glow of the rising sun, Mark was the only person in line. He tells us first thing he’s buying is a case of the famous TJ’s wine, known by its nickname “Two-Buck Chuck.” More coverage to come – we’ll be adding to this story through the day.

7:59 AM: By the time the doors were about to open, Mark had been joined by about two dozen others:

8:12 AM: Our crew tells us the store actually opened a few minutes early. Here’s the ceremonial lei-cutting:

So, no traffic jam at this hour. We’ll check back later.

10:14 AM UPDATE: Thanks for sharing first-hand reports in the comment section! We also got a mural photo, shared via Twitter by Jose:

11:07 AM UPDATE: Three hours into Day 1, we drove back by to check traffic/parking. In a word: Busy. Here’s the view looking south down 39th SW – just west of the store (and on the left of our photo, you’ll see the entrance/exit to TJ’s roof parking) – this was taken before 11 am, so West Seattle Bowl wasn’t even open yet:

4:53 PM UPDATE: Drove by within the past hour. Still busy. Remember that if it looks like there’s no parking in the lot that faces Fauntleroy, turn right at “The Hole” and try the upstairs parking, entrance on the right (east) side of 39th SW.

11:41 PM NOTE: In the final hours of the store’s first day, business was really booming. We walked through around 7:30 and noticed long checkout lines; after we tweeted a mention of that, @juyeda – also in the store – tweeted this photo. And we forgot to mention one thing – this store has just officially applied for its license to sell liquor when privatization takes full effect June 1st.

Trader Joe’s has finally officially “announced” the opening date of its West Seattle store – the same one reported last month, April 13th, now on their store-locator webpage.

Meantime, a few more views of the new store – starting with the murals, which Diane pointed out in the WSB Forums night before last, noting that they are easily visible from the street.

We have asked TJ’s repeatedly, through both local management and corporate PR, for permission to go into the store and take pictures, and it’s been repeatedly denied; they say there will be no media previews, period. But at least we can show you what is visible from the street since their windows are huge and uncovered. Above, one mural shows the Alki Lighthouse (and check out the Water Taxi on the left!); we’ve been trying to guess the next one, mostly out of sight behind the light fixtures and sign (Fauntleroy Schoolhouse?):

Meantime, we are getting recurring questions about the parking situation. What you might not realize is that the surface lot – which has an entrance at 38th/Fauntleroy south/east of, and separate from, the exit onto Fauntleroy – is only part of it.

There’s also upstairs parking; J. Hughes Construction, Inc., is working on finishing touches this morning. This too has separate entrances and exits, both off 39th SW (south of West Seattle Bowl and across the street from “The Hole”) – here’s the entrance:

And just north is the exit:

Store hours, according to the TJ’s website, will be 8 am-9 pm. And if somehow this is the first you are hearing of all this and you don’t know where the store is – 4545 Fauntleroy Way SW. It’s been 21 months since the company announced it had leased the former Huling Brothers Buick site, P.S. We’ve added two additional photos to our “West Seattle Trader Joe’s” board on Pinterest.

(Photo by WSB editor Tracy Record)
Eight days ago, we showed you the first “signage sighting” at the soon-to-open West Seattle Trader Joe’s, as banners appeared on the construction fence, including “Now Hiring.” (Our February 29th story includes info on how to apply.) Driving past the site at 4545 Fauntleroy in The Triangle a few minutes ago, we spotted crews putting up the permanent signage. Projected opening date remains April 13th (no official corporate HQ announcement yet, so there’s always a chance it might change.)

SATURDAY NOTE: We have since photographed the second and third signs – you’ll find them on the WSB Facebook page.

First sighting of signage at the almost-ready West Seattle Trader Joe’s (4545 Fauntleroy Way SW) – ‘now accepting applications’ and ‘now hiring’ banners. Though neither wants to be identified, two sources reiterate to WSB that April 13th continues to be the target opening date.

12:51 P.S. – The jobs are NOT yet listed on the TJ’s website (though you can download a generic company job application) – driving by a second time, we noticed a small posting next to the banner, so we’re going over to see what it says. (If anybody from TJ’s sees this – the WSB Forums offer free listings for West Seattle jobs – available to any business, as long as the job is IN West Seattle – go here.)

2:40 PM UPDATE: The smaller sign says they’re taking applications Mondays-Fridays, 7 am-5 pm, and a hand-lettered sign next to it adds that you should apply at the trailer in the parking lot by the future main entry. Phone number is also posted: 206-496-9884.

We got a note over the weekend saying that Trader Joe’s has set April 13th – two months from today – as opening date for its long-awaited, long-under-construction West Seattle location (4545 Fauntleroy Way SW). The sender did not want to be identified, but we did some checking and have multiple reasons to believe they’re reliable. Before mentioning this, we wanted to give the company a chance to confirm/deny, but as with other inquiries in recent months, no reply. (They tend to go into quiet mode at this phase of the game, we’ve heard from others covering under-construction stores, as they assemble the staff and go into the final work phase.) We reported back in December that another source gave us a guesstimate of early spring, and this is in line with that. Plus – most other regional openings have been on Fridays – and April 13th is, yes, Friday the 13th – so we’re sharing this info with you with the caveat that, as with many things on projects like this, it may well change. (You’ll recall that when work began at the site last year, the store was expected to open in late 2011; the last time we got a company reply to an inquiry was in September, when they confirmed it would not be open till 2012.) As for when a formal announcement of the opening date might come – hard to say – when TJ’s opened in Ballard, for example, it simply appeared as a sign on the window one day.

If you’re not among the Trader Joe’s fan base … just skip right over this one. Nothing earthshaking, but it’s a semi-goofy little Friday night tidbit:

Every so often – despite the ongoing construction (which we updated here the day after Christmas) – someone e-mails us to ask, with skepticism, “Well, how come Trader Joe’s doesn’t list West Seattle on its page of ‘coming soon’ stores?” We always reply by explaining that we have watched their website a LONG time while covering all this, and TJ’s doesn’t seem to add future stores to the list till they’re almost ready to open. Having said that, we checked their website tonight for the first time in a week or so and noticed West Seattle is finally on the list:

So for anyone STILL skeptical, there you go. (If you missed our recent update, the opening is currently projected for early spring.)

That’s the most-asked question of 2011. Corporate didn’t answer recent inquiries, so…

… two things: First, compare how the site looks today, to the rendering made public when it was announced a year and a half ago:

Second, we do have a very unofficial source’s recent guesstimate of an early-spring opening. It’s been almost four months since Trader Joe‘s corporate HQ confirmed the West Seattle store wouldn’t open till next year, seven months since the extensive remodeling began at 4545 Fauntleroy Way SW, and 18 months since the official announcement the lease had been signed. What’s taking so long? you might wonder. The site has apparently posed some challenges – checking the online city files, for example, a permit revision was granted earlier this month for a “2nd-floor parking level modifications.”

If you were looking forward to holiday food shopping at the new West Seattle Trader Joe’s – sorry to report, that apparently isn’t going to be possible. When construction at the 4545 Fauntleroy Way SW site started more than three months ago, the company told us it expected to open the store in the fourth quarter of this year. With that time frame approaching, some asked for an official update – including the WSB Forums member who started this thread, with one commenter subsequently posting that the opening had been delayed till first quarter of 2012. We renewed our inquiry to Trader Joe’s, and after a bit of confusion, got the answer back today from corporate HQ: “We are set to open sometime in 2012. We have not confirmed a date.”