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Raised Doughnuts is now open at 24th and Union, part of the Midtown Square development — 428 market-rate and affordable apartment units, a quasi-public central plaza, and a huge underground parking garage, plus a mix of organizations and businesses the developer Lake Union Partners says will better represent the surrounding communities than the original plans for a big chain pharmacy.
“It’s been a challenging 8 months but we’ve finally reached the end of the build out and we can’t be happier!” owner Mi Kim said in a recent social media post about the opening. “So ready to make you all some doughnuts and cakes and so excited to see what this new space brings us and our community!”
CHS reported on the plans for Raised’s move back in September 2020 with original plans for a 2021 debut. Following the pandemic and construction delays, the new Raised Doughnuts cafe is now ready with plenty of room to sit down and enjoy or get in line to take your box away. The new Raised is also being prepared for big plans including including doughnut and cake classes, Kim said.
In 2018, Kim opened Raised in the former Collins Gold Exchange and minimart that was once lined up to become a new Central District burger mart along 23rd AVe. More changes are coming to that stretch of commercial buildings. CHS reported here in April on the plans from the folks behind Pettirosso for a new bar and lodging project on the street.
Raised, meanwhile, is the first to open in the Midtown development’s planned mix of neighborhood and BIPOC-owned businesses including a second location of the Jerk Shack Caribbean restaurant, So Beautiful Salon from Shavonne Bland, a Central District resident and Garfield High grad, along 23rd Ave, and a new home for neighborhood bar The Neighbor Lady. Meanwhile, CHS reported details here of Midtown Square’s unique anchor tenant — ArtĂ© Noir arts center — at the center of the project’s retail mix.
As for the doughnuts, Raised at 24th and Union marks the second big area doughnut opening of 2022. Vegan joint Dough Joy debuted on E Pike in January.
Raised has taken a craft approach to its raspberry holes, maple bars, apple fritters, sugared mochi, and good ol’ plain glazed creations. “The texture is it for me,” Kim told CHS when we first talked with her about doughnut philosophy four years ago. “A doughnut should be soft and also chewy.”
Raised has also built a reputation for fantastic cakes setting up the potential for a fantastic neighborhood bake-off if the Pettirosso plans come to fruition a block away.
Raised Doughnuts is now located at 2301 E Union. You can learn more at raiseddoughnuts.com.
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I’m old enough to recall that the development of this block was held up **for years** by voices that were against any development of what previously stood on the lot — and by “previously” I’m euphemistically referring to the aging strip mall, the liquor store, the gross post office which even by post office standards was pretty skuzzy, and the dollar store. Oh and the barber shop which moved into a nicer space across the street.
I recall **years** of “Seattle Is Dying”-style complaints about how this development will kill the local community, about how much this aging strip mall-with-liquor store-and-post-office is the absolute cornerstone, the bedrock if you will, of the neighborhood and its historically African American population. How developing this block is akin to knocking down the Sistine Chapel to replace it with a shopping center.
And yet…here we are.
At the tail end of this development it’s pretty clear these naysayers were correct. The neighborhood? A husk of its former self. The loss of the liquor store? A loss that will be felt for ages and ages. The new retail? Nothing that anyone would ever use.
I mean…how could one **not** admit that the anti-development crowd was 100% correct?
LOLZ.
Of course I’m being sarcastic but it’s **so** telling that these anti-development voices have all crawled into the woodwork and are quiet as can be.
It’s just as telling that they would never dream of admitting their error.
And the lessor for Seattle is that when these voice pop up, which they always will, they should be LAUGHED OUT OF THE DISCUSSION AND RIDICULED FOR THE CHICKEN LITTLES THEY ARE.
**eat a doughnut**
People seem to think we should keep the entire city in stasis, or locked in amber, forever. We should acknowledge history but also allow the city to continue changing dynamically.
I grew up in Queens, in a neighborhood that was historically middle class whites, many 2nd generation. When I go back, it’s mostly Russians, and a lot of the store signage is in Cyrillic. Should I be exasperated by the historical change? Part of what makes NY amazing is how every part of it reinvents itself every 30 years. Seattle needs that energy too.
100% agreed, except in Queens and other parts of the Northeast there are many times historic architecture that is well worth preserving.
Since the Pacific Northwest wasn’t really much of anything 40+ years ago, we don’t have much in the way of preservation-worthy buildings. But, if you were to ask those lined up to oppose the Midtown development, the aging strip mall and its associated lame businesses were absolutely necessary to the health of the neighborhood.
I recall one discussion on here about the value of the dollar store, and how its potential loss was enough to torpedo the whole project.
How these people can be so myopic is beyond me, but thankfully the city can see they have their voices heard, and once they’ve had their say the city can say “thanks for accosting us with your lame reasons for opposing this project, please sit down as we stamp ‘project approved’ on the master use permit.”
Now there are issues with the project — I wish the Capitol Hill Housing project at the end of the block would’ve started at the same time, and it’s a real shame that Bartell’s pulled out of the corner space after being acquired. Having an arts organization — even tho the improper French name drives me insane — is just not the same as having an actual neighborhood asset like a pharmacy. But maybe it’s a sort of temporary tenant? I hope so.
That dollar store was rarely even open. I’ve lived within easy walking distance of 23/union for ten years. I’m over the moon with the new development.
Have you tried the mochi doughnuts? Talk about a reinvention! The apple fritters are outstanding too!
Most of the change in Manhattan over the past 20 years seems to have involved the elimination of characteristics that differentiated it from other places. Maybe we could gin up some tax breaks for Duane Reade.
I just want to point out that in the absence of the advocacy by African Town and others, this would have been a monolithic building with no public courtyard, no public art and no local bipoc-owned businesses. In the absence of public process, developers will act in there own interest (profit and shareholder equity) rather than the public interest.
I’m glad the project has turned out to be inclusive, but the idea that the massive resistance by a highly vocal minority of anti-development zealots was the **core reason** the project turned out the way it has is totally unsupportable.
When is the Neighbor Lady going to open? All will be well once it does.