Monthly Archives: November 2017

What’s up with 516 East Pike Donuts?

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It could just be a catchy project name but CHS gets intrigued when we find a construction permit for what could be a new doughnut shop from one of the men responsible for Top Pot, one of Capitol Hill’s most successful food and drink startups.

Just before Thanksgiving, the first paperwork was filed for a project on E Pike in the former home of Sun Liquor’s bottle shop where, last year around this time, people were lining up to buy Sun’s famous aged eggnog. The new project’s name? 516 East Pike Donuts. Continue reading →

Durkan sworn in as Seattle’s 54th 55th 56th mayor

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Jenny Durkan, Seattle’s first woman to serve as mayor since 1926 — and the Pacific Northwest metropolis’s first out lesbian mayor, ever — was sworn in at the start of a five-stop tour from the south of the city to its north Tuesday afternoon. Fittingly, the whole thing was planned to come to end Tuesday night with a beer — Lake City Way’s Elliott Bay Public House marked the final stop.

Any Seattle voter who chose Durkan because she seemed like she might be a tough ally in the seeming culture war underway in the country probably liked what they heard Tuesday.

“We will not be bullied and will not be told what to do,” Durkan said. “We’re not spoiling for a fight but we will not back down from what we know is right.” Continue reading →

Realfine Coffee expanding to Capitol Hill in Stumptown’s old E Pine space

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While neighbors wait to see what might come next to one longtime favorite Capitol Hill coffee spot, another is set to go back into motion.

West Seattle’s Realfine Coffee announced Tuesday it will be expanding onto Capitol Hill, taking over the E Pine space left empty when Stumptown left the street in August.

“We are beyond excited to announce a second location in Capitol Hill! Coming soon to 616 E Pine St in early 2018,” the Realfine announcement reads. “So grateful for this opportunity. Cap Hill, here we come!”

Owner Julie Mierzwiak opened Realfine in 2015 on Fauntleroy Way SW where her neighbor was also a Rudy’s. Lately, she’s been entangled in local concerns about lost parking from a new development project in the West Seattle neighborhood. Hope her expectations are low for E Pine.

Realfine will bring Herkimer beans to the cafe space adjacent E Pine’s Rudy’s and Capitol Hill Loans that Stumptown called home until it was shuttered late this summer. Stumptown, meanwhile, continues to operate on 12th Ave.

 

Heads-up parents, Seattle school bus drivers to hold ‘one-day’ strike Wednesday

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(Image: Teamsters Local 174)

More than 400 school bus drivers from Teamsters Local 174 will hold a one-day strike Wednesday, November 29th as they try to pound out a new contract with First Student, the company that provides yellow bus service to Seattle Public Schools. The union says the heads-up is intended to give families time to make other plans for their kids to get to and from schools Wednesday:

The Unfair Labor Practice strike will protest First Student’s unilateral change and implementation of an inferior medical plan for its employees – an illegal action under the National Labor Relations Act, as healthcare is the subject of negotiations and cannot be changed without bargaining with the employees’ Union. Teamsters Local 174 does not typically announce strikes in advance; however, in this case, the Union and its members wished to give Seattle parents adequate notice to make arrangements for their children. Bus service should resume on Thursday, November 30; however, a longer strike can be called at any time if a deal is not reached.

While many public schools in Seattle function as “neighborhood schools” where kids live within walking distance, many of the district’s special programs for students are based at specific schools across the city. On Wednesday, those kids will need to find another way to get to school.

The Teamsters are asking for support at picket lines planned at First Student bus yards

Parents of children in the Seattle School District who ride the bus to school are encouraged to make alternate transportation arrangements, as bus service throughout the School District will be impacted. For anyone who would like to show support to the striking drivers, there will be active picket lines outside of First Student bus yards in Lake City and South Park.

First Student – South Park Bus Lot:
8249 5th Ave S.
Seattle, WA 98108

First Student – Lake City Bus Lot:
13525 Lake City Way NE
Seattle, WA 98125

What it looks like now that classic Capitol Hill restaurant Charlie’s is an urgent care clinic

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(Image: CityMD)

Charlie’s on Broadway was a classic for many reasons, Capitol Hill regulars old and new witnessing its death not once but twice being among them. The cynical might say the fate of the building and bones of Charlie’s might also be a new classic Capitol Hill situation.

CHI Franciscan Health and CityMD have announced the opening of their new urgent care center on Broadway:

This state-of-the-art center meets the growing need for convenient, cost-effective, high quality medical care for local residents. Each location is staffed primarily by board-certified emergency medicine doctors. Together with key clinical support staff, such as X-ray technicians and medical assistants, they have the ability to handle a wide spectrum of common urgent care needs for the Capitol Hill community.

Continue reading →

Seattle plans $1.3M safe consumption space feasibility study in 2018

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An Insite “supervised injection site” in Vancouver, B.C. (Image: Seattle.gov)

Capitol Hill residents and businesses have been looking for new solutions to the opiate addiction crisis. You can only call 911 so many times to take care of somebody overdosing and you can only pick up so many needles before you look for better ways to help. In 2018, Seattle plans to spend the money to figure out how to put one new solution into place.

Tucked into the 2018 budget passed last week before the Thanksgiving holiday are funds allocated for “a feasibility study for siting a safe consumption site in Seattle.” Capitol Hill is considered by some to be a prime area to host the facility.

It’s officially called a Supervised Consumption Space (SCS), a public health facility where people who are living with substance disorders can use drugs in a medically supervised environment while gaining access to treatment and other services. Services often include caseworkers, mental health counselors and referrals. Seattle would be the first in the U.S. to have an SCS.

A mother with a strong Capitol Hill connection supports the effort.  Continue reading →

‘Fundamental shift’ in Seattle’s approach to homelessness — Here’s how $34M will be put to use

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As the smoke clears from Seattle’s 2018 budget process, officials are able to more clearly spell out where some of the critical elements of the city’s spending will be headed in the coming year. Monday, Mayor Tim Burgess marked his final full day in office before turning over the reins to Jenny Durkan on Tuesday with an announcement detailing $34 million in planned spending for homelessness services in 2018:

Today, Mayor Tim Burgess stood with community partners to announce $34 million in funding awards for homeless services. The Human Services Department (HSD) will fund 30 agencies, who submitted proposals in a competitive process, in 98 high-performing programs to help people move into permanent housing (See Funding Awards Attachment). The awarded agencies propose to move more than twice as many people into permanent housing in 2018 than in the previous year, thereby ending their homelessness. Further, the awards focus on addressing the specific needs of African American/Black and Native American/Alaska Native peoples, who experience homelessness at five times and seven times their representation in the overall population, respectively.

“By moving people from living on the street to permanent homes, we provide them a springboard to better opportunities and a more stable life,” Burgess said. Burgess called the funding plan a “fundamental shift in the city government’s approach to homelessness.”

“We are focused on the only result that ends homelessness: housing. We are holding our providers accountable to that same result,” he said. Continue reading →

Blotter | Broadway parking garage shootout update, cop cars stuck in Cal Anderson, Boylston trash fire

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(Images courtesy Edwin Howard)

See something others should know about? Email CHS or call/txt (206) 399-5959. You can view recent CHS Crime coverage here.

  • Cal Anderson incident: Reader Edwin Howard shared these pictures taken Sunday night in Cal Anderson after responding SPD officers got stuck in the mud in the park. Just before 7 PM, police responded to a reported fight disturbance involving people possibly armed with a knife and a golf club. Police arrived before the incident got out of hand but their cars didn’t come through so well. A tow truck arrived to remove the vehicles.
  • Broadway parking garage shootout update: The Sunday, November 19th shootout inside a Broadway parking garage that sent one man to the hospital with a gunshot wound to his arm started earlier in the night as a “rolling disturbance” at a Pike/Pine club, according to the SPD report on the incident:
    Police also identified a man wearing a puffy orange jacket as one of the shooters in the chaotic incident: Continue reading →

Next life for Broadway Dilettante will be Anejo Restaurant and Tequila Bar

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The Brix (Image: Ewing and Clark)
It’s big (Image: Ewing and Clark)
Also big (Image: Ewing and Clark)
Expect a different look by spring (Image: Ewing and Clark)

The only connection to its past might end up in the molé. The next project to put the last home of Dilettante after 41 years on Capitol Hill will be a Mexican restaurant and bar ready to put the giant space back into motion after a mostly empty year in the heart of Broadway, CHS has learned.

Anejo Restaurant and Tequila Bar is set to open in the nearly 3,000 square foot space in 2018. Restaurateur Edgar Pelayo tells CHS he wasn’t making plans for a Capitol Hill venture but the finished restaurant space Dilettante created in the Brix condo building was too good an opportunity to pass up. There is only one catch, he says.

“It’s large — which translates to expensive.” Continue reading →