That’s the historic ex-substation building (an official city landmark) at Dakota Place Park, which has mostly languished (the site sign and city webpage mention ’06 scheduled completion) at California/Dakota (map) north of The Junction for some time. In the comments on WSB coverage of the Prop 2 (parks levy) campaign stopping at Delridge Playfield weekend before last, DW asked what’s going on with Dakota Place; West Seattle-residing City Councilmember Tom Rasmussen (Parks Committee chair) then posted he’d get the answer. Here’s what he found out: Bids are due tomorrow on the “exterior construction” package for the park; the project is to be complete by next January, with elements including: “Plaza with integrated artwork, ADA access, site lighting, multiple seating elements, refurbishing existing historic elements, automated irrigation, and extensive community-provided landscaping.” Meantime, work is to be finished by next spring on the “building package,” which includes “hazardous material abatement, historically correct window replacement, new roof, brick re-pointing, and seismic upgrades are complete.” Though the above-mentioned city webpage for Dakota Place isn’t entirely up to date, you can see the site schematic design there; the website for the citizens’ group that announced in January the city had committed to finish the park by last May (WSB report here) is no longer up and running. TUESDAY NIGHT UPDATE: Councilmember Rasmussen asked the Parks Department what’s led to the delays on the Dakota Place project; he was told that one big problem was that the “… project manager was reassigned to finalize the Statue of Liberty project. That project came in on time and on budget. What is so challenging for the Parks Department is that they have only so many project managers and when their attention is moved to time-consuming projects with great sensitivity to deadlines like the Statue other things will be delayed. Park’s does a great job but is stretched thin.”
West Seattle, Washington
22 Sunday
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