We should find a way to make it easier for Capitol Hill’s young, wealthy tech titans to visit exotic, foreign cultures. Our pal Matt Goyer from urbnlivn.com returned from Whistler this week with an idea that has apparently inspired Odd Fellows developer Ted Schroth to consider adding a potentially useful bicycling resource to the building’s basement. But first he wants your feedback:
Hi Matt, re your post- what do you (and the readers) think if we rented some bike storage in the OddFellows basement? We still have some room down there (a couple thousand SF). I’d be interested to hear from you (& others) what we would need to do to make it rentable, and what people would be willing to pay per month.
Thoughts? I’ve left comments open on this post but head over to urbanlivn to give Schroth a little (future?) customer feedback.
Sell a vowel, J!
Storage of ANYTHING needs to be cheap.
So, you have a bike, and you can’t park it in your bedroom? Hang it on the wall somewhere?
Does not seem practical to me ……
Maybe if there was some sort of workshop you could use. With tools that you wouldn’t need to buy for normal use. Otherwise, a wall or closet work fine in (almost) any size apartment. Between my roommates and I we have 6-7 full bikes in our 1,200 sf apartment.
Agreed. While I have plenty of room to store my bike, without a garage it can be cumbersome to clean and repair it. Access to basic work stands and space that’s conducive to cleaning a bike would be really useful.
Would be wonderful to have more bike rental places on the hill for visitors from out of town, and people who don’t yet own a bike for themselves. You could do a mixed use – bike rental and repair shop (I bet velo bike might be a good partner, or 12th ave. bicycle) and bike storage on the side as well.
This concept is something I haven’t stumbled upon yet in Seattle, but in my hometown in California we had a great co-op bike shop where volunteer employees worked a shift or two a week at a bike garage co-op that was open 4-5 days a week for 4-5 hours a day. The idea was to be a free / low-cost (donation and low fee driven) resource to the community. We helped teach kids, homeless/low income/average joes how to repair / build their own bikes and charged $5 for full access to shop tools / stands / et cetera. Something like this would be awesome to have in our community and could really benefit people in the long term.
for reference, this is the program I’m referring to: http://sacbikekitchen.org/
We also held fundraiser parties every 2nd Saturday (or in this case, we could do the Artwalks) where bands would play and we’d showcase local artist work. Just a thought!
They have something like this in Olympia and it’s wonderful! I don’t know that I need storage space, but I definitely need a space to work on a bike and maybe get some tips. I’m woefully bad at riding my bike (learned very late in life) and have no clue about the mechanics- bike co-ops are such a great resource for folks like me. I’d pay into the space on a donation basis, at the very least.
Are we talking a place to park your bike for the winter or are we talking daily in/out privileges? Either option may have a constituency, but they would have very different pricing options. I might pay $25 to park my bike for 4 months with no in/out privs. If I were a SCCC student that wanted a secure covered access to park my bike I might pay $25 per month assuming I had at least 16/7 access.
BikeWorks down in Columbia City does a lot of those things, although it’s not really a co-op. This would be a great thing for the Hill and CD neighborhoods. Shop access, please!
http://thebikery.org/
They fix their sewer system so that it stops flooding raw sewage in the basement. It’s happened a couple of times already this month.
I’ll be more into this idea when the possibility of poo spillage goes away.
The developer is interested in bike storage options out of the basement? How about making room for all the artists and arts nonprofits you essentially kicked out of the building by increasing rents 300% you greedy bastard.