DEVELOPMENT: Demolition begins for 4508 California mixed-use project

| Development | West Seattle news

This morning we described the 4508 California SW mixed-use project site as “about-to-start-demolition.” We had gone by at 9 am, looking at both sides of the site, and noting no heavy equipment in sight, so it didn’t seem like the teardown would start today. However, when we checked back tonight, we discovered demolition has indeed begun, from the alley, at the back of the former Kamei Japanese Restaurant.

(The building being demolished for redevelopment also was home to Lee’s Asian Restaurant and Naked Crepe.) No hint of the demolition from the front yet – just plywood and scaffolding. The project is planned as 7 stories, 58 residential units, 12 lodging units, 3,500+ square feet of commercial space, and 17 offstreet-parking spaces. Its owner/developer is longtime Junction entrepreneur Leon Capelouto, who also built two mixed-use buildings close to this site, the AJ at 42nd/Oregon and Altamira/Capco Plaza at 42nd/Alaska. We don’t have a recent timeline estimate but mixed-use projects of this scale usually take a year to a year and a half to build.

WS resident May 17, 2022 (10:19 pm)

Reminiscent of the movie Batteries Not Included

7GOLFER10 May 18, 2022 (5:55 am)

What is the difference between a residential unit and a lodging unit?

Chris K May 23, 2022 (3:59 pm)

A lodging unit is where you go to lodge a complaint about the lack of parking.

K to the F May 18, 2022 (8:39 am)

One would think with materials/lumber prices as they are there might be something worth salvaging. :/

anonyme May 19, 2022 (4:10 pm)

I agree 100%. Every time I see one of these demolition sites, I’m sickened by the amount of waste. Construction sites are even worse; entire dumpsters are filled with offcuts from new materials, pieces that could be repurposed with very little cost or imagination. And nothing is recycled. There is also little attention given to the fact that ‘modern’ construction methods contribute substantially to global warming.
- Tim Pepperell May 23, 2022 (2:45 pm)
  
  My dad used to work in demolition back in the UK. Virtually everything is reclaimed, lumber, bricks, slate, windows doors all metals and sold at a good price. I cringe a little when I see a house being demolished here in the states. One big claw machine and a couple of dump trucks. Everything is is thrown away.

Mike May 18, 2022 (9:31 am)

Very sad loss of restaurants. To be replaced by another big box. Progress?

hj May 19, 2022 (1:06 pm)

Plenty of the new big boxes in the Junction have restaurants. Haymaker, Agave, Phoenicia, Kizuki, the Lodge. Exaggeration?
Jort May 20, 2022 (10:51 am)

If you don’t like the “big box” developments, you can thank your fellow citizens for forcing them to be built. This city’s citizens and politicians intentionally chose to concentrate all housing growth in very, very tiny slivers of land known as “urban villages.” This was done in an attempt to preserve, forever, the “single family” zoning that comprises the vast majority of privately-held land in this city. All housing growth is forced to be accommodated in “urban villages,” like the Junction. If you don’t like gigantic boxes like this, you should be asking your politicians to allow increased density in traditional “single family” neighborhoods, so that the growth can be distributed more evenly. And, no, “no growth, period” is not an option.

Larry May 18, 2022 (11:49 am)

I loved Lee’s Asian restaurant.

HH May 18, 2022 (11:57 am)

58 units on a plot that is 10 feet wide?

WSB May 18, 2022 (12:06 pm)

The site held three businesses. I don’t have time to look up its exact dimensions but it’s certainly wider than 10′.

West Seattle Mad Sci Guy May 18, 2022 (7:27 pm)

Do they have projections on how long until the construction is planned to last? I appreciate it often doesn’t go according to plan. Also… I’ve heard so many bad things about this building owner. Used to live in one of them (Altamira). It was okay. But they definitely let the units get run down and maintenance was a very long lead time. Sometimes months.

W/S Native May 19, 2022 (12:52 pm)

58 & 12=70 units -17 parking spaces= 53 units without parking plus the retail. Great work big C. You’re a real pillar of the community. I wish I could bring back the wonderful people I worked for at The Menu a long time ago before Kamei. John & Joyce would not think of this as “progress”.

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