Representatives from nonprofit developer Capitol Hill Housing and the City of Seattle are meeting this Friday for the first work session to analyze what is needed — and how much it will cost — to transform the East Precinct’s parking lot at 12th Ave and Pine into a mixed-use redevelopment providing housing, affordable retail and arts space, a public meeting space appropriate for community meetings and, yes, adequate infrastructure for the 150-odd parking spaces SPD says it will need.
The initiative is being called the 12th Ave Arts project.
It’s a discussion that has been going on for years, CHS has been told when covering the situation in the past. One main sticking point has been the parking infrastructure and concerns over the cost and the number of spaces the project would need to provide. We first reported on CHH’s push for the project in 2008. Now, representatives are sitting down to work out a plan that will put the 27,000 square-foot lot to better use and provide East Precinct with the resources it needs.
SPD spokesperson Sean Whitcomb told CHS it was too early to comment on the proposal at this preliminary stage.
Capitol Hill Community Council president Norma Jean Straw is enthusiastic about the progress:
I’m really proud of our community for stepping up to take action on this project. I feel that we were heard and supported from the City/Mayor [January 5th] and we will see this project moving quickly to the next phase. A special thanks to the great professionals at Capitol Hill Housing for doing such great work to pull this project together and keeping it alive over the last 10 years.
The CHH plan calls for the proposed project to have 60-70 units of affordable housing, two floors of commercial space designed to cater to local, nonprofit and arts-based organizations, the parking structure and a community space available for public meetings and gatherings. The CHH briefing document (included at the bottom of this post) shows a stage and an auditorium arrangement to represent this space. With the challenges faced in establishing this kind of space in the development at the Broadway light rail station, the 12th Ave community space might be the next best shot and creating a much-needed public meeting facility. No cost estimates for the project are included in the 12th Ave Art briefing information.
The revival of the initiative got underway earlier this month when members of the community council met with reps from CHH and the city to talk about the project. Here’s a recap provided to us by Straw:
Members of the Community Council had a very successful meeting yesterday with Daryl Smith, Ethan Raup, Steve Johnson, Fred Podesta and James Keblas at the City of Seattle to discuss the redevelopment of the East Precinct Parking Lot. We requested this meeting back in October when the Mayor did his Capitol Hill Walk. The project (in the works for over 10 years) has been stalled for 2 years due to a debate over the number of parking spaces that are financially feasible in the development.
The purpose of yesterdays meeting was to get the project moving again and begin a collaborative process between the community and the City to work out the parking space issue. The East Precinct currently parks 70 cars on that lot and another 30 on a private lot at 14th and Pine. The goal is to provide adequate secure parking for the Precinct while creating an incredible community arts and affordable housing development. The city and mayor’s staff has agreed to work collaboratively as we move forward on the project and hammer out the financing and parking issues. The great news is that this project will not add anything to the City budget so this is a win-win kinda project for the community and the city.
The development would represent another project for CHH to continue its initiative to improve the 12th Ave business district. You can read more about their projects in the area at http://12thaveseattle.com/
This is great news! That surface lot is an eyesore and a poor use of space. I’m glad that this project will address some of the community wants that the light rail station may not be able to address.
I’d feel safer knowing there weren’t murdering pigs in my community.
God, I love Capitol Hill Housing. Thank goodness for a local organization that gets the community and wants to help others.
All developers that are developing on the Hill (from elsewhere): take note.
A fine example of an organization providing a service without the constraints of private profitability.
Sounds great. Let’s take taxpayer money and build another project.Let’s get the same general contractors who will hire the same sub contractors who hire the same undocumented workers to build them with my tax money. What a system- I won’t get the construction job and the undocumented worker who will, won’t get a fair wage and no benefits. Neither one of us will be able to afford to shop there and neither one of us will qualify to live there.