Parking Lot No Longer?

Will the much-disputed mixed use apartment development at E. Pine St. and Belmont Ave. E., the one that displaced a block of divey nightlife favorites, finally come to fruition? At Crosscut, Peggy Sturdivant reports that citizen activist Dennis Saxman has lost his appeal that the project violates Pike/Pine design review guidelines. (UrbnLivn first reported this rumor last week.) Saxman's appeal is the reason the block is currently a parking lot; the developer Murray Franklyn didn't want to start the project with it in legal limbo. They claim to have the financing (hard to come by these days), and the project will be apartments ( thus not competing in the softening condo market) so it'll be interesting to see if it goes forward now.

Topics: Construction Gone Wrong

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More Delays for Brix Tenants

It's going to be more than a month before Espresso Vivace Roasteria, which closed last week in its beloved Denny Way location, will be reopening in its new digs on the first floor of Brix condominiums.

The hope was that the move would be a little more seamless. Vivace, this week, had to vacate the Broadway block that’s slated for demolition to make way for Sound Transit. Its new space at Brix, under construction a few blocks north, was supposed to be completed last month.

But Brix construction has been delayed. WG Clark Construction Co. was fired as general contractor earlier this month and replaced by Andersen Construction and Charter Construction. Developer Schnitzer West wouldn’t specify why, just that it had selected the other firms to put the "finishing touches on the project." "Due to [WG Clarks'] significant amount of work going on throughout the region, we mutually agreed that it was best for the project," says Schnitzer's Mike Nelson in an email.

The developer says the first-floor space will be ready for the retail tenants in September, but that possibility doesn't sound too promising. Charter Construction general superintendent Bruce Roundy describes the space like this: "It's still being framed and the sheetrock is halfway done." Residents won't take occupancy of the upper floors until October and November.

Vivace owner David Shomer is putting on a brave face. "Stuff happens," he says. "Construction is always delayed. It's going to be a beautiful spot."

Dilettante Chocolates, which vacated its former Broadway locale for Brix in June, is also feeling the pinch from the delay. A manager at the company's Eastlake location says everyone from the Capitol Hill store, except for the bakers, "are on hold for now," and adds that "as of right now we have no official reopening date."

To get employees through the downtime, Shomer says managers have given up shifts and that Vivace is doubling service at its Broadway coffee bar as well as it its South Lake Union location. He says they're also encouraging employees to take two weeks' vacation.

Shomer, who was retrieving the final items from the Denny Way store yesterday, was coping despite having a "deep psychological aversion to moving." "The world changes," he says. "If you can't change with it, you're going to be left behind. It's not particularly easy. I'm going through the emotions of getting out of here, but I’m excited about Brix. The new store will be great."

Topics: Construction Gone Wrong

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UW's Giant Hole

The new UW Educational Outreach building was supposed to look like this, but instead the prime real estate at the southeast corner of University Ave. and Campus Parkway has, for a year and a half, been the fenced-off site of a 20-foot hole with the buried beginnings of a concrete foundation covered in white plastic.

Construction on the building was stopped in October 2006 due to the high cost of concrete and other delays. "In reevaluating the project, we thought for the stage it was at and the pressures it was undergoing, it was best to terminate the project and save [the space] for another day," explains Richard Chapman, associate vice president of the university's Capital Projects Office. He says stopping construction on a building once the ground has been broken is "extremely unusual," and adds that this is a first in his seven years at the UW.

The corner has sat without repair for so long due to negotiations between the university and the contractor, Ledcor, on how to terminate the work. Court documents show that the parties agreed to end court proceedings in September 2007 (which generally indicates a settlement), but Chapman wouldn't comment on the details saying only that "we're still working our way through that."

For the College Inn Pub, located in the basement of the building next door, it's been a longtime of looking at a hole. "The whole project has been bungled from the word go," says pub co-owner Shea Wilson. "I'm tired of it. I'm tired of living in a construction zone."

The end may be near. Chapman says they've started to fill the hole, but have been delayed by winter's heavy rains (you can't use wet sediment for backfill). Once it's filled, the UW plans to plant grass, but the fence will stay up for safety reasons. And the university doesn't want to make it into a park or parking lot because that would mean getting a new permit. "We'll pour sidewalks to make it aesthetically pleasing, but that's the limit of it. We don't want to spend more," says Chapman, adding that it will cost about $300,000 to fill the hole.

But the long term future of the site remains unknown. "We may use it in two or 10 years," Chapman says. "I don't know."

Topics: Construction Gone Wrong

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