Good Shepherd Center to be Razed and Rebuilt

During a wide-ranging news conference at Murphy’s Pub in Wallingford, Mayor Bruce Harrell announced the sale of the iconic Good Shepherd Center to the Chinese-German real estate joint venture Char Siu Polka. The historic building, once a Catholic home for wayward girls, will be redeveloped into a 2000-unit luxury residence complex for wayward tech workers, to be called Amazon Homes at the Good Shepherd. The current children’s playground will be turned into a residents-only off-leash dog park, while the Good Shepherd P-Patch will be “reverted” back into 24-hr. pickleball courts (the site originally was the location of tennis courts for the Good Shepherd inmates). While there will be no on-site parking for the 2000 residents of the homes, a 10’ x 10’ portion of the parking lot will be reserved for Lime scooters and bikes. Mayor Harrell lauded “taking another step demonstrating the city’s commitment to more housing,” although he skillfully sidestepped KOMO news reporter/anchor Michelle Esteban’s query about the omission of “affordable” as an adjective, since the condominium unit prices begin at $750,000 for the equivalent of a Japanese capsule hotel space.

Char Siu Polka CEO Ellen (“Wormtongue”) Mucks stood at Mayor Harrell’s side and whispered into his ear during the news conference, but when she was given the sticky, beer-encrusted floor to address the media, she enthusiastically extolled the development. She noted the scarcity of historic Seattle properties to bulldoze and replace with soulless, unimaginative box buildings to house recently minted millionaires. Mucks alluded to Char Siu Polka’s corporate motto, “Dichte Uber Alles” (“Density Above All”), and said that this was only the first of many beloved neighborhood institutions that will be conquered—willingly or not—and assimilated into Char Siu Polka’s Borg Property Group. “Resistance,” she pointed out, “is futile. And damn costly.”

Razing and construction are due to begin once the “reprogramming” of all that misallocated USAID humanitarian funding is completed.