West Seattle, Washington
13 Friday
“Early design guidance” tonight for 2743 California (city project page here), replacing a duplex between PCC and California Place (the white building with apartments over businesses including Freshy’s): Not much controversy. A few new details – the “medical offices” are expected to be primarily dental, three floors over “basement” parking. Design Review Board members had a lot of questions and recommendations, but they did advance the project to the next stage. More tomorrow, including the interesting caveat that came up about half a dozen times.
It’s not online yet but the agenda for next Thursday’s city Design Commission meeting (at City Hall downtown) came out today via e-mail, and the Alki Statue of Liberty Plaza project will return that day for another review. The same commission had a long list of suggestions when they saw the project for the first time three weeks ago; read about them in our report from that meeting. FRIDAY NIGHT UPDATE: This review has been delayed – we’ll let you know when it’s rescheduled.
Thanks to Margaret for sending that shot of her TV screen showing WSB while the reporter credited this site for the original “strange doorknocker” story (first report here, second one here) — which channel 7 decided to follow up on tonight. Actually, credit goes to Larry Carpenter (Alki Community Councll, Log House Museum, and West Seattle Community Recognition Award winner) for the original report – he told us a couple hours ago that channel 7 had interviewed him; we missed the newscast but after Margaret’s screen-shot came in, we found this text version (no video so far) online. WSB is described in the online writeup only as “a West Seattle blog,” but 7 still deserves props for crediting the source — last week another station we won’t name lifted our coyote photos without permission or credit (we saw it and called, and they fixed it for a later run; this website’s contents are copyrighted so permission is required to republish our photos). 9:51 AM UPDATE: Re: the door-knocker story, KIRO updated the web version this morning (without us even having to ask) and it now credits us properly (with a link too). Thanks!
We just checked in again with Charlestown Cafe owner Larry Mellum; in our last update three weeks ago, Larry’s co-owner Ron Hanlon told us they were still awaiting the final go-ahead for work to start, and they couldn’t set a reopening date yet. Today, Larry tells WSB that the work required for the restaurant to reopen post-Feb.-4-fire still hasn’t begun:
The project has not yet started. We have been waiting for our Landlord and their insurance carrier to get the required construction proposal and deposit back to the contractor. To date that has not happened due I believe to some administrative glitches within their operation. … We are as anxious as you to get the Charlestown going again. Thank you again for all of your support.
Whenever the work starts, the cafe owners say it’ll take at least four weeks from that point to get it finished so the Charlestown can reopen. (You can always find the latest WSB coverage of the Charlestown Cafe situation atop this archive.)
Just in from the city Transportation Department:
A contractor for a private development will close the 2100 block of Bonair Drive SW in West Seattle to traffic next week to repair the roadway. The street will be closed between Alki Avenue SW and Halleck Avenue SW (map) for four to five days. Drivers will need to use an alternate route.
Just in from Louis Lujan @ Next to Nature, sponsoring the “ugliest dog/cat” contest for this Sunday’s Pet Fest in The Junction and now adding something new:
Pet Fest Contest UPDATE!! New Category!
Guess what, West Seattle?… Paw for paw, the West Seattle neighborhood has the best looking pets anywhere! Haven’t found an ugly one in the whole lot, but we’re still holding out. To provide better opportunity to the vast majority of West Seattle pets, a “Most Beautiful Pet” contest will be held in addition to the “Ugliest.” Your pet is free to use props to show off their true quality. Here’s a hint – the Judges are 5th graders!
So we want to see uniquely homely AND good-looking pets at Pet Fest this Sunday…
Bring your homely OR handsome hounds and pets to the Pet Fest tent near 44th and Alaska this Sunday. The judging will begin at 12, noon. A panel of local school kids is standing by to determine “West Seattle’s Ugliest – and now – Most Beautiful Pet”!!
Our revamped contest is still free to enter, and there’s a growing prize package for the winners. Go to the Next to Nature table at Pet Fest to sign-up. The festival gets rolling at 10 a.m., so you can start signing up then, just make sure you’re signed up by 11:30. Each contest will be limited to 20 entries on a first-come first-served basis. We anticipate
mostly dogs since they usually do best in these public festival settings, but if your cat, bird, ferret, cow, or koala is comfortable with crowds they’re eligible for the contest too.See you at Pet Fest this weekend! There will be great nutritional and health information, adoptable dogs and cats, pet portraits, and more!
Coupled with the first-ever Sustainability Festival May 4 (featured in our previous post today), that marks two consecutive Sundays with “first-ever” festivals in The Junction.
That photo is courtesy of the members of Sustainable West Seattle, who gathered for a group shot outside Camp Long before their monthly meeting this past Monday night — a meeting like no other in their less-than-one-year history, because it’s the last one before SWS presents its first-ever Sustainability Festival, coming up Sunday, May 4, 10 am-3 pm in The Junction. A little while before that photo was taken, we sat down with three SWS leaders to talk about the festival (and how it’s not too late for you to pitch in, especially if you have some time this weekend) – read on to see why they, and many other folks around West Seattle, are so excited about it:Read More
Our 100th registration is just in for the 4th annual West Seattle Community Garage Sale Day on Saturday, May 10th — thanks to everybody who’s decided to join in! One community, one day, (now we can say) more than 100 sales around West Seattle — including some group/business/school/organization sales — As soon as registration closes tomorrow night, we’re getting down to the next round of fun stuff: Mailing info packets to participants, making the second round of posters promoting Garage Sale Day itself (we’ve had registration posters up for two weeks, and of course they had the sale date too), and sharing information about The Big Day — if there’s something really unusual or interesting about your sale (and you are registered for WSCGSD, of course), e-mail us at garagesale@westseattleblog.com — remember we’re planning “Best Sign” and “Most Unusual Item” contests too. Again, registration’s open till tomorrow night; go here to sign up online (or to get a mail-in form you can print, but please get it in the mail ASAP). If you’re just coming in on this, WSB is sponsoring WSCGSD now because its creators @ Megawatt closed down earlier this year and needed new presenters for their signature events (we took on WSCGSD, the Gathering of Neighbors is being organized by DNDA). May 10, whether you’re a shopper or seller, mark your calendar!
Just announced today: South Seattle Community College and City University of Seattle are partnering for a program that will enable students to get a Bachelor of Science in Business Administration with all four years of studies taking place on the SSCC campus in east West Seattle. SSCC says the deal will be finalized at a ceremony next Tuesday; here are the details released this morning.
You’ve heard the national-news stories about the rising price of staples like rice and wheat … and you’ve seen it when you go to the grocery store. But if you think your budget is tight, try running a food bank and trying to maximize every last fraction of a cent. Local food banks are hurting worse than ever as a result – not just from having to pay more for the food they buy, but also because the higher prices are sending more families their way for help — but the bright spot is that, donating to them in the next week not only will help with the crunch, it will also help them qualify for matching funds as part of a national “challenge” we’ve mentioned before. Here’s an update from Eve Holt at West Seattle Food Bank:
April 30th is the last day for donations to the West Seattle Food Bank that can be submitted for matching funds from the Feinstein Foundation’s $1 Million Challenge.
Donations of food and cash are especially needed right now because of rising food prices. Most of what the Food Bank has to buy is costing more and there has been a significant increase in the number of families coming to the Food Bank for help.
Checks may be mailed to West Seattle Food Bank, 3419 SW Morgan, Seattle, WA 98126. Credit card donations can be made by calling Eve Holt at (206) 932-9023 or online at www.westseattlefoodbank.org. A list of suggested food donations can also be found on the organization’s Web site.
The Food Bank’s first-ever Instruments of Change fundraiser is coming up one week from tonight, by the way. One other note: Part of southern West Seattle is served by the White Center Food Bank, which is also participating in the challenge; find its donation info here.
(May 2007 photo of the plywood that covers the Colman Pool windscreen during the offseason)
Exactly one month from today, it’s the first 2008 day of operation for Colman Pool at Lincoln Park, one of the city’s two outdoor pools. Colman Pool will be open weekends only from May 24 till 7-day-a-week operations start June 14. Starting soon after that, it will be busier than usual, because West Seattle’s other pool — Southwest Pool, east of Denny Middle School — is scheduled to close mid-June through late September for three months of work.
DINING OUT FOR LIFE: 12 West Seattle restaurants are among those participating in the Lifelong AIDS Alliance fundraiser (find the list here, some are participating at lunchtime as well as dinnertime).
DESIGN REVIEW FOR ADMIRAL PROJECT: 2743 California on the north side of PCC, proposed for a 3- to 4-story medical-office building (here’s our report on the project from 3 weeks ago), 6:30 tonight, Southwest Precinct meeting room (official meeting notice here).
FINAL PARKS PLAN MEETING: 6:30 pm, High Point Community Center, last of 7 West Seattle meetings where you can tell city Parks staffers what you think the department should focus on in the next five years. (Here’s our report on last week’s Southwest CC version of the same meeting.)
More West Seattle events for today, tonight, and beyond, can be found here.
It’s called “Gatewood Apartments” but this 22-year-old, 16-unit building at 6547 42nd SW (map) is in the heart of Morgan Junction, right behind Thriftway. Just listed at $1,950,000. (This isn’t in the listing, but city records show an “unresolved” condo-conversion application from 2006.)
School budgets don’t cover everything needed for extracurricular activities these days; they barely can cover the academic basics. So students need a whole lot of community help … and with that in mind, tonight we are sharing pitches from two local high-school baseball teams:
CHIEF SEALTH HS: Its baseball team has a spaghetti dinner/auction coming up May 2. This year, though, they’re having a tough time coming up with donations for the auction. The event raises most of the annual $ the team needs, so they’re really hoping the auction-donation drive turns around. If you can help, e-mail Coach Policarpio at edpolicarpio@seattleschools.org.
WEST SEATTLE HS: We mentioned this fundraiser a few weeks ago, and now the sales are really ramping up: The team is selling discount tickets to the June 3 Mariners/Angels game — $10 for view reserved (half the usual price); $2 of that goes to the team. You can order up to 25 tickets in an online process that starts with e-mail to groupmanager@mariners.com (be sure the subject line mentions West Seattle HS), or more by calling Stephanie at (206) 518-3879 – if your group has 40 or more, its name will be on the scoreboard during the game.
As promised, we checked today with the Southwest Precinct re: last night’s hottest topic, the “unusual doorknocker” reported by Larry Carpenter in Alki. Sgt. Jeff Durden, who leads the Community Police Team, says they were working directly with Larry to get more info, and also checking with area military — at this point. Sgt. Durden says, “I doubt this was any kind of military operation. Everyone we have contacted concerning the matter has agreed.” He adds, particularly in the light of the trouble that Larry had reaching somebody at non-emergency police numbers — “Also as said/posted many many times before – call 911. 911 will always answer and this is definitely a situation where we want to get a patrol officer dispatched to investigate.”
The city just announced two dozen area nurseries made this year’s “natural yard-care nurseries” list — including West Seattle Nursery and Village Green Perennial Nursery. See the full list here.
That photo is courtesy of Mark and Marjorie Fuller, showing a partial peek inside their still-under-construction Spring Hill Restaurant and Bar, which they hope to open on the north end of The Junction (former In Bloom space) in mid-May — “if all goes smoothly from here,” is Mark’s caveat. Menu? we asked, checking in for the first time since our January update. “Still in the works and not quite ready to reveal yet.” Hours will be 5:45 pm-midnight, 7 days a week. (All ages, he told us previously. And in case you wondered, no relation to the BlueStar development of the same name on the south side of The Junction that we’ve been telling you about since October.)
(Model of future Sealth/Denny shared campus, looking northward over it, with the new Denny building north of/behind the Sealth gym on the eastern half of the campus)
As promised, here’s the complete update on last night’s SEPA (State Environmental Policy Act)-mandated public meeting on the Denny-Sealth project, which turned out to have a further-reaching scope than you might have surmised by looking at advance notice of the meeting. Though there was a formal presentation halfway through — with the contingent of school-district staffers and project consultants/architects almost outnumbering the general-public attendees — the most interesting info was available on and along the easels in the Chief Sealth HS Commons during the first half of the meeting:Read More
FILM CREW AT WESTWOOD VILLAGE: In case you see it over by Eats Market and you’re wondering what’s up (thanks to Kristen for the tip and the follow-up info), they’re shooting a commercial for Sleep Country USA, till about 1 pm.
PHOTOGRAPHERS’ RIGHTS: We get lots of great pix from photographers both professional and nonprofessional around West Seattle, so when WS-based lawyer and WSB reader Venkat Balasubramani told us about this, we thought some of them might want to know: Tonight at Photographic Center Northwest (900 12th Ave, map), 6:15 pm, he’s discussing the legal rights of photographers who take photographs in public places. To register (discount in advance), go here.
CONCERT ON THE WATER IN WEST SEATTLE: Jennifer Kallen, the promoter for Firefly Concert Series, says the venue for this has changed to a waterfront residence in WS and there are a few tickets left: Rebecca Riots, 8 pm Saturday (after a 7 pm potluck). More info and tickets available here.
GO FISH!!!! Also Saturday — the first Hi-Yu event of the year is earlier than ever this time around, and while it’s on our Events page, we also wanted to give it a special advance shout-out as you plan your weekend: The West Seattle Sportsmen’s Club presents the annual Kids’ Fishing Derby at Seacrest, 8 am-11 am Saturday. Here’s a pic from a previous derby:
As Karen Haynes-Palmquist explains:
It is FREE to kids under age 14. Poles, bait, etc. are all supplied to fish for trout with, along with the expert help of the Sportsmen. The West Seattle Hi-Yu junior and senior court and candidates will also be there. A pond is set up with more than 100 fish, and goodie bags are distributed to all participants whether they catch a fish or not. Kids get to keep their catch. Information on the Sportsmen can be found at www.wssportsmen.org.
Heading east on Fauntleroy this morning, we noticed that sign on Tervo’s Mini-Mart, 4415 Fauntleroy (map), heralding new ownership, remodeling, and a “grand opening” next month. We’ve reported on this site a few times in the past few months — the death of its owner last September, and the property going up for sale in November. So far, no indication on the Liquor Control Board or city business-license sites who the new owner is, nor do King County records show a closed sale on the site (here’s the listing). HOWEVER — just checked the city files for the address, and there’s even bigger news — aside from the impending “grand (re)opening,” there appears to be a development proposal for the site, summarized online in the construction and land-use permit applications as: “Demolish existing commercial structure and construct new mixed-use building. Proposal to include retail space, 90 residential units, and associated subterranean parking.” Looks like time to update the Junction-area development/real-estate map – will work on that later today!
(M3 Bodyworks staff: Clockwise from lower right, owner Michael Mandell, LMP; Gary Rhodes, LMP; Stephanie Ross, LMP; Josie Ives, LMP; Courtney Good, office assistant; M’Lissa Hayes. Not pictured: Jen Barth, LMP; Damon Vecci, LMP)
That’s the staff of M3 Bodyworks Massage Clinic, which became WSB’s newest sponsor this week. Here’s what M3 wants you to know about the business (read through to the special offer!): “M3 Bodyworks Massage Clinic is a massage boutique with multiple therapists, 3 treatment rooms and 400 square feet of wall space for local artists to display their work. M3 Bodyworks is located at 5410 California Ave SW, Suite 203, diagonally across from the West Seattle Nursery. The owner, Michael Mandell, has lived in Seattle since 1996 and survived through 3 failed internet startups during the high-tech boom. After the third startup, Michael went to massage school and took his career into his own hands. Michael has created a space where massage for the whole body is important to the healing process. M3 Bodyworks Massage Clinic’s philosophy is to provide massage for all at an affordable price with quality therapists. We promise an hour paid for a massage is a hour on the table. Prices are as low as $56.00 per hour through pre-paid packages. All therapists share clients, which make it easy for you to get comprehensive care. Michael brings his high-tech experience with him to the massage clinic with online scheduling, account review, e-mail receipts, therapist bios online and web-only specials. This allows all the therapists more time to spend with the individual clients. M3 Bodyworks has also joined organizations like AHAC (www.ahacseattle.org) to provide affordable massage to the homeless and people in need or in crisis where alternative healthcare is needed. M3 Bodyworks Massage Clinic has monthly specials and accepts most Health Insurance, car-accident insurance (PIP), on-the-job-injury insurance (L&I) and credit cards/cash/checks. Since you have taken the time to read our introduction, new clients can introduce themselves to us with $20 off any service when you mention West Seattle Blog.” Thanks to M3 Bodyworks for sponsoring WSB — and thanks to our other sponsors, all of whom you will find on this page, which also has info for anybody interested in joining them to grow their business and reach more customers while helping WSB be a sustainable source of 24/7 community news, information, and discussion for West Seattle.
Been thinking about joining in on the West Seattle-wide day of selling/shopping/recycling (that really is what garage sales do, after all), but haven’t quite made up your mind? Three more days … registration for the 4th annual West Seattle Community Garage Sale Day closes Friday night, April 25. You can sign up to have an individual sale, school/business/organization sale, or block sale; online registration is available this year for the first time, or you can print the form to mail in (but hurry … we’re going to start work on The Official Map on Friday night!). All the links you need are here, plus some bonus info (such as, 10 principles of garage-sale secrets, and 2 places to join in a group sale if you don’t have enough room/stuff for your own). WSCGSD is Saturday, May 10, 9 am-3 pm, and we’re on the brink of 90 signups, from all over West Seattle. (If you’ve already signed up, info packets will start going out later this week.)
That early-early-morning coyote pic is from “Fauntlee Hills Neighbor” near Concord/Barton, who writes:
This one is half of a young pair who cross Barton from Fauntleroy Park and have been seen late evening, early morning for some weeks now. I feed backyard feral cats and unfortunately, forgot and left food out overnight. They found a paper plate on my back porch and took to finish off. No warnings here, just information. I much believe we need to coexist and just be the smarter species. After all, we are the interlopers
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