(Image: City of Seattle)

The development team planning a new two-level grocery store and at least five stories of new apartments on the property currently home to Safeway and a huge surface parking lot at 15th and John discussed early concepts and fielded ideas and feedback from community members in a meeting earlier this month with the Pike/Pine Urban Neighborhood Council.

The good news, if you live in the neighborhood and depend on the grocery store — construction likely won’t start for two years. In the meantime, the project team is sorting out major design issues like what to do with all those utility wires, how to make the nearby bus stop and street crossings safer, how best to connect to nearby Williams Place Park, and which “Capitol Hill” a project at the busiest intersection of 15th Ave E should most relate to — leafy and relatively quiet 19th Ave E or bustling Broadway.

Representatives from the development team of architectural firm Weber Thompson, Pine View Development, and development and construction firm Greystar said they expect at least two years of planning and “entitlement” process will be required for the project to run Seattle’s public process gauntlet including multiple rounds of design review and then another two years of construction before the project opens for new residents, new small businesses, and a new Safeway.

CHS reported here on the simmering plans for the Capitol Hill site surviving the pandemic and beginning to move forward again this summer. Acquired for less than $1 million in 1993 according to King County records, the 15th and John Safeway land is nearly 100,000 square feet of property dominated by the large grocery store and the larger surface parking lot.

Early plans showed two residential buildings rising along the 15th Ave E side of the project mixed with first-floor commercial spaces separated from the grocery by an “internal pedestrian plaza.” The plaza labeling seen in plans posted last summer has disappeared in the latest site concepts.

A representative from Weber Thompson said issues arising from infrastructure and utilities on the block are reshaping the plans with designs that would set the project back farther from the street to avoid the many utility wires required for King County Metro’s electrified coaches that cannot be undergrounded like typical utilities.

The developers also told PPUNC they are digesting work from a series of 15th Ave E neighborhood design workshops organized three years ago by the street’s resident designers at Board and Vellum and Environmental Works. The design guidelines from the process mixed a general wish to preserve the quaint and quirky vibe on 15th with a desire for new and plentiful commerce on the street.

One PPUNC participant echoed those priorities in her comments during the Safeway discussion, joining others in asking the development team to consider creating spaces for small businesses along the 15th Ave E-facing side of the project.

PPUNC is a community group organized by Capitol Hill architect and CHS design writer John Feit. There are no membership dues and its actions are typically related to community meetings and public comment at design reviews and landmarks hearings. You can learn more at facebook.com/PPUNC/.

That 15th Ave E face of the development is also part of an open design question for the buildings that will make up the development. Designers in the sessions asked for feedback on where 15th Ave E fits into the Capitol Hill universe and whether a neighborhood building should relate more strongly to the area around 19th Ave E or the more dense area around Broadway. Feedback, as you might expect, was mixed.

Other feedback from PPUNC participants in the video conference included general enthusiasm for project, the desire for “small retail” opportunities near 15th, a call for no “blank walls” like the current Safeway building ended up with along 15th, pedestrian and street elements near 14th that could help the crossing at John, and a desire for the project to somehow connect with and improve environment around Williams Place Park.

The project team says it also working with feedback from city planners about vehicle entrances and safety related to the E John bus stop at the corner of 15th.

For now, there are no plans for helping address a possible major hole in grocery store shopping in the area though the long planning time may help. After Kroger chose to shut down its 15th Ave E QFC in April in a tiff over the city’s hazard pay requirements, the company continues to hold a lease on that property for two more years. With the Ohio-based company apparently uninterested in striking a deal to allow a competitor to use the building, efforts continue to find a Kroger-friendly tenant capable of filling the large space. By the time the 15th and John Safeway needs to be demolished, hopefully the nearby QFC space will be back in motion with a new grocery store.

The 15th and John developers, meanwhile, are also working on a similar plan for the U District Safeway and also slogged through years of process for a similar Safeway development on Queen Anne.

In the meeting, development representatives said they hoped feedback and dialogue with groups like PPUNC would help them shape a better project and avoid lengthy, expensive design review delays.

The first review of the project has not yet been scheduled.

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