Buggy’s also hosting a Holiday Open House on Sunday, December 7th from 11:00 am – 5:00 pm. They promise “gifts for super heroes, dancers, animal lovers, cooks, babies, and more,” along with gift wrapping, refreshments, and a special gift with purchase.
Buggy is located at 3315 Beacon Avenue South.
There is a big building at the junction of Beacon and 15th, a large building that seems as if it ought to be a major retail destination in our North Beacon Hill business district and urban village. But it’s not. It’s a warehouse. There is nothing visible inside but piles of boxes, and a small paper sign.
This is interesting, because the site is zoned Neighborhood Commercial 2 P 40. Neighborhood Commercial 2, or NC2, is “a moderately-sized pedestrian-oriented shopping area that provides a full range of retail sales and services to the surrounding neighborhood.” Typically an NC2 land use might be a coffee shop or drugstore. 40 means that the zoning allows 40-foot tall buildings to be built there. P means that it is a “P-zone” — a pedestrian-designated zone, which is designed to encourage pedestrian activity in a neighborhood business district by requiring ground floor uses that attract pedestrian activity and interest. This means things like retail stores, restaurants, hair salons, etc., but not research labs, administrative offices — or warehouses.
Regardless of the building’s P-Zone status, warehouses and wholesale showrooms are not allowed in NC2-zoned sites. This building has been used as a warehouse for some time now. The business based there, Hui Intertrading, is a rice wholesaler and importer, who supplies many local restaurants with their rice.
Hui Intertrading’s use of the building as a warehouse has been a thorn in some folks’ sides for quite a while, as was the earlier similar use of a building directly across the intersection. And people have filed complaints over these violations of the land use code, in August 2004 and May 2008. For a while, a land use notice board appeared on the building, listing a proposed change to retail use, but the board eventually came down with no noticeable change in the use of the building.
After the earlier complaint, the building failed 11 city inspections before finally passing one in February 2008. After the most recent complaint, it took 4 inspections before it finally passed, and the case was closed — in other words, it’s no longer considered to be violating land-use codes. But, have you been by there lately? It’s still a warehouse. Nothing has changed.
Oh, wait — except for that small paper sign I mentioned earlier:
It’s just a pile of boxes behind the sign, with no sign of any retail activity or retail fixtures.
Could it be that putting up a sign like this is all you need to be a retail business and get the Department of Planning and Development off your back? Business owners, take note!
On the other hand, despite appearances, maybe it is a retail shop. Has anyone tried to shop at this “food grocery retail store”? Please tell us how it went.
Complaints to the DPD may be filed online.
(Can you imagine this building as an old-style movie theater with a nice big neon marquee? I’ve always thought it looked like it should be one.)
Kerrie Carbary sent us this local volunteer opportunity. (Anyone have other volunteer opportunities on Beacon Hill? Let us know.)
“Would you like to spend a few hours a month with a friendly, energetic, and charming 86 year old woman? You can make a difference in her life by helping her with light housekeeping and easy yardwork. She loves her garden and keeps a beautiful home, but finds herself unable to bend easily to mop, vacuum, and mow the lawn. She’s very independent and still feels comfortable driving, going out to lunch, and meeting with friends, but has decided she could use a bit of extra help in her home. She’d really prefer someone who can visit her during the weekday. She’d prefer a female volunteer and lives in zip code 98108 (Beacon Hill).”
This volunteer opportunity is through Volunteer Chore Services, a program of Catholic Community Services. Volunteers must complete a registration packet, provide three personal references, pass a background check, and attend an orientation.
For more information, please call Kerrie Carbary, the West Region Volunteer Coordinator, at 206-328-6858; the Volunteer Chore Services main intake line at 206-328-5787; or email kerriec@ccsww.org.
Tamara reported to the Beacon Hill mailing list that there have been a couple of possible break-in attempts on North Beacon Hill.
In the first incident three weeks ago, two male teenagers knocked repeatedly on a resident’s screen door. The resident was sleeping inside, then got up and stood on his side of the door listening to the activity. The teenagers then opened the screen door, pounded on the wood door and started turning the door handle. The resident, who just so happened to be a police officer, opened the door and confronted the teenagers. When confronted, they asked if “Tommy” lived there.
On November 18, the same police officer saw a group of three 14 year old youths acting strangely. They walked by a house, and one went up to the house and knocked on the front door while the other two kept walking. No one answered, so the kid went down the stairs and caught up with his friends. All three came back to the house and opened the gate to the backyard. The policeman confronted them, and they asked if he knew who lived in the house. He answered “Yes I do, and it’s not you.” The policeman told them he knew what they were up to, and the kids denied it and left.
This is similar to some other incidents that have been reported elsewhere in Central and Southeast Seattle.
We’ve seen a lot of great photos of Beacon Hill lately. Here are some interesting autumnal views of the Hill. (Most of these, but not all, are from the Beacon Hill Blog photo pool on Flickr, which welcomes your Beacon Hill photos!)
Several more cool photos, after the jump!
Continue reading A Beacon Hill autumn in pictures
We stopped in at the Rainier Grocery Outlet this evening and saw that entire rows of shelving were gone, the freezers were half-full, and a lot less “stuff” was in the store. I asked the checker if they were closing or just remodeling. He said they’re closing November 26th.
We haven’t been able to get more details yet, but we’re wondering if the store is a casualty of the lengthy construction of the Mount Baker light rail station that has made access to the store more difficult for the last few years. The building and property are owned by the University of Washington, with their laundry facilities next door.
Some time between March 31st, 2007 and June 19th of this year, Steve Christman took over from Steve and Debbi Mullen, operators of the Madrona Grocery Outlet. The Mullens stated in 2007 that, while the store had taken a 20 to 30 percent hit in business due to light rail construction, they hoped to tough it out until the rail station opened, running the Rainier store at “zero profit” until then and “didn’t want the store to close.” Looks like that plan didn’t pan out.
If your bargain-hunting regularly brings you to Grocery Outlet, you might want to get down there soon.
So, Beaconians, what should Capitol Hillers expect in the next few years as a large section of Broadway becomes a big hole in the ground? We’ve lived through it and ought to have some useful insights for our neighbors to the north.
Writing these blog posts for the last month now, it has become apparent to me that we on Beacon Hill have a problem — one shared with a few other Seattle neighborhoods, and a small problem in the overall scheme of things, but a problem nonetheless. What do we call ourselves? Beacon Hillites? Hillians? Hillers? Or even… Hillbillies?
I looked through Seattle’s Beacon Hill and the term used there was usually “residents of Beacon Hill.” That’s a little too long, I think.
Some other Seattle neighborhoods seem to have settled on reasonably short and snappy names for their residents: Ballardites, West Seattleites (well, that one’s easy). Wallingfordians seems to have seen some use, though not much. Capitol Hill, our neighbors to the north, have used Hillites and Hillians occasionally, but Hillers seems more popular, according to Google.
Residents of Beacon Hill, what do you call yourselves? The headline writers of the Seattle neighborhood blogosphere need to know. If you’re from another neighborhood, what do you call residents of your neighborhood? We’re curious about that, too.
(We could always be… Beacon Hellions!)