West Seattle, Washington
22 Monday
Gee whiz, leave the house/computer for a couple hours and look what happens – for the second time today, Mosaic Homes announces it’s canceling a West Seattle condo conversion (thanks to everyone who e-mailed us about this; we also got our own e-mail, above, since we were on the mailing list). As we’ve reported previously, it’s been trying like mad to sell “Strata on California,” formerly the Graham Street Apartments at California/Graham north of Morgan Junction, but apparently not doing so well, hence the announcement above that Strata will be rented out. (And remember, as also reported here, the much-marketed West Water condo conversion less than a mile south is already resorting to rentals.)
Exterior work is under way right now at the ex-Coyotes, finally confirmed firsthand to be the future home of Pegasus Pizza (whose original location next door will be torn down for a new building). The beige-ish panel actually features marbling much like the current Pegasus decor. Meantime, we talked to a worker outside the future Alki Urban Market – he said he had no clue when they’ll be opening; and down the street at the ex-Alki Mail/Dispatch, future Pioneer Coffee Roasting Co., someone’s inside working on a huge PIONEER sign. As for the water side of the street, a couple scenes from our breezy, chilly walk:
As part of Hometown Holidays in The Junction this weekend, 
there’s a Warm Clothes Drive under way for area families. As Susan Melrose, executive director of the West Seattle Junction Association, explains: “We are looking for all types of warm clothes to keep all members of our community warm through the winter. Clean out your children’s closet and hand-be-down piles looking for all types of winter clothes including jackets, pajamas, boots, long underwear, sweaters, socks, and more. We will collect these items at Hometown Holidays Headquarters (44th Ave SW and Alaska) all weekend long. WestSide Baby will pick up the loot on Sunday (December 2) at 5 pm. And if you don’t have these items, you can help this organization by bringing diapers too.”
If you haven’t already procured a “hard copy” — you can get the November/December Alki News-Beacon online here. In it, you’ll find an article we submitted, and editor Cami MacNamara graciously accepted — it’s about what you can do now to make sure you can still get online after disaster (windstorm, anyone?) strikes, featuring info from the presentation we prepared for last summer’s West Seattle-wide Emergency Preparedness Event. (The bonus online info mentioned in the ANB article is a downloadable doc you’ll find here.)
Two weeks ago, we brought you a WSB reader’s report that the office staff at West Ridge Park on Delridge told her the condo conversion to “Gables,” by the same people who brought you “Strata,” was slowing down. Then one week ago, we noted that the Mosaic Homes website no longer listed “Gables” as “coming soon.” Mosaic still to this date hasn’t returned our messages, but another West Ridge resident just e-mailed WSB to tell us this notice landed on the doorstep this morning:
“We are pleased to announce that the owners of West Ridge Park have decided to not go forward with the planned condo conversion at this time. The property as a whole will remain a rental property … We sincerely want to thank each and every one of you for your patience and understanding during these past months of change and uncertainty. We hope this announcement will please all of you. I know you are very excited that we are staying as a rental community, and hope each of you will stay with us in 2008.”
This was to be a huge condo conversion and got a lot of citywide coverage earlier this year, as harbinger of a trend — can’t help wondering if it might become the same thing now, in the opposite direction.
We went to tonight’s Southwest Community Center meeting for the Parks Department’s future Strategic Business Plan not realizing it would be an interactive format – listen to organizers for a few minutes, then break into groups and discuss ideas and opinions for most of the rest of the time. What resulted was a public meeting that really felt like a public meeting – with the emphasis on “public.” This was the first of six of these meetings happening in West Seattle over the course of the next week (full list here, continuing with High Point Community Center @ 7 pm tomorrow), and if you care about the future of our city parks, we strongly urge you to make time to participate in one of them. Here’s what we experienced tonight – including a high-level observer:Read More
You may have heard the first stirrings of Snow Suspicions ’07. Here’s a link to the National Weather Service‘s updated forecast (posted at 3:30 pm) – the outlook for the metro area says “local accumulations of an inch or so (are) possible, mainly on hilltops away from the water.” The “forecast discussion” further refines the metro outlook to “Seatac southward” — but you just never know until it hits (or doesn’t). By the way, we had a “snow day” exactly one year ago today; go to our November ’06 archive page and scroll down a bit to read the 11/28/06 posts. (No photos, sorry, we weren’t camera-equipped way back then!)
On the eve of the public meeting about the upzoning proposal for both sides of California Ave between Hanford and Hinds (and a bit south on the west side), two updates: Neighborhood opponents are distributing a flyer around the area with their concerns and full details of how to have a say (they sent us a copy; we uploaded it – click here to read it); supporters continue to add comments to our earlier posts (one comment is at the bottom of the list here; another one at the bottom here). Tomorrow night’s meeting is at West Seattle High School, 6:30 pm. For background info, the city’s page about the proposal is here; our report on informal presentations made 2 weeks ago to the Admiral Neighborhood Association by a developers’ rep and a city planner is here.
SENATOR HERE THIS MORNING: U.S. Senator Patty Murray and a long list of business and education leaders will be in West Seattle this morning, in Olympic Hall at South Seattle Community College, for a field hearing of Murray’s Senate Subcommittee on Employment and Workplace Safety.
FIRST STOP IN THE CITY PARKS HEARING TOUR TONIGHT: As we reported earlier this month, the city Parks Department is touring the city in a series of 30-plus public hearings on what should be in its forthcoming Strategic Business Plan. Tonight is the first of five hearings in West Seattle (7-9 pm, Southwest Community Center). Lots more info here; the full list of meetings is here; if you are absolutely certain you cannot make it to any of those meetings, the Parks Department has a “short online survey” you can take here. With so much parkland here on our beautiful peninsula — and remember, we’re the biggest neighborhood in the city! — it’s vital to have West Seattle opinions, hopes, and dreams represented in the forthcoming Parks plan.
Big response to this morning’s post about the Chief Sealth High School class offering free web design to some West Seattle nonprofits and small businesses next semester; the P-I’s Big Blog checked in with teacher Sam Reed, who told us this afternoon he’d heard from more than a dozen prospects; by tonight, it was up to 30.
The King County Elections Department has just certified final results from this month’s election; the final count in Seattle School Board District 6, which is centered on West Seattle (but is voted on citywide in the general election), was Steve Sundquist (photo left) 61.2%, Maria Ramirez 38.4%. Sundquist and other newly elected school-board members will be sworn in at school-district HQ in Sodo tomorrow night.
The next step is here for the medians left mostly bare since the Admiral Way repaving last summer (as seen in our August photo above). Now, the city says it’s ready to figure out where it wants to put trees in the medians, with time for you to have a say on whether you agree:Read More
WSB contributing photographer Christopher Boffoli spotted the last piece of the Shadowland sign now in place — the moon. As for when they’re opening – still waiting to hear.
After yesterday’s report about one “peeper” reported in two West Seattle neighborhoods last Saturday night, this e-mail came in from WSB reader “L”:
I am a resident from the Andover/46th block. After reading and hearing about the peeper from this past weekend I was reminded of my own experience this past August 14th. I was awakened in the early morning hours, 1:30 – 2:30, by a strange noise and when I went to investigate saw a man standing at my sliding glass door. I called 911 and the police arrived and searched our yard but found no traces of the man. I was alarmed last night to find that these peeper reports are in close proximity to our address. Hopefully the police are taking notice and patrolling our neighborhood a bit more often than normal.
We are working on obtaining more information about last weekend’s incidents and will of course report whatever we find out.
From Pigeon Point Neighborhood Council leaders: An urgent call to neighbors to find out if they want to meet this week with the principal/CEO of the firm behind a sizable housing development on 22nd SW (city info page here), because that executive can schedule a meeting either this week, or not till next year. The development centered at 3816 22nd SW (here’s a map) would include 14 housing units — 2 single-family homes plus 12 townhouse units. Neighborhood leaders need to hear by 6 pm tonight from anybody who would be interested in a meeting this week; if you’re in the Pigeon Point area and not already on its list, contact info is at the PPNC site.
Do you have a West Seattle nonprofit organization or small business with no website (or not much of one)? Chief Sealth High School teacher Sam Reed, and some of his students, have an offer for you:Read More
Thanks to WSB community member “k” for catching this just posted by the P-I: police on the lookout for someone reported peeping into two separate West Seattle homes on Saturday night – here are the locations (click each blue marker for address specifics):
Reminder that this Thursday night (6:30 pm, West Seattle High School library) is the first major public meeting about the proposal to rezone both sides of California between Hanford and Hinds (and a bit further south on the west side of the street) to allow larger businesses and taller buildings (city map screengrab at right). Over the holiday, the major landowners behind the proposal (and four other site visitors) added comments to the original WSB report about the plan — since that report is almost 3 weeks old, there’s a 99.9% chance you haven’t seen the new comments, so here are the highlights:Read More
Over the weekend, this reader report sparked a discussion about curbside freebies. Today, we got e-mail from JG, wanting to share an alert about a curbside-donation thief:
Please tell people not to put out their pickup for Northwest Center until 7:30 am or a little before. I had mine out the night before and was woke up with headlights coming in my bedroom and saw a white car, late 90’s or early 2000’s model with a sunroof, stealing my donation. The passenger that took my donation was a girl with brown hair to her shoulders or a little longer. I should have gotten up right away but I hesitated for a couple minutes, then got in my car to see if I could find the car and get the license plate number. I know probably a stupid thing to do but I didn’t find them. This was around 1:30 last night.
We asked JG a couple followup questions — what was in her donation? (clothes & shoes) was it clearly marked as a donation so this wasn’t a case of someone mistaking it for a freebie? (yes, it had the Northwest Center tag on it). So … consider yourself alerted.
The Fauntleroy Community Association website has posted a short video clip from the recent Fauntleroy Creek coho return – follow the link from the fauntleroy.net home page. And there’s new information beyond what’s posted with that video — we visited the fish-ladder overlook (across the street and up the bluffside staircase from the ferry dock) over the weekend and saw a note headlined “IT’S A WRAP,” indicating creek-watchers believe this year’s return is over — but they did count more than 90 fish during the week-long return, compared to none last year and 46 in ’05. Next step, according to that note – watching for fry in February.
TOWNHOUSE GLUT? WHAT TOWNHOUSE GLUT? Not long after reading this article (which we also mentioned over the weekend), we found permit applications for another teardown-to-townhome project in north West Seattle, on 44th just south of Atlantic (map): it spans two addresses, 1506 44th and 1508 44th, and is next to what appears to be a similarly sized project for which permit applications were filed a few weeks earlier, 1510 44th and 1512 44th.
LAST CALL FOR DESIGN REVIEW ON 2 PROJECTS: The official notice on these came out last week but might have gotten lost in the pre-holiday rush: The Southwest Design Review Board meets December 20th — at Denny Middle School instead of the usual SW Precinct — for the “recommendation” phase on the townhouse/”live-work” proposal at 6053 California (where the martial-arts tenant just had its moving sale weekend before last) and 7901 35th, known for spiritual pursuits from the Seventh-Day Adventists to Temenos to Mars Hill bus parking, now proposed for auto repair (including a new 2-story building).
Holiday weekend’s winding down, time to get back to the news. We’ve got updates in the works on some ongoing major West Seattle issues/stories, including, right now, the latest on the Alki Statue of Liberty Plaza Project. As we reported here last Monday, the approved ’08 city budget includes the $50,000 that city leaders announced for a new pedestal just before the recast statue was placed atop the old one in September. The group raising money in hopes of surrounding that new pedestal with a plaza has just updated its blog (read it here) with the latest on fundraising efforts for the plaza project (last public meeting about it was September 13; here’s our detailed report from that night). In the new blog update, project committee co-chair Paul Carr writes, “… we may need another $80,000 or so, just to be on the safe side”; we e-mailed to see if that meant cost estimates had changed. Paul’s reply to WSB: “The estimate is still the same; as far as we know, the $157,000 is the construction estimate. However, even though no one on our committee is making a dime (no salaries or other labor costs), there still are fund-raising expenses. The Fiscal Sponsor takes a small percentage for being the Fiscal Sponsor and keeping charge of the money, we have printing costs: brochures, etc. Bottom line: If we can raise another $80,000, we estimate we can safely do everything the community wanted.” The Sealady Blog update also mentions a “gala dinner” for the project in the works coming up in late December @ the Alki Duke’s. (If you are just coming in on the statue/plaza story, all our previous coverage is archived here.)
Drawing a lot of gawkers in The Junction today: The menu and wine list for Shadowland are now posted in its front window (NE corner of California/Oregon). Sample from the “small plates” lineup: Cassie, $6, ingredients listed as “white cheddar, macaroni, love.”
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