12th Avenue Neighborhood & Business District

There was great turnout at the 12th Avenue Stewardship Committee meeting last week. Attendees unanimously supported starting up the redevelopment of the 12th Avenue Gathering Place Park at E James Court and 12th Avenue. The acquisition of the park was authorized by the 2005 Pro Parks Levy. The development of the park had previously been tied to the Seattle University project to the north, which is currently stalled due to market conditions. (Michael Kerns from SU Facilities stated at the meeting that it would be at least a year before that project starts up again.) Squire Park Community Council has previously posted here about the three designs that Hewitt Architects produced for the park, in conjunction with the SU project.

As a result of the community’s desire to see the park finished, Donald Harris of Parks said that a project manager would be assigned soon to begin the process of working with the community on a preferred design for the space. Concerns were raised at the meeting about whether the park would actually be used. Community members stated a desire for the park to be programed with some space and/or activity that would bring positive uses to the new gathering space.

If you are interested in working on this project with the Parks Department, please post here to let us know!

Word on the street is that Anne Michelson’s 1111 project is nearly done, with the exterior checkerboard painting completed this week. The condos in this project will range in price between 200k and 800k. Rumor also has it that Cupcake Royale, local coffee shop and cupcake eatery, will be in the commercial space. Competition for Cafe Vita and Cafe Pettirosso right around the corner, but who can complain about having local cupcakes in the hood?

James Cary, Architect on the SU project at 12th & E Marion recently sent along this new image of the building. Much better than what I had uploaded to my last post about the project.

The 12th Avenue Stewardship Committee will hold its first gathering of 2009 on Wednesday, February 25th from 6:00-7:30pm at Watertown (formerly Animals Espresso Cafe) at 550 12th Avenue.

Topics on the agenda include:

-Ethan Melone from Seattle Department of Transportation (SDOT) to discuss the future First Hill/Capitol Hill Streetcar.

-Donald Harris from Seattle Parks to discuss the planned pocket park (above) on East James Court.

-Kate Stineback from Capitol Hill Housing to discuss the 12th Avenue Initiative, a community development project on 12th Ave in the Central Area and Capitol Hill.

Please join us! Snacks and beverages will be provided!

Here is a great link to the development concept of Liz Dunn’s next project. Liz is the Owner of Dunn + Hobbes Development, which last brought us the Agnes Lofts at 12th and E Pike, where Boom Noodle is located. This is a very good example of modern architecture done right.

Design Review for the 12th Avenue Marketplace project will take place in a couple of weeks:

Date: Wednesday, February 18th, 2009
Time: 6:30pm
Location: SCCC, 1701 Broadway, Room 3211

Check out the CHS Capitol Hill Blog for conceptual info:

http://www.capitolhillseattle.com/2009/01/29/development-news-12th-ave-marketplace

Last fall, Pb Elemental brought this project through neighborhood design review. It is located at the corner of 12th Avenue and E Fir Street (currently a vacant lot), across from the King County Juvenile Justice Detention Center. The project was generally well received at the time (although there were only two non-Pb employees in attendance at the meeting). As you can tell from the picture, this was to be a high-end, ambitious, modern loft project. Quite a change for this stretch of 12th Avenue.

Today we just heard that Pb will not be taking the project forward and will be placing it on the market next week due to problems finding project financing. It looks as if design was pretty far along, as well as the City design review process, so perhaps there are some investors out there willing to make this project happen?