FOLLOWUP: Alki Elementary rebuild project, one week post-ruling

(WSB photo, today)

One week has passed since a city hearing examiner told Seattle Public Schools that it has to “revisit” the plan to rebuild Alki Elementary with no off-street parking. But we don’t know yet how that “revisiting” will be done. The district has said only that it’s “reviewing” the decision, which was in favor of an appeal filed by nearby residents, following the city’s decision to grant nine zoning exceptions for the project (the appeals of six of the other eight were rejected). So we checked with the city’s permitting authority, the Department of Construction and Inspections. SDCI spokesperson Wendy Shark tells us that “they are having their first meeting to determine next steps” by the end of this week, so they should know next week how they’ll be proceeding. Meantime, we just went by the site, and at least from 59th, it appears idle after a second burst of demolition earlier this week.

Neighbor August 17, 2023 (10:38 pm)

Seattle Parks has been absent in conversations with the district. Extremely unfortunate that two city entities can’t function together to do what is best for our community. This project needs to be completed on time and this is ridiculous

Harrell and Jones - leadership requested August 19, 2023 (1:50 pm)

Let’s hope we don’t end up with another massive hole while things are worked out. Is it unreasonable to expect Mayor Harrell and Superintendent Brent Jones to take leadership on this? I wonder if parks might be able to give up some land.

Why August 20, 2023 (12:36 am)

The school district should do the right thing and reduce the size of the school, given that enrollment has been declining since 2016, and is projected to continue declining at least through 2033, according to SPS itself. The Parks Department has a completely different mission than the school district, and they also have a functional structure that is far more responsive to the public. It’s highly unlikely they would donate or sell land to SPS simply to facilitate the school district’s insolent hubris. The final project was completely different from the one that was sold to the public in advance of the BEX V levy.

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