Tag Archives: preservation

Seattle permanently eases approval process for small changes to its roster of 480 (and growing) landmark buildings

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Broadway’s Capitol Crest building was designated as a Seattle landmark in 2022

The Seattle City Council voted 8-0 Tuesday to keep approvals on small changes to designated landmarks in the hands of city staff.

The mayor’s office legislation will keep in place changes made during the pandemic to handle “minor alterations” on the city’s growing roster of protected landmark buildings like signage, awnings, storefront renovations and building systems upgrades with administrative review by city staff.

New construction, demolition and major redevelopment proposals will not be eligible for administrative review under the plan.

The city says the permanent change will allow faster approval of necessary changes and repairs to landmark structures by Department of Neighborhoods staff while allowing boards and commissions to focus on more important business.

The city’s roster of protected properties has reached 480.

 

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Set to be replaced by affordable development and with a complicated history of women’s health, Broadway’s Wilshire Building considered for landmarks protections — UPDATE: Rejected

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From the nomination packet

The Seattle Landmarks Board is slated Wednesday to decide if the 119-year-old gabled parapets and semicircular bay windows of Broadway’s Wilshire Building are worthy of consideration for protections that could complicate a seven-story affordable apartment project planned to replace it.

The board will take up the nomination of the 200 block Broadway E commercial and apartment structure in an afternoon session to decide if the two-story commercial building home to the shuttered Jai Thai restaurant, a collection of businesses including a Mud Bay pet supply store location, and 14 upper floor apartment units should move forward in the landmarks process. The property’s owners were required to pursue the review as part of the city’s development process.

UPDATE: With many of its features significantly altered over the years and lacking an architectural and cultural history compelling enough to sway the vote, the building was rejected in the nomination process by the board Wednesday and will not move forward in the process, clearing the way for an easier path to demolition.

Old timers will remember it as the Broadway Rexall. CHS reported here in January on the historical significance of the old building and the affordable Broadway Urbaine project planned to rise on the block with its fast track through the city’s design review process thanks to its hoped-for addition of much-needed affordable housing. Continue reading →

Project to document — and sometimes protect — Capitol Hill’s midcentury modern apartment buildings gets boost

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Camellia Manor (Image: Lana Blinderman)

The Capitol Hill Modern project led by photographer Lana Blinderman and historian Tom Heuser focuses on documenting and protecting Capitol Hill’s midcentury modern multifamily residential buildings and the relatively affordable housing they have provided for decades, has wrapped up it first phase and is moving on to a second phase that will expand the research and, they hope, set the stage for expanding the effort across Seattle..

“These are the types of buildings that allowed people to live here and create the culture on Capitol Hill that we so love,” Blinderman said. “It’s the working people, it’s the queers, it’s you know, people of all walks of life.”

Through a new grant received from King County 4Culture, Heuser and Blinderman will research and photograph 28 more midcentury architecture buildings in the second phase of their project. Continue reading →

Landmark-protected and waiting for its next life, 11th and Pine’s White Motor Company building undergoing major overhaul

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Under construction at 11th and Pine (Image: Alex Garland/CHS)

Saved from redevelopment as a major grocery store in the heart of Pike/Pine by the city’s landmarks protections and thrust into history as a catbird seat to the 2020 CHOP protests as Seattle Police tear gas seeped through the building’s drafty windows and into the eyes of the few remaining journalists at alternative weekly The Stranger before its move from the neighborhood, the old White Motor Company building at 11th and Pine is undergoing a full overhaul to “beautify,” restore, and upgrade the 104-year-old structure and put its upper stories back into use with new tenants.

A representative for the building’s owner Legacy Commercial tells CHS the work underway now through the end of November will restore the building “and make it high energy at the same time.”

Windows are being removed and replaced as systems work is done throughout the three-story building. Meanwhile, the exterior will be restored “with the same colors” and original terra cotta rosettes — removed when the building was being lined up for possible redevelopment eight years ago — will be reattached.

Legacy’s goal is to reinvigorate the building and attract new tenants for the upper story office floors. Continue reading →

After six years, Pike Motorworks mega preservation project finally adding an E Pine restaurant

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Before and after in the 700 block of E Pine

The Capitol Hill preservation incentive-boosted, mixed-use development Pike Motorworks is so big.

How big is it?

Pike Motorworks is so big, It has taken six years for it to fill its E Pine-facing restaurant space in the block-spanning, 260-unit building also home to the Redhook Brewlab and a collection of businesses including Taku and Salt and Straw.

But six years after construction was completed on the project that rose on top of the auto row-era bones of the neighborhood’s departed BMW dealership, it looks like the development’s retail dreams of spanning from Pike to Pine are back on track. Continue reading →

As Seattle questions block by block preservation, Capitol Hill’s Millionaire’s Row already has its place on the National Register of Historic Places

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The Eckstein Estate of Millionaire’s Row

By Elizabeth Turnbull

It was a quiet victory. Last year, Capitol Hill’s Millionaire’s Row neighborhood, which spans from 14th Ave E to Volunteer Park, was listed on the National Register of Historic Places — a designation that has brought a greater sense of importance to the street.

It was also part of an increasingly questioned movement to win protections and historic designations for certain areas and blocks of Seattle, raising questions about equity in a city struggling with rising costs and increased displacement. Continue reading →

Trading height on one corner for preservation on another, proposal would create First Hill ‘Transfer of Development Rights’ zone

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The Sorrento’s garage is a potential receiving site if First Hill’s TDR program is approved

A multimillion land deal and development at a key First Hill corner hangs in the balance but backers say a proposal that would boost the height of new projects in exchange for protecting the area’s landmark-worthy buildings could be key to shaping the neighborhood’s future.

Wednesday, the Seattle City Council’s land use committee and chair Dan Strauss will begin consideration of legislation that would create a “Transfer of Development Rights” program for First Hill with hopes to vote on the proposal in March.

The plan would create a TDR zone in the neighborhood that would allow the owner of a historic property to sell or trade the land’s development rights to another parcel in exchange for preserving the character structure. Continue reading →

A classic Capitol Hill cafe space will soon be empty, something great — and open during the day — should fill it

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(Image: Weinstein A+U)

You will want to stop by the corner of 11th and Pike to pay a final visit to old friend Cafe Pettirosso before it closes in February. You might be back there soon to say hello to a new cafe in the space.

Building owner and developer Liz Dunn said the building can be home to a new restaurant with the planned overhaul of the structure nowhere near close to breaking ground.

“The Baker Linen building is 108 years old and so it does need a seismic retrofit as well as upgrades to all its systems, but we do not even have a complete design yet, let alone a schedule, permit or financing to do this,” Dunn tells CHS. Continue reading →

‘We have decided to end our tenure on our terms’ — Cafe Pettirosso to close after 27 years on Capitol Hill — UPDATE

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(Image: Cafe Pettirosso)

2022 is the tenth anniversary of the rebirth of Cafe Pettirosso. It will also be the year the much loved Capitol Hill hangout closes down as owners Miki and Yuki Sodos say a planned redevelopment of the building has come as a final blow to an already struggling business.

“Pettirosso loves you Seattle, but the path of small business is crushing right now,” the cafe’s owners said in their goodbye announcement for the 27-year-old 11th Ave business. “We would have stayed forever but are exhausted and frustrated on all fronts. We stayed open every day during the pandemic, the protests, snow storms, years of construction, and gentrification, but it is now our time.”

The thought of having to keep fighting through Covid only to go straight into having to pay for yet another build out of Café Pettirosso after the building is slated to be gutted in the near future, and then straight into a massive raise in the rent, is too much.

Cafe Pettirosso’s last day will be February 6th.

The closure makes for a sad trio of popular restaurants shutting down across Capitol Hill. Continue reading →

Public comments call for preservation of Broadway’s Wilshire Building — while others call for new housing ASAP

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The city says there is still time to submit public comments on the land use decision around a planned seven-story affordable apartment project that would require demolition of Broadway’s 118-year-old, two-story Wilshire Building.

CHS reported here on the plans for the Broadway Urbaine project that would be fast-tracked and not have to pass through the city’s design review process because it would add much-needed affordable housing. Continue reading →