Perhaps it has something to do with my living so far south in the neighborhood, but before I even realized they existed, let alone consumed a slice of their pizza, ZAW Artisan Bake-at-Home Pizza has opened … and CLOSED.
Janey writes:
I wish I could say I was surprised tonight to see ZAW’s windows papered over and this sign (attached) posted in the window (sorry for the weird angle – there was a dog on a leash on the wrist of the hand that held the phone). But a couple weeks ago, I noticed surveyors out marking the property lines for the entire ZAW/former Bill the Butcher/former 7-11 lot. And a couple months before that, I ran across a group of very developer-looking guys checking out the property. Hoping that they were considering taking over Bill the Butcher’s space, I asked what they were contemplating putting in there. They asked what I’d like to see there. I said “something food-related”, just hoping they were going to fill the shell of Bill the Butcher’s. “How about a restaurant?”, they asked.
Of course, what I’m pretty sure we’re going to get is multi-story apartments with ground-floor retail that’s so expensive that funky little businesses like ZAW (not all that little) can’t afford to be there.
Hope folks will keep us posted on Wallyhood as development plans get filed, and that we can stay organized to submit comments. We’ve been pretty effective in the last couple years about getting at least some changes into the originally proposed projects.
Last Tuesday, I walked by the location at 4612 Stone Way, and saw no new info on what might go in there. A check of the Seattle Department of Construction and Inspections Land Use Information Bulletin website reveals nothing yet.
This location has somewhat of a storied history as ZAW shared the building with the now notorious Bill the Butcher. This history has been amply told here on Wallyhood, in the Stranger and the Seattle Times (to name just a few sources) so I won’t recount all the details here.
But I will recount some of them.
Back in 2014, employees sued Bill the Butcher for failure to pay wages after the CEO, J’Amy Owens, abruptly closed all the stores and decamped for parts unknown. And this was just one of a number of lawsuits filed against the business.
But that’s just part of the story. There’s also the bit about the organic meats that weren’t exactly organic. While customers were being sold something other than what they were paying for, farmers who made no secret of the fact that their meats were not organic were finding, to their frustration, that their products were labeled organic at Bill’s. To quote the Stranger article: “As farmer David Krepky, co-owner of Dog Mountain Farms said, ‘Yeah, I’ve seen it, and I’ve told them it’s not… not to do that. But they label what they do.’” If you’re going to deceive the consumer, why not double down and pull a fast one on your suppliers as well?
Which brings us to the 7-11 which occupied the lot prior to Bill and ZAW before closing in 2011 after 30 years at that location. As far as I know, nothing super interesting happened there although their location down the street at 40th has had some incidents.
And that brings us back to ZAW where a goodbye message was posted in the window. If you completely missed the ZAW experience while they were here in Wallingford (as I did), not to worry. Seattle and the greater metro area are fairly bristling with ZAWs, and they’ll deliver!
Their SLU location also closed with the same sign in the window.
Interesting. Is Zaw having some financial trouble, or are they just losing their real estate?
Luckily we are as strong as ever, simply lost the space, looking for a new space though! In SLU we are working on a fun new project in partnership with another great Seattle small business, stay tuned!
There has been a pre-submittal application done for a 4-story 63-unit mixed use building (24,230 SF residential, 3,960 SF live-work). It was submitted four days ago. You can find docs and the site plan here:
http://www.seattle.gov/dpd/toolsresources/Map/detail/default.htm?pin=6865200730&lat=47.66262&lon=-122.34153&addr=4612,,STONE,WAY,N
I can’t wait to find out how many parking spaces will be required for these 63 units. However, those of us who’ve lived nearby and have been dutifully paying our property taxes shouldn’t complain, since we’re not “entitled” to park in front of our homes. It’s our fault for assuming back when bought here that the city wouldn’t try to shaft us by pulling the rug out from under our feet and change the zoning on us.
So now some out of town developers get to further downgrade our quality of life by treating their tenants parking needs as an “externality” to be shoved onto the rest of the hood, because it’s “unfair”to ask them to pay for their part of our infrastructure needs.
But not to worry, I have no doubt all our new new neighbors will just hop on their bikes…
No parking is planned. Zero.
Providing parking comes with a cost. The units will cost more, and will attract people with cars, which will add traffic to our neighborhood streets.
This location is on 2 major bus lines, and close to Aurora (and the RapidRide E line). It’s also quite close to the Burke Gilman, and 7 blocks from an uberHOP pickup point. People who live in this building will have very good transportation options that do not require a car.
The city is growing into a place where not everyone wants or needs to drive, which I think is a very good thing.
(And fwiw: we’re some of your “new” neighbors (in Wallingford for 8 years now); we have a car (that lives in our driveway) that we moved here with, but we bus or bike for > 90% of our trips).
The apartments will attract people with cars regardless of whether or not they actually build any parking inside. Why would developers pay to build expensive parking underground when the city has given them it’s blessing to just shunt it onto neighboring streets?
However, there is a solution. We could go to zoned parking and not give any new apartment dwellers an RPZ sticker. After all you, like the city, insist they have ready access to public transit. So that shouldn’t bother them one bit. It’s a win-win the city gets the density that it wants and it’s just one more way to kick people out if their cars. You could get behind that, right?
Ah yeah let’s subsidize the bigoted, privileged homeowners even more!
Sorry, jack. Don’t like the parking difficulties of living in the city build or use your own spot or move out of here.
I’m guessing you think Pronto has been a fantastic investment, and that fifty BILLION dollars for ST3 , (which won’t be built until 2041 if it’s even done on time or on budget), is a pretty reasonable request.
I think all transit is a worthwhile investment. That you don’t says a lot about how selfish and utterly clueless you are.
The problems of this city sit squarely at the feet of bigoted homeowners set on making life even more difficult for those that aren’t as privileged.
City_Dweller, I can’t help but observe that your comments are far more overtly bigoted than anything said by Hayduke on this tread.
Just jump on there name calling and slinging poo. Not much on having a discussion, are you? If you can’t have a decent dialog will your neighbors, don’t comment.
Frankly it’s impossible to have a discussion with bigoted homeowners like you.
The question is… where do you get the automatic assumption that I, or anyone else, is a “bigoted homeowner”? You started name calling right out of the gate, not open to any sort of discussion, as others have had through the rest of the post.
I feel like you’ve owned a house too long and don’t understand the current renter. A renter who owns a car is going to prefer to rent someplace with parking, either provided, for a fee, or decent street parking. This proposed development has none of those things, therefore most car owning renters will go looking elsewhere, leaving the tiny apartments for those without cars who prefer transit, walking, or biking and use things like Uber, Zipcar, or Car2Go for trips to CostCo or out of town.
You may be a little out of date yourself on current trends. It turns out that the millennials who a couple years ago we were hearing weren’t even bothering to get drivers licenses, are now a hefty 28% of last year’s new car market, and expect to keep moving up over the next four or five years. It turns out they didn’t prefer transit or Car2Go any more than their parents do, they just were short of cash. Some of them are likely to move farther out, too, but there’s no law that says someone with a small apt doesn’t appreciate being able to get out of town.
All the car companies are investing billions in fleet management and autonomous vehicles. They all know individual private ownership is not the future.
(Here’s BMW’s take, selected because they cater to the most affluent mainstream buyers–and even they, who could afford to, aren’t going to bother in the main to own personal vehicles in future: http://www.autonews.com/article/20160418/OEM06/160419902/bmw-adapts-to-a-changing-view-of-driving-with-reachnow Here’s a better summary across companies http://www.cnet.com/roadshow/news/bmw-continues-futureproofing-with-ridecell-investment/ )
I didn’t say current car owner, I said current RENTER. When you’re looking for an apartment, if you own a car, then available parking is obviously going to be something you consider.
If you’re going to live in that apartment for some time, there’s a good chance you’ll become a car owner. It turns out there is no “prefers to ride the bus” generation. Everyone with the means to live in one of those studios has a good job, and after a few years to save up for it, they will all have cars.
“We see a world where…people routinely share vehicles or multiple forms of transportation for their daily commute,” Fields said. “The experiments we’re undertaking today will lead to an all-new model of transportation and mobility within the next 10 years and beyond.”
That crazy hippy, the CEO of Ford (https://media.ford.com/content/fordmedia/fna/us/en/news/2015/01/06/ford-at-ces-announces-smart-mobility-plan.html )
There’s talk, and there’s facts. The facts have young people buying cars like crazy. That’s new. A year ago people could read various stories into what was going on, and I’m sure the auto companies did too. Maybe they will change the world and make a big difference with some new innovation in personal transportation. But with the facts we have right now, it’s an incredible leap of faith to suppose that Wallingford residents aren’t going to nearly all own cars. Ford and BMW aren’t going to bail us out, transit systems that are going to take decades to get here aren’t going to bail us out. We have to plan for the future that’s staring us in the face, not some utopian fantasy.
Do you really think all the major automakers are investing billions of dollars into cannibalizing their own existing businesses because they were misled by some news stories a few years ago?
(Incidentally the automakers aren’t doing this out of niceness, they are doing it because Uber, Google, and Apple are themselves investing billions in replacing them, also not out of niceness but because there is so much money to be made by doing so.)
“How fast things change” is certainly open to debate, but we’re past “peak private car.”
To bet against that is to bet against the entire auto industry and the growth plans of there of the most innovative & valuable companies in the history of the world.
If we found out that the city was basing their planning on auto company press releases and ignoring real world data, we would need to get ourselves a new city administration, “Pronto!”
Nice one.
But if city planners know better than these companies what price-performance levels will tip how many folks from car ownership to car-as-a-service then they can all quit tomorrow and become very, very rich.
Ok, I’m not seeing the pre-submittal application. I’m hoping we can all follow this development and comment as it moves forward. Comments from local residents have made a huge difference in some of local developments (e.g., the brick facade at Smith & Burns at 45th & Interlake, the retention of the terracotta fascia at the new CVS store, and the fact that there is some parking required at the yet-to-be development at 45th & Woodlawn. We can make increased development work in our neighborhood, but the developers will push to the absolute limit in their original proposals.
Along with the ever present parking issue, note the “live/work” units. This is apparently an acceptable substitute for ground floor retail. You can see it in (in)action in the Prescott building at 40th & Stone. It sort of makes sense. Local small businesses have a hard time getting into new residential buildings here, partly because of cost, but also issues dealing with the management, so real retail space takes a long time to fill up or it fills up with chain stores/restaurants. The owner doesn’t want to be in that business, and the results aren’t much of an asset to the neighborhood. So they love “live/work”, because everyone pretends it’s sort of like street front retail – but walk by Prescott and see what you think. it’s street front residential.
Do we care? Do we need real retail space there, or is it OK if it effectively goes to residential only?
I see the units would be 448 sq ft on the average, or a little smaller if the figures include some common space.
Good comments. But 448 sq ft? Isn’t that getting close to apodments?
It’s the size of a studio at “Smith & Burns” around the corner on N 45th, if you count the “patio.” (It isn’t their figure, I just went from their plan drawing and assumed a 32-inch door for scale.) This may be a coincidence, or maybe there’s some minimum size for non-pod-ments. Apodments can be like 150 sqft, don’t know the range. More units means more money, so in this market all will be small.
Many many years ago I looked at a studio condo that was 432 SF.
Many, many years ago, I lived in a womb-sized apartment. I moved on.
Sawant is making a big deal about commercial space being too expensive for small business, and Murray just appointed a task force on commercial affordability, so these little types of spaces that CVS or Walgreens won’t want but an accountant or photographer or architect or whatever might would seem to be responsive to the issue.
“These little types of spaces” meaning the live/work units? Seriously, these things exist, we can see what they’re responsive to. Where we care about street front retail, they’re something we give away to developers that we probably shouldn’t. Where we don’t care, maybe it would be better to say so and let them be honest residential. They aren’t making commercial space less expensive.
Why aren’t they honest residential? If an artist or accountant lives and works in them, all good. I suspect that somebody doing business out of a standard apartment–aside from not having direct street-front access–would be in violation of a standard lease.
I guess they don’t do honest residential because the city requires street front retail, or this stuff instead. As I have said twice already, the question is whether we care if there’s street front retaill here.
OK, fair enough. (I don’t have strong feelings either way.) My comment was motivated by the fact that the Big Boys like CVS or Walgreens (are likely to gobble up big spaces, while the very little guys might be able to make a go in live/work spaces – and we’re certainly not lacking bigger commercial and retail enterprises along 45th and further south on Stone.
I think we will see on Stone Way that the requirement of retail from 36th up to 50th will be a detriment. We will see vacancies and it appears there is just too much supply relative to demand for every building to have retail.
The buildings that are going in now between 36th & 40th are part of a wave of thousands of new residents in that area, and it seems likely to me that there will be more buildings and more residents. It will have very strong potential for retail. You’re right, the apt bldg storefronts will stay empty, as the Brooks Tennis Shoe bldg big space is still empty despite the hordes of people that pass by. Probably a combination of things. Steep rents, obviously for one, but also a corporate environment that shuts out local businesses. I talked to someone who installed a sucessful local business in one of those buildings a few years back, not far from the site we’re talking about, and he said he had to stretch the truth to make it appear that he was part of a chain – it may not be just a coincidence that these spaces go to chain retailers, it may be effectively a requirement of tenancy. Should we allow them to give up on retail because they’re lousy at it? Aren’t you guys always crowing about how “vibrant” it’s going to be after all this density? Isn’t street front retail typically part of that?
By the way, isn’t supply and demand the way the market’s supposed to solve affordability problems? We couldn’t have Sawant’s too expensive, and your too much, at the same time, could we? That would ruin the whole “build our way out of it” answer to affordability crises.
There are lots of businesses that can’t afford space in new concrete and steel buildings. They need neighborhood corner commercial & retail, on the ground floor of wood or brick walk-up buildings, new construction of which is almost 100% prohibited in residential zones. This also ties into banks, financing and large developments – large developments rightly or wrongly will have a bias toward being able to cite the fact that commercial tenant is part of some big chain with deep pockets (which is what the banks want). Which is why we need all forms.
Yes, plus, according to presentations to the Council Housing committee, Seattle is currently experiencing a glut of vacant residential rental units that is expected to increase for at least the next three years. Guess we will also soon see how much rents decrease, which is what the current trickle-down policies being proposed by HALA predict.
Parking needs to be realistically assessed for each project. Metro’s studies report that 90 percent of their customers still own at least one car. This is logical, as many who love the Seattle area do so because of the access to the surrounding outdoor activities. Further, another study recently reported that 92 percent of Gen-Z folks own or plan to own an auto.
Yes, there may be some projects that are located where street parking is plentiful, but to base the decision of whether to waive parking on the perception that people who use transit will not own cars is misguided and ignores the data in favor of wishful thinking. Even with access to frequent AND effective transit, car ownership averages closer to at least 0.5 vehicles per unit (for studio and other single-occupancy units). This should be the starting baseline for ALL such projects, with a possible tweak up or down, depending on the actual surrounding conditions. Making it policy to provide zero off-street parking in a vacuum, without consideration of actual conditions surrounding the project is ludicrous.
You just used a trigger phrase that will send extreme liberals to the stratosphere: “wishful thinking.” They build entire Presidential platforms on that stuff. It will hardly sway them on parking.
@Brady, thanks for the link to the pre-submittal form. If you dig around a bit to get to the documents, you can see that they’re proposing 63 units with no parking and no ground-floor retail (just live-work spaces). Looks like they’re also taking the building with the florist and the barbershop.
The number of parking spaces there depends on us. I don’t exactly understand the comment process, but they will have to put up a “notice of proposed land-use sign”, and then we can respond. Neighbor input has resulted in significant changes in several nearby developments — see Smith & Burns at 45th & Interlake, the project yet to come at 45th and Woodlawn, and the CVS pharmacy. Yes, many of the folks in the new development will bus or bike to work, but they’ll all be in their cars to go to Costco (or wherever) on the weekend. The developers need to provide some parking.
A couple of questions about the plans Brady posted: Does any one know what will be done with that southwest corner that currently has a structure on it? Is that simply being left developed for garbage truck access and a loading dock?
Also, does anyone know why the existing lots were actually condemned? Was this done at the behest of the developer? Was private property seized by the government for a private good?
I’m guessing that you’re looking at this, on the plan “… EXCEPT THAT PORTION OF SAID LOTS 4 AND 5 CONDEMNED FOR STONE WAY”. I’m no expert, but my guess is that at some point long ago Stone Way was realigned or enlarged or something, and they whacked off a foot or two of lots 4 and 5.
These would be very preliminary plans we’re looking at now, but perhaps we could assume that the southeast corner (?) is going to be a small urban oasis, a lush garden with a small pond and fountain and a variety of bird-habitat shrubs and undergrowth, lit by the soft glow of small lanterns during the evening, maintained by a dedicated gardener with a lifetime contract and a long term plan that extends beyond.
Or a parking space park, or a tent, perhaps?
Yes, that’s it! A tiny tent city or and RV “safe lot!” A perfect fit for the hood.
Our friend City Dweller could camp there, vs under a bridge…
If you are talking about the triangle shaped building it is on the neighboring property.
Condemnations are common for road widening purposes.
Brady, the triangle shaped area on the SW side of the new proposal is mostly where ZAW was, is it not? I understand Bill’s had some shady dealings, but I’m pretty sure ZAW and that part of the structure didn’t nothing to warrant being condemned. And there are no plans to widen the road there.
So I ask again, is the city taking private property for private gain here?
Any road widening probably happened decades ago.
The structure was not condemned. What likely happened was Zaw’s five-year lease was up and the landlord decided not to extend the lease. If Zaw didn’t include multiple extension options in their lease then the landlord can opt not to extend the lease. There is no condemnation.
The portion of lots 4 & 5 condemned were used when they made the road bigger. If you google the superior court cause number listed, it shows up in other property descriptions as well
Also, any time an alley is vacated for a developer or something similar the developer has to purchase the property from the City. So it would not be taking private property for private gain.
KCTS 9 program April 19th “10 Towns That Changed America” . Town areas being planned on purpose with no parking. Those included walkways and tree plantings, open places to stroll, sit, gather. Absence of cars for the sake of community building. Not what is happening here.
I see a lot of concerns expressed about this building and some conversation about public comment and the design review process. There are important changes to the design review process that are being proposed RIGHT NOW that reduce opportunities for public engagement. These changes are scheduled to be voted on by the city council this summer. If you value public engagement in projects like this, now is the time to act.
Under the proposed changes, for a project like this, community outreach would be the responsibility of the developer, who hardly seems like the best candidate to gather public criticisms and concerns. Early Design Guidance, which is currently performed by the Design Review Board, would be replaced with an “administrative” design review process, which is not open to the public. And smaller projects would go through absolutely no design review!
This is all part of the city’s aggressive growth plan, which will result in the future of our neighborhood being determined by developers with very little interest in our community. While the city touts this idea of “livability,” they seem to be leaving that up to the developers to define.
According to the recent SDCI recommendations document, for what it’s worth, this site would go to “hybrid” review, where there’s only one public review, because it’s over 20K sq ft but “less complex”. They’d also water down the volunteer board with less qualified members, and give the SDCI director a stronger role in final recommendations. I guess we were getting too much review, and the results were just getting to be more excellent than we really need.
Yep, but that still means no design review for Early Design Guidance, which is the phase (according to the feedback) that has the biggest impact on projects. This is an important nuance in the recommendation, because SDCI seems to concede that this is the phase the public would prefer to engage, but cite the redundancy of the developer outreach phase, which included lame outreach methods like putting up posters and showing up at community festivals. There doesn’t seem to be a clearly defined process for collecting feedback from the public or any real accountability for addressing concerns. For issues like setbacks and other departures, I believe the Early Design Guidance phase is where those types of detailed design issues are addressed. For example, the Cabinetpak project on 42nd and Stone that garnered a fair amount of pushback from the neighborhood, was asking for departures that impacted a neighbor’s property, and it was the Early Design Phase where those concerns were addressed.
The impression I get is that people believe someone with one or two cars would move in here because of all the excess street parking they would find for free because they would immediately displace all the people who currently live in other residences here that have no offstreet parking, leaving the current residents without offstreet parking. That doesn’t exactly make sense, does it?
Thank you so much for your support Wallyhood & friends! We can confirm that the lot is in fact being sold to developers. We have been looking for a new space in Wallingford for some time, and we look forward to finding that perfect spot for our humble little bake-at-home business! In the mean time, we are delivering through our friends at Caviar to the entire neighborhood (and most of Seattle). We created a special code for our friends & neighbors in Wallyhood to get $5 off your order, simply use code “WALLYHOOD” at checkout!