BHB news partners KOMO report that the proposal to move the county juvenile court and detention facility to the PacMed building may not get too far:
…Several neighbors said they had been personally contacted by King County Executive Dow Constantine earlier in the day.
“Three members of the group were contacted by the King County Executive’s Office indicating that a decision on PacMed should made by end of this coming week (Thursday or Friday),†reads the post on Facebook.
In a separate email circulating on the BAN list another neighbor writes about those phone calls:
“Earlier in the day several of us received a call from Dow Constantine’s office to inform us that the PacMed building probably won’t work for the project and we should expect a formal announcement sometime later this week.â€
The latter comment was also posted here on the Beacon Hill Blog by Hans, the organizer of Sunday’s “No Jail at PacMed” meeting. Here’s the comment in full:
“We had a very constructive meeting on Sunday afternoon at 4:00 to discuss ‘No Jail at PacMed’. Earlier in the day several of us received a call from Dow Constantine’s office to inform us that the PacMed building probably won’t work for the project and we should expect a formal announcement sometime later this week. Needless to say that would be VERY good news. However, even if the jail does not locate to the building we still intend to make every attempt to engage Wright Runstad and let them know that the North Beacon Hill is very interested in whoever they select as a tenant and we would welcome the opportunity to work with them as a neighborhood.”
It sounds like all of this is coming from the same source and getting variations on each retelling. The original source wrote only that several people had received calls from “Dow Constantine’s office.” This has since morphed into the claim that Dow is calling people personally.
This proposal has been in the works for at least a year. Check out what the Squire Park Neighborhood Council says about the project. I don’t think it will be taken off the table so easily.
A juvenile facility right smack in a residential neighborhood on top of Beacon Hill? Get real.
Move the facility to West Seattle (The former Food Services of America Building) in Dow Constantine’s neighborhood.
I just read the article in the Seattle Times about a juvenile facility being considered to be placed smack dab in the our residential neighborhood and so near the International District! Did downtown think we would not notice? or not care? Jails and residences do not mix. Thank you, Larry Gossett, for acknowledging that there will probably be a backlash against this horrifying idea. Not probably. Count on it.
I just read the article in the Times about the PacMed building being considered for a juvenile facility–here in a residential district–a stone’s throw from Chinatown and the International District. There are grade schools and children all over this area! What are they thinking? There must be a far better place for this juvenile facility.
If the jail moves to the iconic Marine Hospital building it would be another injustice to South Seattle and the Beacon Hill Neighborhood. Not to mention, a nightmarish blight to the city’s skyline.
Wright Runstad should work a little harder to find a suitable tenant to fill Amazon’s former space. A bio tech or another high tech company would make alot more sense.