With the city’s design review process in a drawn out transition period, the developers behind a project that will truly reset the commercial core of Capitol Hill’s 15th Ave E with new retail space and five stories of mixed-use housing held a neighborhood meeting last week to gather some of the feedback normally channeled through formal civic processes — or pushed aside altogether.

Capitol Hill-based Hunters Capital hosted the Friday afternoon session billed as “drop-in hours” to discuss the planned 15th Ave E development of the former QFC block with around 25 residents who came to express their hopes over pedestrian safety, community building, traffic mitigation, and neighborhood perennials like parking and, yes, public bathrooms.

“There are no public restrooms in Capitol Hill,” one resident said. With a potential increase in visitors to the neighborhood, the attendee expressed the need for public restrooms. Other attendees agreed. While some acknowledged there could be potential issues with public restrooms, being able to pee is an equity issue that should be raised.

Will the city’s pee equity issue be addressed in the project’s design? That seems unlikely but the discussion is the kind of thing that wasn’t typically supposed to be part of the city’s formal design review process. For a few minutes on 15th Ave E, it was on the table.

Longtime residents of the few existing apartment units above the QFC-block property that will make way for the new project also attended Friday’s session. Long-term tenants living in the building expressed to Hunters Capital that there has been a lack of upkeep on the current building and property management has not been responding to their concerns and not informing them about the dates of developing meetings.

Attendees said they hoped for better communication as they prepare for the changes.

Hunters Capital is planning a five-story mixed-use building with around 150 apartment units and underground parking for around 100 vehicles on the site. With around 10,000-square-feet of street-level commercial space, Hunters says it is hoping to connect with 15th Ave E by designing a wrap-around plaza and creating a pedestrian thoroughfare that’s open for pedestrians. Along 15th, they’re hoping to pull back the building at least four feet to widen the sidewalk.

Large in the minds of attendees — and the developer — is the future of retail and grocery shopping on the block.

CHS reported here in May on the plan for Hunters Capital to redevelop the block home to a Rudy’s Barbershop, 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.

With last week’s community meeting, Hunters has further fleshed out its vision for the project including a plan for more than 10,000 square feet of “small-scale retail spaces,” underground parking for the new apartment dwellers, outdoor plaza spaces, and “significant right-of-way improvements.”

Meeting attendees expressed the need for local shops and grocery stores to build community. They wanted to see local businesses and access to affordable and fresh produce. “What can afford to be here that’s actually local and interesting?” a resident at the meeting asked.

Michael Oaksmith, president of development at Hunters Capital, says that Hunters Capital’s priority is to bring “destination retail” to the community by creating small affordable 800 to 1,000 square feet retail spaces for small local businesses to occupy.

“We’re the development company that brought Elliott Bay Books to Capitol Hill,” Oaksmith said. “We love local retail. It benefits me to have small retail along 15th as much as anyone else… there’s some common goals between us and the community.”

The existing retailers on the block were also on the minds of the meeting attendees. It’s possible there could be a space for ShopRite in the future plans though owner Mohammad Abid told CHS he is also contemplating retirement.

Some attendees were concerned with the rise of traffic that could increase for local residents living near 15th both during and after the construction, especially with the upcoming Safeway redevelopment happening at 15th and John.

The new development will bring street and sidewalk changes. Oaksmith talked about the possibility of making the alley running through the block a one way street to try to make the street safer for residents.

While Oaksmith said he couldn’t predict what traffic could look like in the future, he assured attendees that Hunters Capital will turn in a traffic mitigation plan to the city and they’ll “work like hell to have construction offices off site,” to try to limit any disruption among the neighborhood.

Hunters Capital says creating an improved streetscape experience is one of its main priorities for the project and one of the best ways residents can get involved in shaping the development of the building.

Their current plan is to pull back the building at least four feet to increase the sidewalk space to increase pedestrian activity and many residents were in favor of this idea. Residents also expressed wanting to revitalize the route 10 bus stops along 15th Ave E so public transportation could be more accessible.

For the back of the building facing the alleyway, instead of having a concrete facing the space, the developers want to add live-work townhomes. There could also be changes come for the angled parking along E Republican, especially with efforts to meet community hopes around wider sidewalks.

Other day to day issues were raised. Some attendees complained about graffiti as the emptied QFC has been targeted by taggers. Art projects supported by Hunters Capital have attempted to help address some of the problems.

As for one of the biggest questions about the new project, Friday’s meeting didn’t add much new information there. When the work up the street where the Hunters Capital mixed-use project replacing the old Hilltop Service Station is complete mid-next year, the clock will start ticking for the QFC block project to start.

Along the way, the project will go through formal design review with the city. The hope is, after last week’s meeting, some of the more important community questions will have already been answered.

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