Where the signs are hung by the curb with care …
Maybe too soon for the Christmas phrase-turns; blame the decorations that already have sneaked into some stores … But we digress. This post is about real estate — always a Sunday pastime as “open house” signs pop up on corners around WS. A couple noteworthy offerings, not necessarily brand-new, but they just hit our radar. First, 4315 SW Stevens, across the street from PCC , across the alley from McDonald’s, $725K:
This is notable because the property was home to a hair salon that some neighbors were upset about (as reported here last March). Thanks to WSB reader Luckie for the tip that it’s now for sale; she sent the photo shown above as well as a photo of the flyer posted in the window, which touts “beautiful extended family home … also has a fully running hair salon … you can work from home!” Here’s the official listing page, though it currently appears to be displaying the wrong photos. … Now, to another up-for-sale home, with almost twice the price ($1,499,000), almost twice the age, and countless times the history:
That’s the Herren House at 1603 45th SW, shown in a photo from the city Department of Neighborhoods’ page detailing its history, which DON says dates back to 1891, though King County property records say 1900. Interestingly, the official listing website calls this house “The Painted Lady,” same as the still-apparently-unsold “Satterlee House” on Beach Drive.
Will this be the one that beats back the backhoes?
Almost six months have passed since we first told you a teardown-to-mixed-use proposal was on the drawing board for the elegant old brick apartments shown above, at 3811 California (across from the also-in-limbo Charlestown Cafe), drawing laments from dozens of commenters (as well as from us). The four-story project planned for the site appeared to be proceeding full speed ahead. But maybe not – according to the following e-mail we received late last night from one of the current tenants:
I realize this is an old story for most, but for anyone interested in the fate of this beautiful building, we (the tenants) received a notice from the landlords today stating the following:
“The Landmark Preservation Board has determined that this property may meet the standards for Landmark Designation. Before this can be determined by the board, it is necessary to access the units for construction details.”
They’ll be doing a walk-through sometime tomorrow. The real significance for me is that this is the first documentation we’ve received at all from the landlords regarding the potential fate of our homes.
(On a side note, the notices were slipped into our mail slots in Omni
Construction envelopes — my first thought was they were our vacate
notices. Glad to see they weren’t!)
We will check today with the Landmarks Preservation Board to find out more about the expected inspection and what might happen next.
From Fauntleroy
First, a couple updates on this morning’s “doomed duplex” post. Seems demolition permits must be after-the-fact formalities unless all this happened in the hours after the permit was issued yesterday … the duplex and its former neighbor are already gone:
We also heard back from the ex-duplex’s former tenants. They found another rental just a block away; not as small as the ex-duplex (900 sf) but comparably priced per sf (less than $1 per). The kicker … it’s a townhouse. 2 stories, 8 years old. So perhaps some of today’s teardown replacements are tomorrow’s affordable rentals. Meanwhile, in future Fauntleroy construction news, a week after we mentioned the “one of the last (lots of its kind)” listing on the curve, a sign just went up:
West Seattle had its own holdout
This P-I article today reminded us of something similar along West Seattle’s waterfront Condo Row about 10 years ago — a Harbor Ave condo complex that went up in a U shape around one semi-ramshackle little house whose owner refused to sell. We managed to find an archived P-I article mentioning the Harbor holdout, photo included (scroll down this page). According to city permit records, the house finally came down, and the condo buildings came together, in 1999. Haven’t yet found a record of how much the holdout house finally sold for, though.
On the next episode of “Maury” …
… watch for Alki residents vs. city land-use planners. But seriously — we have attended two Alki Community Council meetings now, and they (the officers and the members/attendees) — are a genteel bunch, as well as lively, involved, engaged. All the things you would want a community group to be. ACC vice president Randie Stone ran tonight’s meeting and she was even passing around a basket of treats during a break in the action. But before visiting DPD planner Mark Troxel was finished with his guest appearance, the room was in a lather over teardowns and soulless redevelopment. Especially considering, as calm and polite as he tried to be, his answers about why there are no rules governing some preservation of neighborhood character in redevelopment, boiled down to nothing more than (we’re paraphrasing) “well, that would cost too much, and we really have to be concerned with housing affordability.” 
The spark for tonight’s briefly fiery discussion was the impending teardown-to-townhome project we have mentioned before at the site of the Shoremont Apartments (photo right) at 57th & Alki (on the corner east of Alki Auto Repair). “Those townhomes aren’t going to be affordable,” one attendee pointed out, laying waste to the “things might look nicer if it didn’t cost so darn much” defense. Another audience member chided the city, in the person of stalwart Mr. Troxel, for “lack of courage.” He was actually there to talk about amendments on the drawing board for a city planning document, but that discussion got derailed. After a cathartic burst of outrage about cookie-cutter townhouses, which the city rep said he isn’t thrilled about either (because they fail to maximize density potential, as well as because of their aesthetics), all ended fairly civilly, but we were a little worried there for a moment. Randie noted that the topic is enough for a meeting unto itself, and perhaps the group can invite Mr. Troxel, or another city planner, to return. Meanwhile — we’ll have several other ACC meeting items to report tomorrow, including what the city says can be done about those rental trucks that have long been bottlenecking Harbor Ave by ActivSpace. P.S. If you live in the Alki area and you’re not an ACC member yet, you can join online.
Condo saga spinoff: Renter roulette
That’s the game at least two WS apartment-seekers are caught up in — the same ones who first tipped us to the impending condo conversion at a south Morgan Junction complex. After that discovery quashed their hopes of renting there, they thought they had found another place, this time in north WS — until their prospective landlord admitted, when directly questioned, that those apartments have just been sold. (We won’t name the building until and unless we find online records to double-verify this.) Will their third choice be the charm? We’ll wait to hear! Meantime, this blogger caught up in the M-Junction conversion has found a place on Alki.
West Seattle dream homes
Sunday afternoons often make us think of … real estate, perhaps because of the “open house” signs flowering on almost every corner, especially on the most famous streets of WS. We all know about Alki Avenue and Beach Drive and their incredible view homes — but if you don’t wander far off the main arterials, you might not know much about the other “streets of (WS) dreams.” In particular, this afternoon we are thinking about Sunset Avenue — a view-drenched blufftop street in north WS that you could consider to be a bit like a WS version of LA’s famous Mulholland Drive.
Sunset Ave parallels Alki Ave for quite a while, but if you look toward it from the shore, it’s hard to see anything but an occasional house from Sunset or other bluffside streets poking over the condo-tops:
Sunset wandered onto our radar screen during a real-estate search, where we encountered three homes for sale there right now: “The Castle” at 1545 Sunset ($1,595,000); a somewhat newer home at 1429 Sunset ($1,590,000); and a chance to buy into this neighborhood for less than a million, at 1532 Sunset ($959,000). Which WS street do you dream of living on?
Another condo conversion on the south end of Morgan Junction
At 6970 Cali, the Watermarke Apartments (photo below) are going condo. First we heard from a reader who was about to rent an apartment there – planning to move in next week, in fact – then got the news “oops, sorry, the building’s been sold, no new tenants, and the old ones have to vacate.” Then we discovered that one of those tenants just posted about it at ApartmentRatings.com. Seems to be getting to the point now where we can ask, which apartment buildings in WS are not going condo?
Killing time before the conversion
Guess you can’t just let those apartments lie idle while tenants flee before the deadline to buy in or get out. Spotted at West Ridge Park on Delridge this afternoon, balloon-festooned signs exhorting SHORT TERM LEASES! (photo below) and MONTH TO MONTH! (across the street), all within rock-throwing distance of the sign about the conversion to its new condo identity as “Gables” …
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4 days after we reported on 
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