West Seattle, Washington
16 Wednesday
The first Southwest Design Review Board meeting of the new year, one week from Thursday, is scheduled to look at the Spring Hill apartment/retail mixed-use building proposed for 5020 California and 2 parcels south of that address (area photo above; developers BlueStar told WSB last week there’s no project rendering yet). As mentioned in our December 11 update, it’s now outlined as a 6-story building with 90 apartments, 100 parking spaces, and 4,000 square feet of retail. Area resident Mary wanted other neighbors to know that she’s drafted a letter opposing it and that they can contact her if they want a copy of it or are interested otherwise in joining forces:Read More
Pix of this morning’s swim, courtesy of Dan E (thanks!):
Water temperature, by the way, was 48 degrees (warmer than the air, though!).
Also happening on Alki this morning – Harleys gathering for their annual New Year’s ride, south through Burien and on to Federal Way. Video of that in our next post; meantime, a few more Alki Polar Bear pix from Dan E:Read More
On Saturday we listed our Top 7 WSB ’07 video picks; on Sunday, the Top 7 most-discussed WSB posts of the year. Finally tonight, with hours to go till 2008, the more traditional list – top West Seattle stories of the year. Let us know if you think something else should have made the Top 7. Here goes:
#7 — 4132 CALIFORNIA FIRE: This August inferno was the biggest West Seattle fire of the year, and it was arson; no arrests reported to this day, but reconstruction of the project is now well under way.
#6 — CALIFORNIA/ADMIRAL REPAVING: From March through July, city crews repaved major stretches of two of West Seattle’s most significant arterials. (Ah, if only Fauntleroy and Alki, among others, could get the same love.)
#5 — NEW JUNCTION FOOD: What a year it’s been, from Garlic Jim‘s to Shoofly to Ama Ama to Shadow Land, with Spring Hill up next.
#4 — ALKI STATUE OF LIBERTY RETURNS, BUT THE SAGA’S NOT OVER: A big year for this West Seattle icon: The plaza project hit the radar in July; the recast statue returned to its original pedestal on September 11th; the plaza fundraising has two more weeks to go. Bound to be a major story again in ’08.
And one last Casey Kasem turn … the countdown continues:Read More
Two main headlines from the latest stack of reports at the Southwest Precinct: 
An alert neighbor helped police nab three burglary suspects, and somebody targeted two cars driving along Delridge. First, the cars: Both incidents happened Friday night while the drivers were heading northbound in the 4500 block of Delridge. First, a 34-year-old woman driving a Nissan Quest told police that around 7:25 pm that night, her passenger-side window suddenly shattered; then, a 43-year-old man driving a Mercedes heard something hit his passenger-side door around 7:30 pm, and when he stopped, he noticed a small hole made by what looked to have been a BB pellet. Nobody hurt in either case, and no arrests reported so far. (In case you were wondering, that is 3 miles north of where bicyclist Peter McKay was shot with pellets on Delridge last month.) Now, the rest of the reports, starting with the burglary arrests:Read More
Thanks to everyone who e-mailed to say the crane equipment has arrived at the QFC/Office Depot megaproject site in The Junction. WSB contributing photographer Christopher Boffoli took the above photos from the 9th floor of Alaska House (the ex-Huling/Gee land and Fire Station 32 are in the background). Christopher also reports that there’s a traffic alert in connection with this: “41st St SW is closed between Alaska and Oregon. 42nd SW is open but electricians are working on the west side of the site and have the sidewalk closed.” Another of his photos:
More info from Christopher: “It looks like they’ve poured a large footing in the very bottom and middle of the building site to which they are attaching a crane in sections. It looks like this large, yellow crane will be a fixture on the West Seattle skyline for the foreseeable future. Workers erecting the crane told me that it will be 140 feet high when completed.” Three more photos ahead from different perspectives:Read More
Out of the inbox:
My husband just went out this morning to find a car that was parked in front of our house on Charlestown egged (near 53rd). It must have happened sometime yesterday or, I’m guessing, last night. I know you guys have covered vandalism and stuff like this in the past, so I thought I’d pass the information along to you and see if others have experienced the same thing. It seems kind of random, as we don’t have kids and pretty much keep to ourselves. The car was a rental and had California plates.
As always, a reminder to everyone – don’t hesitate to call police when you see or hear something suspicious, and of course when you believe a crime has been (or is being) committed. In addition to 911, there’s a non-emergency line at 206/625-5011.
It’s the first goat sighting in West Seattle since Kids for Kids @ Gatewood Elementary in October (our report with video here) — we received two tips about goats at work now in north West Seattle, including this from Eric Bell of fridgefoto.biz, who also sent the photos above and below:
While on one of my regular walkabouts (Sunday) afternoon, I happened upon an increasingly familiar Seattle occurrence… a herd of goats ridding a hillside of unwanted foliage. These free-range ruminants. aptly named goattrimmers.com, were clearing brush from a couple of overgrown properties on Ferry Avenue, a sidewalk-deprived backroad that connects the Admiral District to Harbor Avenue. After conversing with the “shepherd” – who actually wore a floppy hat and carried some sort of shepherd-like device, I discovered his gang of goats will be around for about a week. This was literally a traffic-stopping event, while taking photos (and shooting some video), at least five cars pulled over to witness this pastoral event.
Our other tip came from “Garybert & Garybert’s Lady,” who e-mailed:
In travels (Sunday) am spotted ruminants ruminating on the hillside northside of Ferry by Victoria SW. Goat herder advised they would be there another week and then move across the street to another hillside. Just look for the bright orange (and electrified fence).
In case you’re not familiar with that area, here’s a map.
Thanks to “H” for sending photos (taken from a distance, with a long lens, he wants you to know) of a seal pup he says drew a crowd in the 2200 block of Alki this afternoon. (Perhaps in honor of seal-pup mania making our first West Seattle Top 7 of ’07 list?)
Continuing our new series of late-night followups whenever there’s not “new” news to report at this hour: We have continued to watch 
the case of the Alki teenager charged with second-degree murder in West Seattle’s third (and we hope final) killing of the year, the shooting in a car at 59th/Admiral on October 13 (as shown in WSB scene photo at right). In our last update on November 1st, we reported to you that a judge had granted the bail-reduction request for the suspect, from $500,000 to $200,000. (We stopped including the suspect’s name in our reports, as explained October 29th, because a key part of his defense is the contention that he was a victim of sexual abuse, molested for years by the man he allegedly shot.) Since that update, there have been several developments:Read More
After the $2.4 million grant for Delridge Neighborhoods Development Association‘s Strength of Place Village project was announced earlier this week (WSB report here), we asked DNDA executive director Derek Birnie for more details. Today, we have them, starting with this early design view of the future complex:
He also provided WSB with a detailed press release. While this project will be in White Center (map), it’s noteworthy for West Seattle not just because that community continues to grow and change and may eventually be part of our city, but also because DNDA is based in WS (where it’s already been at the heart of transformational projects such as the Youngstown Arts Center and West Seattle Community Resource Center). Here are the Strength of Place Village details:Read More
The Seattle Parks Department has just set two public meetings in West Seattle next month for two parks-in-progress, the one on the former Fauntleroy Auto/monorail-station site north of the new Beveridge Place Pub, and the one next to the Myrtle Street Reservoir. According to the Parks Department’s announcement, both projects have just entered the design phase. First, the Morgan Junction meeting will be at 7 pm January 15 at The Kenney; from the announcement forwarded by Board of Park Commissioners vice chair (and Alki Community Council president) Jackie Ramels:
Project objective: Develop the recently-acquired property on California Ave SW north of Beveridge Place into a park or plaza. At this meeting, the community will have the opportunity to review preliminary site plans and to provide feedback to the design team. Landscape architects Hough Bec & Baird (HBB) started design work for the site in Dec 2007 and are currently preparing conceptual site designs based on themes the community expressed in spring 2007. The themes to be explored include the creation of a gathering space or plaza for the community and family activities that will feature hardscape, natural vegetation edges, seating, and a shelter structure.
The meeting about the Myrtle park will be at 7 pm January 22 at High Point Community Center. From the Parks Department announcement:
The site will be converted to usable open space for family-oriented activities once the reservoir is lidded. At this meeting, the community will have the opportunity to review preliminary site plans and to provide feedback to the design team. Landscape architects Nakano Associates started design work for the site in December 2007. They are currently preparing conceptual site designs based on themes the community expressed in spring 2007. These themes include a desire to emphasize the site as a viewpoint and to maximize greenspace. The community has also expressed both interest and concern about potentially locating a skateboard facility on the site, which was identified as a potential skatepark site in the Citywide Skatepark Plan. Other site features to be considered include ADA-accessible pathways, play equipment, and general landscaping.
Both of these parks-in-progress have been the subject of public meetings before, but the last ones were more than a few months ago, so these will be opportunities for new information and input on these parks’ creation. We’re adding both meetings to the WSB Events page, so you can find them later.
Three Harbor Ave notes tonight: First, property in the 3200-3300 block potentially earmarked for an apartment building called the “Aqua Bella” (rendering above from the real-estate listing’s flyer) is now up for sale, $6.4 million dollars. Second, a hearing is set before the city hearing examiner January 15 for a proposal to divide 1 parcel of land in the 2300 block into 7. And third, a rumor that’s been going around for at least five months seems to have gained a grain of potential reality — a Salty’s hotel — right now, of course, West Seattle has only one motel/hotel, the former Travelodge that is now “Seattle West Inn and Suites” (as we reported here in July). Tonight’s article mentions the Alki hotel proposal too, but as an informed observer notes to WSB, Alki zoning is NC-1, which wouldn’t allow a hotel, while Harbor Ave is NC-2, which would.
Just back from checking the past week’s worth of reports at the Southwest Precinct (thanks again to the fine folks there for the access). We’ve got a variety of incidents to tell you about – starting with this eyebrow raiser (note that we have agreed, as is standard for police-blotter reporting, to omit specific addresses and victims’ names): Between 9 pm Christmas Eve and 5:30 am the morning after Christmas, somebody broke into a fast-food restaurant in the 3000 block of California through the drive-thru window. They stole just one item: The donation jar — which they had to pry off the front counter — full of bills and coins collected for a charity! No arrest reported so far. Here are more highlights/lowlights, in reverse chronological order (including the tale of the Christmas Canine Chase):Read More
More than 50 people attended a cozy fundraiser upstairs at Duke’s on Alki tonight for the Seattle (Alki) Statue of Liberty Plaza Project. It marked the start of one more big push for the $57,000 that SSLPP leaders Libby and Paul Carr say they still need to pay for their group’s full vision of a plaza to surround the recast statue and its future new pedestal. They’ve already raised more than $100,000, including $50,000 from the city and other donations including this one announced by Walter Reese from Delridge’s Nucor steel mill (introduced by Libby Carr) at tonight’s event:
Here’s part of the opening remarks by KIRO Radio talk-show host Dave Ross, who emceed the evening, telling a story about appreciating the US – and its icons such as the Statue of Liberty and replicas like the one on Alki – after a trip in Eastern Europe long ago:
Other dignitaries who attended (but didn’t make speeches) included West Seattle-dwelling Seattle City Councilmember Tom Rasmussen, his newly elected fellow Councilmembers Bruce Harrell and Tim Burgess, new city Parks Superintendent Timothy Gallagher, and West Seattle’s County Councilmember Dow Constantine. Here’s one more clip, as Paul Carr explains the state of the SSLPP finances:Read More
Just out from Seattle Public Utilities. We won’t get to read through it till later but wanted to get you the links now.
As mentioned earlier, Mike Gain and Roger Cayce granted our request for an interview about their proposal to upzone a stretch of California Avenue south of Admiral, and sat down with us for an hour and a half at midday today. Here’s our long-form writeup:Read More
West Seattle-based DNDA is receiving a $2.4 million award just announced in this King County news release, going toward the Strength of Place Village project in White Center. (Here’s some of what DNDA already has done; we have a message out to DNDA executive director Derek Birnie in hopes of finding out more about Strength of Place.)
After last month’s contentious public meeting regarding the proposal to upzone both sides of California between Hanford and Hinds (and a bit further south on the west side), longtime West Seattle real-estate/property-management partners Mike Gain and Roger Cayce offered to talk personally with anyone who has questions about what they hope to do. So we took them up on it, and they just spent an hour and a half talking with us. First headline: It was suggested at the last Admiral Neighborhood Association meeting (WSB coverage here) that they withdraw the proposal and start over again; they told WSB today they’re not going to do that. But they had plenty more to say (and info to offer) — much of it, we think, that provides previously unreported context for what they want to do and why; we are writing up a full-length report that you’ll be able to read in a separate WSB post later this afternoon.
West Seattle’s sole tea-only shop is shutting down – 2 months after opening a downtown location, T(ea) Gallery proprietor Tracy Shafer is going to focus on that store. Here’s the announcement she just sent out:
To my friends, neighbors, supporters…
I want to let you know the T(ea) Gallery’s Admiral location will be closing as of the end of January, 2008. The past 2 years have been wonderful. I’ve gotten to know so many of my neighbors and have made some wonderful friends. The location has always been “challenged” for this type of business, but it was truly a labor of love for me and a wonderful learning experience. I hope to re-open a West Seattle shop sometime in the not too distant future, but there are some circumstances that warrant closure at this time.
I plan to offer delivery service to my West Seattle customers and I’m in the middle of working out the logistics on that. Please keep an eye on my website for details …
The T(ea) Gallery’s downtown location (at 5th & Columbia) is doing well due in large part to all of you!!! Spring will bring some wonderful events and I hope you can visit soon.
Thank you, from the bottom of my heart, for all of your support.
The website Tracy mentions is here, and includes a blog page where she talks more about the shutdown decision here.
Here’s the latest on Fauntleroy Place, the mixed-use megaproject with the future Whole Foods Market that’s been in the works almost 2 years for Fauntleroy/Alaska/39th. Eric Radovich with BlueStar Management, the FP developer, tells WSB today that they’re still hoping for groundbreaking by April, as reported in our last update in September. But first – the project has to get through one more key public meeting, for which the date has just been set — the Southwest Design Review Board “recommendations” meeting for Fauntleroy Place has is now on the city schedule for February 14. As noted on the BlueStar site, the architect on the project has changed to CollinsWoerman, but Radovich says the rendering above from the previous architect is still fairly true to the plan — 5 stories, Whole Foods and a new Hancock Fabrics store at ground level, more than 150 apartments above, parking garage with room for more than 500 vehicles (city project page here). We also asked about BlueStar’s more-recently revealed West Seattle mixed-use project, Spring Hill (no relation to the future restaurant) at 5020 California just south of The Junction (as reported by WSB here and here) — the first Design Review Board meeting for that is listed on the city site as January 10th, but Radovich says that might be changed to later in the month. He also says there’s no publicly available rendering for Spring Hill just yet.
This Tacoma News-Tribune article reminds us that West Seattle’s Department of Licensing office will soon be one of only 11 in the state (full list here) where you can get the new “enhanced” driver licenses and ID cards that can get you into and out of Canada by land or sea. They’re supposed to be available starting January 22nd, and you’ll have to make an appointment if you want to get one. The state DOL website has a sheaf of info about how these new licenses/cards work.
Thanks to Bill for e-mailing us with news this sign had gone up in the window at the future Spring Hill restaurant (the sign says “restaurant & bar”) next to Seattle Fish Company on the north edge of The Junction; we subsequently snagged this photo while Christmas shopping (very busy in The Junction, watch out for crazy drivers like the 3 who almost ran us down). We have been following the progress of Spring Hill for more than a year now, since first word of its impending arrival came in the form of a liquor-license application; most recently, we noted a building permit last month, five months after the architects’ sign went up in the corner of the window.
Finally finished surveying almost all the West Seattle coffee shops – so far, we’ve found six that will be open on Christmas; 
the list is on the Holidays page, as is our list of West Seattle Christmas Eve/Christmas Day church services (still a few more phone calls to make but even at this point we have Christmas Eve services for 15 WS churches), as well as our supermarket survey. And in the new WSB Forums, we’re still looking for West Seattle restaurants that will be open Christmas Day; jump in on the topic if you’ve found one.
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