Tag Archives: hilltop

Cantinetta restaurant set to join 15th Ave E mix in new Capitol Hilltop Apartments development

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The Cantinetta original (Image: Cantinetta)

The Cantinetta Famiglia is back in the neighborhood. The centerpiece corner commercial space in the newly opened Hilltop Apartments building on 15th Ave E will be home to a new Italian joint from Cantinetta.

Permits show planning underway for the new 1,925-square-foot Cantinetta Hilltop project at the corner of 15th and Mercer. The building from Capitol Hill developer Hunters Capital opened this summer and the development firm had been on the hunt for a significant food and drink player to anchor its commercial tenants.

The building will also be home to Rudy’s and the Wax On waxing salon which are both moving up the street to join the mix below the 70 apartments units above the new building has added to the street.

It has been a busy few weeks for 15th Ave E food and drink. CHS reported here on the new $2.1 million property deal for 100-year-old former Coastal Kitchen building where food truck-born Fire Tacos & Cantina is planning to expand from its Alki original. Continue reading →

In new deal for 100-year-old former Coastal Kitchen, Fire Tacos & Cantina set to join Capitol Hill

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(Image: Fire Tacos & Cantina)

The 15th Ave E building formerly home to longtime Capitol Hill favorite Coastal Kitchen turned 100 years old this year. It will end 2024 with a new owner — and a new restaurant set to join the neighborhood.

The 4,000 or so-square-foot restaurant has sold for $2.1 million to real estate investor Thomas Lin, according to county records. A Capitol Hill expansion of food truck and Alki Beach-born Fire Tacos & Cantina is set to move in, city permits indicate.

The Puget Sound Business Journal first reported the deal last week. The PSBJ says Fire could open as early as November given the restaurant’s turn-key status — though other permitting and things like a liquor license might require a longer timeline

The restaurant has been empty in the heart of 15th Ave E since February when Coastal closed after 30 years of business and weekend brunch lines. Continue reading →

Review board OKs six stories for 15th Ave E mixed-use development planned for old QFC block

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The East Design Review Board has signed off on plans for the redevelopment of the old QFC block of 15th Ave E to rise six stories.

Wednesday night, the board approved the design and the requested zoning departure to allow the building an extra story in exchange for a layout that will preserve a prized European hornbeam tree along E Republican while also transitioning the project to the adjacent lower areas surrounding to the north.

A group of neighbors had opposed the plan for the extra height along this growing commercial corridor of Capitol Hill that has so-far lagged development seen in the neighborhood’s core. The decision could still be appealed to the city’s Hearing Examiner but no cases related to the development have yet been filed. Continue reading →

With question of six-story vs. five-story up in air, Capitol Hill 15th Ave E QFC block design review this week

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Developers have included views of what the building would like at six stories — and five

The long journey to Hunters Capital redeveloping 15th Ave E’s old QFC block reaches a crucial milestone this week as the project faces what could be its final public design review session with hopes the board will approve the Capitol Hill-based developers proposal to build the mixed-use structure six stories high.

The design proposal for the project’s final “recommendation” phase of the city’s design review process was planned to be considered by the East Design Board in August but the complicated review was pushed back until this week.


The developers aren’t taking anything for granted. Designers have included renderings of what the building would like at both five and six stories in the packet for Wednesday night’s meeting.

In addition to agreement on the overall massing, design elements, and materials planned for the building, developer Hunters Capital is hoping the board will bring to an end uncertainty over the building’s height. Continue reading →

Police say another set of suspicious dumpster fires reported overnight

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Seattle Police is investigating after another night of arson fires set in dumpsters near area buildings.

SPD reports two fires were set early Thursday in the same area. One fire spread from one of the dumpsters to a garage before it was extinguished, SPD says.

Seattle Fire was called to the area around the 500 block of 17th Ave E just after midnight to handle the incident.

SPD says the other dumpster fire was contained and did not cause any significant damage. Continue reading →

Where the Canterbury reigned over Capitol Hill for a half century, Meliora faces restart after less than a year of business

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(Image: Meliora)

Seattle’s Singh restaurant family is used to success. Their Rasai is celebrated for its take on “progressive Indian” in Fremont.

Things haven’t worked out as well for Meliora, the “New American Restaurant” and cocktail bar opened to give a new, calmer life to the former Canterbury Ale House space on 15th Ave E.

After just over a half year of more than half empty seats, the restaurant has been temporarily closed for a restart:

We have temporarily closed our door for essential maintenance and enhancements in our unwavering commitment to providing you with the best possible experience. This break is aimed at ensuring your future visits are even more enjoyable.

Continue reading →

CHS Classic | The Cayton-Revels House: a landmark to Seattle’s Black history on 14th Ave E

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Susie Revels Cayton and Horace Cayton Sr. with family in 1904 (Vivian G. Harsh Research Collection of Afro-American History and Literature/Chicago Public Library)

Take a walk this Black History Month to visit Capitol Hill’s Cayton-Revels House.

Built in 1902, the Queen Anne Victorian-style house was once the home of Horace Roscoe Cayton, publisher of Seattle Black-owned newspaper the Seattle Republican, and his wife and associate editor Susie Sumner Revels Cayton. The 2021 landmark designation was a significant and necessary acknowledgement of Seattle’s Black history.

CHS reported here on the efforts of the 14th and Mercer structure’s owners to achieve landmark status and protections for the 1902-built house, honor the Cayton-Revels family, and recognize the legacy of the racial covenants that shaped Capitol Hill. According to the landmarks nomination, “the Caytons were one of only three Black American families living in today’s definition of Capitol Hill​ before racial restrictive covenants barred non-white residents in 1927.”

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The Seattle Republican was one of the most widely-read newspapers in the region at that time. In print from 1894 to 1913, the Republican appealed to national and local audiences of all races, but primarily focused on local politics and the Black experience. Horace Cayton, born a slave on a Mississippi cotton plantation and educated at Alcorn University, made his way to the Pacific Northwest in pursuit of greater freedoms in the frontier-era West. As Seattle changed from a frontier town to a growing city with increasingly racist power structures and property covenants, Black families were pushed into the Central District, where the Cayton-Revels eventually relocated.

“The Caytons were one of the most well-known Black American families in Seattle at the turn of the 20th century because of their business and political involvements,” said Taha Ebrahimi, a Capitol Hill resident who researched and wrote the 142-page landmark proposal for the Cayton-Revels house. Continue reading →

Fire in under-construction 13th Ave apartment development investigated

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(Image: Seattle Fire Department)

Seattle Fire says nobody was found inside after a fire did heavy damage Saturday morning to the upper stories of an apartment building under construction near 13th and Mercer.

Heavy smoke was reported billowing from the fourth floor of the new development around 11 AM as firefighters arrived to find the blaze spreading into the building. As ladder crews searched for anybody possibly trapped inside the under-construction structure ,SFD says its engine crews stretched hose lines to the fourth floor and put water on the fire. SFD reports it took 35 minutes to extinguish the blaze. Continue reading →

Capitol Hill classic Coastal Kitchen returns (late) weekday brunch and lunch to the menu — UPDATE

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(Image: Coastal Kitchen)

Its diner-y days are gone. It’s a “fish house” now. But Capitol Hill’s Coastal Kitchen is back in the daily brunch, lunch, and dinner business.

The 15th Ave E stalwart launched new weekday brunch/lunch hours last week joining its dinner and weekend brunch service.

Returning to weekday daytime service marks a milestone for the restaurant which reopened after a lengthy closure with a full overhaul and refreshed concept late last year. Continue reading →

Developer hears community hopes for 15th ave E QFC block redevelopment

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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. Continue reading →