QFC isn’t coming back to 15th Ave E anytime soon. The old grocery building and the rest of its 15th Ave E block are now being lined up for redevelopment some six years after Capitol Hill developer Hunters Capital’s $11.25 million deal to purchase the property, according to permit paperwork filed this week with the city.
The Seattle Daily Journal of Commerce is also reporting on the plans.
According to permits, Hunters Capital is planning a five-story mixed building with around 150 apartment units and underground parking for around 116 vehicles on the site running from the middle of the 400 block of 15th Ave E to E Republican. The plans include demolition of the 1904-built Moore Family building home to a Rudy’s Barbershop and longtime neighborhood convenience store ShopRite and the adjacent grocery and surface parking lot that hosted a grocery since 1944 until QFC exited the street in 2021 in a tiff with the Seattle City Council over COVID-19 hazard pay.
In a statement to CHS, a Hunters Capital representative confirmed the plans.
“We have initiated very preliminary plans for an exciting new development project that aims to enhance and serve the needs of our neighborhood,” they write. “These plans are still in the very early stages. We are committed to working diligently to ensure that the future development serves the needs of our community and enhances Capitol Hill as a whole.”
CHS reported here on the 2017 acquisition of the property after being gifted to the University of Washington by the family that held the property for decades.
Hunters Capital has been selective and reverent of modern Capitol Hill’s auto row-era roots in its redevelopment projects. It held up its eight-story Dunn Automotive building on E Pike as what founder Mike Malone said should be the standard for Pike/Pine’s preservation incentive-boosted development. It is also in the midst of a long development process for this nine-story preservation incentive project at Pike and Belmont. The Pike/Pine Conservation District incentive program that provides developers with the right to build taller in exchange for preserving the facade and basic dimensions of historic “character” structures does not extend to 15th Ave E.
Up the Hill, 15th Ave E remains a relatively sleepy commercial strip in comparison to decades of hyper development in the cores of Broadway and Pike/Pine. Change begins with the coming construction of the Safeway redevelopment project set to start next year. But this QFC project just blocks from multimillion million mansions and the highly valued blocks of predominantly single family-style housing around Volunteer Park is a new flashpoint.
Some in the neighborhood have been preparing for the change. A 2018 neighborhood process led by 15th Ave E firm Board and Vellum helped shape design and community priorities before in anticipation of the wave of expected redevelopment on the street including a $400 million overhaul of the Kaiser Permanente campus, the new five-story mixed use development rising at the site of the Hilltop Service Station property, and the eventual redevelopment of the street’s QFC block.
During the process, residents and participants made a visual and written record of a collective wish list which included dozens more trees, murals, and wider sidewalks as a reference for designers and developers who want to build in the area. Many of the participants expressed a wish to preserve the quaint and quirky vibe on 15th, while others endorsed the idea of new and plentiful commerce on the street.
Despite the work, the timeline for the new QFC block project could be a long one including permitting, design review, and a possible landmarks process to assess the Moore Family structure.
Up the street, the Hunters-backed project to build a new mixed-use building on the property once home to the Hilltop Service Station finally broke ground late last year. CHS first reported on those plans in January 2019. The building is slated to complete construction. That building will likely be completed long before any dirt is turned on the QFC block.
The start of construction might more closely align with a different development, however. Down 15th Ave at the corner with John, the neighborhood’s Safeway is lined up to be redeveloped with a new 50,000-square-foot grocery store, new apartments, and a massive underground parking lot. Groundbreaking there could come in 2024 with the new building expected to open in 2026. It’s possible Hunters could seek to align its next 15th Ave E project with the end of work on the Safeway development.
Hunters Capital says the old 15th Ave E QFC could spark back to life in the interim. The developer confirms that QFC “has made the decision not to renew their lease in the property.”
“We will gain possession of the vacant grocery space in October 2023,” Hunters Capital said in the statement to CHS. “We are actively seeking users to revitalize and bring life back into this area. We welcome any suggestions you might have for short-term activation of the vacant grocery store and parking lot.”
They add that the vacant store “is a shell.”
“QFC removed all of their infrastructure and in 2021 someone broke in and removed all electrical and HVAC cabling,” Hunters reports.
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Hunters Capitol sucks – they love suing the city for CHOP and getting all those tax payers money. They also voted against making pike/pike carless. They love cars and money.
Exactly right. Let us hope these greedy local developers sell it to a development conglomerate from Texas or New York, which will bring neighborhood sensitivity and historic sensibility to this old, non-descript grocery store building and parking lot. Oh, and of course they will NOT like cars or money.
Hunter’s Capital (and Mike Malone) is one of the very few developers who are local and very respectful of our neighborhood and its scale. They are a quality outfit and we are lucky to have them.
Thank god – let’s go and get this going! Can’t happen sooner.
Awesome – looking forward to the redevelopment of that site. Bring on more housing and retail!
Please build this new building with the old world charm filled with character.
We don’t need another stripped down boring building up here.
Thank you.
I’m with you but also, it’s not like it could be uglier than the beige block that it’s been for decades.
Include a grocery store!!
Maybe the empty space could be used for indoor pickle ball courts- and let Miller Park Tennis courts return to the nice quiet sport space?
Plenty of parking!
A possible Punk Rock Flea Market venue in the short term?
I suppose a “yay” to get rid of the ugly empty building and parking lot but a big nay they have to tear down the building with healthy local businesses in it. Because, those businesses won’t be able to afford the rents for retail in the new building so they’ll sit empty like most street level commercial spaces in new buildings in Seattle.
When will we learn that retail corridors like this are fully dependent on daylight for their success and that upzoning these streets has created nothing but cold uninviting retail environments.
There’s a reason U-Village isn’t 5 stories tall. The promises of New Urbanism have failed us.
15th is a narrow street it is going to feel like a canyon with a 5 storie building. U-Village is one of the few good Urban projects done in Seattle.