TJ’s or not TJ’s?
A new comment on an old post reminded me I hadn’t heard much lately about the rumors of Trader Joe’s finally, finally, FINALLY coming to West Seattle. Seems speculation is centering around the forthcoming mixed-use project on Admiral just west of Metropolitan Market, so we went fishing around a bit.
Project description mentions “grocery store.” MM & Safeway are so close by (and PCC not much further), it would have to be something “specialty” like TJ’s.
The contact name on the applications traces to the same architect that handled the same owner’s project to the north (Bartell’s and what’s above it) — no sketches on the site, though.
A notice on a pole at the site mentions another design-review meeting just about a week ago — anybody got the scoop on that? Just curious.
Did find a couple other notes of interest along the way. First — a little history about part of the site. Second — I can’t find a direct link to the relatively recently renamed “Admiral Neighborhood Association,” but it looks like neighborhood leaders joined in a “street-level survey” a little earlier this year, with results documented here.
Enough about all that, though. Any inside info on TJ’s, or not TJ’s, very much welcome. Definitely tired of driving to Burien. And this is one of the last few franchises we still don’t have out here (in the years since WS Blogger Spouse and I arrived, we’ve stopped having to drive somewhere else for Pagliacci, Jamba Juice, Barnes & Noble, to name a few).
Trying to save a tree
Maybe you heard the saga of the older lady who spent some time today sitting in a tree near Alki, trying to protect it from further hacking. I don’t know if this particular tree is such a cause worth fighting for, but I certainly sympathize with the escalating loss of our urban forest. Personally, if I had been Cindi Laws, I would have held a sit-in in that splendid garden she had, now a long-forgotten ghost on yet another spot claimed by condos.
(Wed. morning update: here’s a link to the tree lady’s story.)
What price views?
As we passed through a bluffside neighborhood tonight, the view to the Sound and Blake/Vashon Islands seemed a bit clearer than usual. Won’t be able to verify till daylight, but I suspect more trees have come down; developers have stopped shying away from the area’s steeper hillsides. Brings back wistful memories of our earliest WS years, when I wished so hard to have enough money to buy a particular lot along Beach Drive where a thicket of trees hung over the northbound lane, marked ominously with a “FOR SALE” sign. It sat there for years, then finally went away when houses started going up atop the bluff where the trees grew. And the tree-thinning began. Now a “FOR SALE” sign hangs in the same spot again, in the shade of only a few remaining west-leaning trees. Most likely fewer birds sing, fewer bees buzz; did anyone notice but me?
Looks nice, maybe a little too nice
The Morgan Community Association site has posted the architect’s vision of what Fauntleroy Place might look like, in advance of an “Early Design Guidance” meeting next Thursday. (I found a closer look here — click the link below the image.)
West Seattle Blogger Spouse and I both asked the same initial question: “Where’s the bowling alley?”
The look is typical New Millennium Mall — a lot like the latest additions to Westwood Village — not the same architect, though (GGLO for Westwood Village, Stricker Cato Murphy for Fauntleroy Place).
The bowling-alley question might sound odd to you, but it seems relevant to the issue of plopping a huge new retail/residential development into an area like this. Perhaps everything around it will fall away and/or transform in time. Right now, my mind is hung up on not just the neighboring bowling alley, but also the funeral home across the street. Does it survive, thrive, or eventually get the boot?
P.S. Found an interesting link to the floorplans for Fauntleroy Place, for anyone interested in immersing themselves in every little detail.
Memories
The woman who inspired this Times column today had a kindred spirit along Alki Avenue not that many years ago.
I am fuzzy on specifics. But I can see it in my mind — one of those mondo-condo high-rises that went up, east of the beach, had to wrap itself around a home whose owner just wouldn’t sell out. Eventually either she sold out or died, and the home went away.
As they all do … even here in my neighborhood on the south side of the West Side, homes never seem to just change hands any more; if they are on land with even a hint of a view, the “sold” sign is followed by the backhoes, the debris, the new construction. We know we are the last owners of our little house, whether we are here six more months, six more years, or until the day we pass on to the next plane of existence (and no, I don’t mean Ballard).
Remodelers’ row
All along the west side of California Avenue SW as it climbs the shoulder of Gatewood Hill, south of the Morgan Junction urban village, er, business/residential district, the old warbox houses are making way for three-(or so)story reworks. None, though, is quite as mystifying as this one. Price tag: almost a million bucks. OK, we get that, for a view house, but this one is in a spot where sightproofing seems as necessary as soundproofing. It’s a corner lot directly across one street from a busy church and school, and across California from the church annex, including more play space for the kids. To boot, the lot is right at the start of the California climb, right about where buses (and many other vehicles) start to gun their engines to make it up the incline.
We repeat — a million bucks?
“Impacts the site the least”?
Not far from Lincoln Park, housing developers have ripped out a phenomenal amount of greenery in the past few years, turning hillsides into homesites. The watershed is gone; the trees and bushes for urban wildlife, all gone. Today, one of these projects has turned up in the P-I. A developer whines that it hasn’t been particularly profitable, while also claiming he and investors launched the project with these questions: “What’s the best use of the land? What can we do that impacts the site the least?”
The article doesn’t even nod to the possibility that the answers might have been, leave it alone.
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