West Seattle, Washington
03 Sunday
One year ago, Meaghan Haas had just opened Highland Park Corner Store in the renovated ex-mini-mart at 7789 Highland Park Way SW. With all the challenges that businesses faced during the pandemic, she nonetheless plunged ahead and started something new, and now it’s time to mark the milestone of making it through year one. The store’s already become a place for community celebrations, and this time it’s about HPCS itself – you’re invited to “just show up” Saturday afternoon (April 2nd), 1-4 pm, for festivities including cake, games, a piñata (around 3 pm), and more.
(WSB file photo)
Nine years after the city declared the old substation site at 16th/Holden as surplus, its fate remains unsettled.
Last night, it was a major topic at the March meeting of HPAC, the community council for Highland Park, Riverview, and South Delridge.
City Councilmember Lisa Herbold and representatives from two affordable-homeownership nonprofits, Homestead Community Land Trust and Habitat for Humanity, were there to talk about the site’s possibilities – almost half a year after a similar discussion at HPAC involving Herbold and a different nonprofit (WSB coverage here).
Seattle City Light is still willing to basically give away the property, Herbold said, but, as was explained in October, it has to be for a “public benefit.” Affordable homeownership would qualify. Both organizations at the meeting said their clients are people earning no more than 80 percent of the “area mean income.” Homestead said it’s working with a similar ex-substation site on a 5-story building in North Seattle with five stories of affordable condos over ground-floor commercial, something like this:
One mini-bulletin from tonight’s HPAC meeting, just wrapping up – SDOT has canceled the plan to reconfigure the 16th/Austin intersection. We reported on it three weeks ago after a reader tip. SDOT’s Sara Zora indicated at tonight’s meeting that they got a lot of feedback, and after their traffic-operations team re-examined the plan, they decided to shelve it. They’ll “continue to monitor” the intersection for collisions or other problems. (Our report on the rest of the HPAC meeting will be published tomorrow.)
If you live/work/study in Highland Park, South Delridge, or Riverview, your community council, HPAC, meets at 7 pm Wednesday, online. Two major agenda items:
This month HPAC welcomes back SDOT staff with updates on Home Zone and Greenways work that has been progressing throughout the neighborhood. If you have followup questions regarding projects, or ideas for new protections needed to buffer any changes you have noted in the West Seattle Bridge Detour Route traffic, agency representatives will be on hand to speak with.
We also welcome back City Councilmember Lisa Herbold and team for further updates on planning for the proposed low-income housing at 16th SW and SW Holden, site of a former Seattle City Light substation. They have been working on clarifying concerns expressed by the community at their last visit.
All are welcome – go here to get information for watching/listening/participating.
(WSB photos)
The coterie of artists and poets who have been creating signboard art installations along SW Holden by Highland Park Improvement Club [map] have done it again. They welcomed spring this morning by placing newly painted boards voicing hope – with the flip sides spelling HPIC via bird portraits:
The bird portraits were inspired by David Allen Sibley‘s book “What It’s Like to Be a Bird.” The creators are, from left below, Monica Cavagnaro (lead painter), Judith Camann (poet), Kay Kirkpatrick (themes), and Kelly Lyles (fonts):
Kirkpatrick says, “We just want people to have a good time while sitting in traffic.” The “hope” expressed by the boards this time has multiple meanings – including hope that the West Seattle Bridge will indeed reopen this year, removing some of the detour traffic that’s filled Holden, and hope of a rebirth for the fire-gutted HPIC building. (Next meeting about the rebuilding project is April 6th – watch HPIC’s website for details on that, as well as for word of a community cleanup on the citywide Day of Service April 23rd.)
P.S. It’s been more than a year and a half since the first HPIC streetside-art boards!
When Seattle Parks announced on Monday that the Westcrest Park play-area replacement is planned for construction this summer, we noted we would be checking on progress of the project under way at the park now, drainage improvements at the Off-Leash Area. We’ve now heard back from Parks spokesperson Karen O’Connor, who says, “Construction is 85% complete with drainage infrastructure, grading, and gravel surfacing. We need to complete fencing, asphalt, and concrete paving. The concrete strike is impacting the project delivery. We are hoping to open the OLA in late spring if the strike settles.” Work began in November; a temporary OLA is open until the permanent one is ready for use again. (P.S. No strike updates yet this week – the Teamsters’ latest statements are here; the companies’ latest statements are here.)
(Reader photo by Jon from May 2021)
One of West Seattle’s long-closed park play structures has a new date for replacement. Seattle Parks closed the Westcrest Park play structure in May of last year for safety concerns and said it would be replaced as part of the drainage-improvement project at the park’s off-leash area. That work has been under way for months now, but no word of the play area’s status until today, when the city announced the work would happen “this summer” and be complete “this fall.”
P.S. Before you ask – yes, we’re asking about the status of the Westcrest drainage project and also asking about the longest-closed park play area in West Seattle, the Lincoln Park South Play Area, closed for almost five years, with the newest online update saying the much-delayed replacement is now scheduled to go to bid “in late spring.”
ORIGINAL THURSDAY NIGHT REPORT: A resident along 16th SW near SW Othello texted us to say they heard “gunshots … about 6 or 10 in a row, super loud” a short time ago. Police are in the area now and have just told dispatch that they’ve located a casing. No word of any injuries so far.
ADDED FRIDAY: SPD’s preliminary incident summary says no witnesses could be found, just “broken glass from a vehicle and evidence of a shooting were recovered from the street in the 7300 block of 16 Ave SW.”
Maybe you’ve noticed the new, roughed-in lane markings on 16th SW near SW Austin and SW Holden [map]; Jimmy did, and emailed us about it:
We just drove south on 16th to go to the 1st Ave Bridge and when you drive up to 16th and Austin (intersection right before left turn to Holden) noticed some new lane markings in the southbound lanes. This divides up the road right before the light with the left side going straight and the right side right turn only. Previously everyone had been lane-splitting there anyway and used the right side for going straight as well, as to continue south on 16th, as the left-turn line onto Holden is almost always backed up. Additionally, on 16th just south of Austin there are white lane markings to indicate no one should be in the right side there.
We asked SDOT about it; here’s the explanation:
We do have a traffic improvement scheduled for that location. The layout marks were put down on Friday in advance of the permanent paint line striping.
The reason for this intersection project is to simplify the operations for SB traffic and address some complaints that we’ve received about drivers changing lanes just south of the 16th and Austin intersection. Southbound drivers trying to get around the tail end of the southbound left turn queue to Holden inadvertently change lanes. They change lanes without awareness that there is a second SB lane that they are cutting off.
No date set yet for the permanent restriping – it’s weather-dependent.
One big topic at this past week’s monthly HPAC meeting – the plan for another giant storage tank in West Seattle to contain combined-sewer overflows.
HPAC is the community coalition for Highland Park, Riverview, and South Delridge; co-chair Kay Kirkpatrick facilitated the online meeting on Wednesday night.
WEST DUWAMISH CSO CONTROL PROJECT: We mentioned this project three weeks ago, while commenting time was open for its environmental checklist. The King County Wastewater Treatment Division sent reps to the HPAC meeting to present a briefing on the plan. Project manager Maud De Bel led the presentation, calling the West Duwamish Combined Sewer Overflow Control Project‘s central feature “similar to the Murray (Wet Weather) Facility” across from Lowman Beach Park. She offered a quick refresher course on combined sewers – stormwater running off streets and roofs, going into the sewer system – “there’s a point where the sewer gets overwhelmed,” so to prevent floods and backups, the system overflows into bodies of water like Puget Sound or the Duwamish River. The county has controlled “most of those” but this project is meant to address two areas of eastern West Seattle where uncontrolled overflows go into the river several times each year.
We reported earlier this month on the 1.25-million-gallon storage tank planned in southeast West Seattle to reduce combined-sewer overflows into the Duwamish River. At its monthly meeting this Wednesday, HPAC – the neighborhood coalition for Highland Park, Riverview, and South Delridge – gets a briefing. Here’s the meeting preview, which includes other topics:
We will be hearing from representative of the King County Wastewater Treatment Division to learn more about the upcoming West Duwamish CSO Control project set to begin soon. If you are unfamiliar with these projects, have a look at the construction at 4th South and South Michigan Street, where they are almost done with a huge holding facility. The SW Michigan site will be much smaller, but serve a similar purpose, capturing and holding excess rain runoff from Highland Park, preventing contamination of the Duwamish River during big storms.
If you attended last month’s meeting, SPD mentioned their annual report on crime trends. They will be at our meeting too for any questions or concerns, Westwood Village area ranked 4th in volume citywide in community-generated 911 calls.
Also up in the HPAC business category:
-Planning for Spring Cleanup events – sites you think need to be addressed, dates, etc.
-Helping with a Flip Your Trip outreach event? – mask mandates are lifting and traffic will be ramping up, can we help try and get more folks out of their Single Occupancy Vehicles?
-A look back at our area’s five years of hosting Camp Second Chance – what’s working? Any outstanding concerns? Do we have any guidance or response to State Sen. Joe Nguyen’s bill now in the State Senate regarding lifting SEPA requirements for new camps?
-Inviting any interested parties to help out on eBoard positions – we are an all volunteer advocacy group and rely on community energy!
HPAC will meet online at 7 pm Wednesday (February 23rd) – connection info is here.
When we reported last week on the arrest of 26-year-old Joseph Depaco after a police search in the West Duwamish Greenbelt, we noted that court records revealed he had just been sentenced in another case. Tonight we have word of a charge filed in last week’s incident, plus an explanation of why he hadn’t begun serving the alternative sentence he got for the other case. (At left is a photo of Depaco we obtained from the state Corrections Department.)
The new charge filed by the King County Prosecuting Attorney’s Office is possession of a stolen vehicle, a felony. The vehicle in which police say they found Depaco in the greenbelt was a stolen Toyota Tacoma pickup. A passerby reported it as suspicious, and responding officers say that after they found Depaco asleep in the vehicle, he woke up and bolted, which led to a ground and air search that resulted in his arrest. (He is not charged in connection with the under-construction gun found in the vehicle.)
We had asked the KCPAO for more background on why Depaco wasn’t already in the residential drug-treatment program to which he was sentenced as part of a three-case plea bargain February 4th. He was supposed to enter the program within a few days, they explain, but after the sentencing, the treatment provider canceled the original date and said it would not have a bed available until today. Depaco had been out of jail since January 7th, which the KCPAO says was his original sentencing date, and that’s why the new charge was filed today with an “aggravating factor” of “rapid recidivism.” That could lengthen the sentence if he’s convicted. Tonight Depaco – who already has seven felony convictions – remains in jail in lieu of $50,000 bail and is due next for arraignment on the new charge February 28th.
Thanks to Margaret for the tip. She got a postal-mail flyer from Seattle Public Utilities about work coming up on 8th SW just north of SW Roxbury and thought you should know, given the increased traffic through that area because of bridge detouring. We asked SPU about it, and they sent the flyer, which says the work will repair a sewer line on 8th between Roxbury and Cambridge. Work could start as soon as next Monday (February 21st) and could last up to three weeks. Lane closures and parking restrictions are part of the plan, which says general work hours will be 7 am-4 pm weekdays.
9:44 AM: Thanks to the multiple readers in Highland Park who have sent word of this – an Xfinity/Comcast service outage that the company says is affecting more than 2,500 customers. Let us know if it’s affecting you in other areas; we’re checking with the company.
ADDED MONDAY EVENING: We dead-ended while looking for a Comcast contact earlier but a regional spokesperson emailed us tonight to say: “We experienced an interruption today at 8:03 a.m. with our internet service in Highland Park. Our engineers began working to address the issue immediately and as of 8:44 a.m., service was restored. We apologize to those who were affected.”
4:31 PM: Thanks to everyone who asked about the helicopter search in Highland Park. Guardian One was assisting Seattle Police with a search. We don’t know yet what incident it’s linked to, but we do know they just took someone into custody in the greenbelt over Highland Park Way/Riverview Playfield. More details when we get them.
5:09 PM: No official info from police yet, and we couldn’t find officers on the ground, but scanner traffic and another reader tip indicates it was related to a stolen car.
6:05 PM: Guardian One confirms via Twitter that the search was for a driver who fled a stolen car.
7:54 PM: Even more details, and a photo, from SPD:
Just after 3:00 p.m., a parkgoer reported a man asleep in a red pickup truck parked on a foot path in the greenbelt area of Riverview Park. When responding officers contacted the man, he fled on foot into the woods. Police quickly discovered the truck had been registered stolen earlier this week in North Seattle, and spotted a rifle in the back seat.
With the help of King County Sheriff’s Office helicopter Guardian One, SPD officers on the ground found the suspect hiding in the greenbelt and arrested him.
Police transported the 26-year-old man to King County Jail to book him for possession of a stolen car and unlawful possession of a firearm. It appears part of the rifle was still being constructed. Nevertheless, the suspect is a convicted felon and prohibited from possessing firearms. However, during the booking process at KCJ, the suspect deliberately punched a concrete pillar, causing injuries which required treatment at Harborview Medical Center. Officers plan to book the man into jail when he is medically cleared at the hospital.
2:04 PM: Seattle Fire is sending a “full response” to a possible fire in the 8100 block of 15th SW [map]. First crew to arrive reports “light smoke.” Updates to come.
2:07 PM: Turned out to be another small fire, already out, and the response is being downsized.
Another major combined-sewer-overflow storage tank is planned for our area, this time on the east edge of West Seattle, near the 1st Avenue South Bridge. This is the West Duwamish Combined Sewer Overflow (CSO) Control Project, and its aim is to comply with orders to reduce the number of overflows into the Duwamish River – specifically one outfall on SW Michigan Street that overflows an average of 4.6 times a year and one at Terminal 115 that overflows an average of 1.7 times a year. The new facility near 2nd SW/SW Michigan will be on 60,600 square feet of T-115, which is owned by the Port of Seattle, centered on a 1.25 million gallon underground tank – 140′ x 110′, 26′ deep – and related pipes. Here’s the King County Wastewater Treatment Division map:
For comparison, the storage capacity is 25 percent more than the big tank built across from Lowman Beach five-plus years ago, now known as the Murray Wet Weather Facility. The West Duwamish project will also include an above-ground 5,300-square-feet “facility building and outdoor odor control area” plus landscaping including a “stormwater bioretention facility.” The project also includes associated facilities such as a “diversion structure” near West Marginal Way and Highland Park Way SW.
Construction is not expected to start until 2025, but another key comment period is open now. Through February 14th, comments are being taken on the environmental checklist for the project – you can see it here. You can comment via email at WTDSEPA@kingcounty.gov. You’ll get a chance for a briefing and Q&A about the project at an upcoming HPAC meeting – watch hpacws.org for word of that.
Almost four months after we reported the closure of Morning Star Mini-Mart at 8th/Henderson in Highland Park, we know what’s moving in. Greene Information Systems is moving its headquarters there, from Georgetown. The company won’t be a tenant – its ownership bought the 4.200-square-foot, 75-year-old building and the 13,000-square-foot site it’s on. We contacted the company after seeing it named on preliminary site-plan documents in city files. According to Christian Castro, who responded to our inquiry on behalf of the company, the owners and many of the employees live in West Seattle. Greene IS serves as “outsourced IT” for more than 100 clients and is a Microsoft consultant. They’re doing interior renovations on the building to turn it into office space for their U.S. staff, which he said currently numbers about 17. At some point years down the road, the site has redevelopment potential, since it’s zoned for mixed-use that could have commercial space on the ground floor and residential above, but there are no near-term plans for that, he said. As for how soon Greene IS expects to move in – Castro said they’re estimating three to seven months but that’s dependent on how the city permitting process goes.
Here are highlights of what happened at HPAC‘s January meeting online last night, led by co-chairs Kay Kirkpatrick and Craig Rankin:
PUBLIC SAFETY: First, from the Southwest Precinct, acting Lt. David Terry was there along with one of the officers who work east West Seattle, Officer Macaully Lakin. Terry showed screens from two public SPD data dashboards – crime reports and dispatches. (You can use the dashboards to check stats from various neighborhoods by choosing the MCPP option.)
After three town halls to talk about the future of the Highland Park Improvement Club HQ – ravaged by fire seven months ago – it’s close to time for decisions: What should be built? That will dictate how much it could cost, how much needs to be raised, and how long it would take. If you missed last Wednesday’s third town hall, here’s the recording:
The design team for the project, Highland Park’s own Wittman Estes, shared concepts for the building’s potential size/shape – from humble to grand – as well as concepts for how its interior might be laid out. But the amount of money HPIC will get from insurance – up to $750,000 – would only cover a very basic building; though no price tags were provided for the possibilities, it’s clear anything beyond the basics will require fundraising. Since last week’s town hall, HPIC has met with a professional fundraiser, though the discussion was very early-stage – no conclusions yet, HPIC’s Kay Kirkpatricktold us. She stressed during the town hall that they don’t want to do something that might eventually jeopardize HPIC’s ability to keep the building maintained and to guarantee continued community ownership.
One idea brought up repeatedly during the town hall was the building’s past and potential future use as a music/entertainment venue. Participants observed that West Seattle remains low on performance space, and a rebuilt HPIC has the potential to help fill that void even more than it did pre-fire/pre-pandemic.
Another key point was to remind everyone that while SW Holden, which runs along the building’s south side, is choked with West Seattle Bridge closure detour traffic right now, it will be much different by the time the new building opens – next year if things go well.
Toward the town hall’s end, it was suggested that a deadline be set for ending public comment at this phase of the process, so the architects can get on with creating a preliminary design for the next meeting. Kirkpatrick told WSB this afternoon that there’s no date yet for that potential deadline, nor for the next meeting. So if you have something to say, but weren’t able to attend the town hall, you can email hpic1919@gmail.com. That’s also how to step up for volunteer help that HPIC sorely needs with maintaining the building site – particularly landscaping – while it’s idle. And as we’ve noted before, while the entire community has been invited into the rebuilding-planning process, HPIC members get the final say – here’s how to join.
For the first time in three months, HPAC – the community coalition for Highland Park, Riverview, and South Delridge – will gather (virtually) this Wednesday. The agenda includes two topics of perennial concern for every neighborhood – crime and traffic. SPD will be there for trends and Q&A about the former; SDOT will be there to talk about Flip Your Trip, which the department says is now up to 5,000 signups from people trying commute alternatives. All are welcome to the online meeting at 7 pm Wednesday (January 26th) – connection/call-in information is on the HPAC website. (Here’s our coverage of the previous HPAC meeting back in October.)
(Photo from HPIC town-hall presentation, building’s south side along SW Holden)
Almost seven months after the fire that severely damaged the Highland Park Improvement Club building (12th/Holden), major decisions remain about its future – how much of it to rebuild, and what purpose the new building could serve. Those have been topics of two online “town halls” so far (WSB coverage here and here), and now it’s time for the third, Wednesday (January 19th) at 7 pm. As announced by HPIC, “Architect Matt Wittman and Landscape Architect Jody Estes of Wittman Estes will facilitate the meeting again. We will be discussing the results of the Community Priority Questionnaire and how this input relates to the building, with diagrams and sketches to help visualize.” Even if you haven’t participated in the process so far, you’re welcome to jump in now. Connection information for the meeting is on the HPIC website.
All lanes are now open again on the Highland Park Way hill between West Marginal and SW Holden, two days after the latest landslide. Last night we reported on the SDOT/Seattle Parks plan for erosion control to deter recurrences. Today we asked SDOT about what was done after the February 2017 slide that closed the hill for two days.
(WSB photo, February 2017)
Five months after that slide, we reported on City Council funding for a planned “rock buttress” in the area. We don’t have a record of what happened after that, so we asked SDOT. Spokesperson Ethan Bergerson confirmed that the pre-existing concrete blocks south of the recent slides are part of the measures taken after the 2017 slide:
The landslides this past week have occurred at another location to the north of the 2017 landslide. Because Highland Park Way travels alongside about half a mile of the West (Duwamish) Greenbelt without connecting to any other roads, both landslides resulted in the same stretch of road being closed even though they occurred on different slopes.
In 2017, there was a large landslide to the south of where the landslides occurred this past week, which resulted in Highland Park Way SW being closed for multiple days. Seattle Department of Transportation (SDOT) and Seattle Parks and Recreation (Parks) worked together on erosion control measures in this location. Parks crews installed permanent erosion controls and planted native plants on this part of the slope in spring 2017, and SDOT crews returned in the summer to install a concrete block wall with a rock buttress to stabilize the base of the slope (the rocks are behind the concrete blocks and can’t be seen from the street). The steep slope in this location has been stable since then.
This week, SDOT crews installed over 60 feet of concrete blocks as a temporary measure. Parks is also planning to perform additional temporary erosion control measures, and both agencies are planning to return in the spring to install more permanent measures which can only be done when the ground is not so saturated with water.
The area has long been slide-prone; the 2000 Seattle Landslide Study has multiple references.
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