This just in from the SPD Blotter:

On September 30th, at approximately 10:30 AM, officers responded to a 911 call of a burglary in progress in the 2500 Block of 5th Avenue West.  The complainant stated that three juvenile males had entered the neighbor’s house through the garage.  The complainant remained on the phone with the dispatchers while officers responded to the area.  Officers set up containment around the house and arrested the three juvenile suspects without incident as they came out of the house.  West Burglary detectives also responded to the scene.   The complainant did a great job in keeping an eye on the suspects and guiding the officers to the correct house without knowing the exact address.  The two 16 year olds and the 17 year old were later booked into the Youth Services Center.

All library branches (including the Queen Anne Library at 400 W Garfield St.) and the downtown Seattle Public Library are closed this morning because of an all-staff meeting. They will open beginning at 1 p.m.

A planned housing development at 1415 Dexter Avenue has some neighbors worried about losing their views of Lake Union.  Catholic Community Services wants to build 50 units of low income housing on the site which is currently vacant.  That’s not sitting well with some residents of the Nautica condos who live directly behind the site.  They would have to trade their water view for a view of a brick wall.

“It would literally be three feet from the windows of those condos,” said Nautica homeowners association president Gerald Whalen. “It would turn those units into a cave.”

Site of proposed low income housing at 1415 Dexter Ave

Dan Wise with Catholic Community Services tells us two or three units would be blocked by the new building, and that Catholic is trying to minimize the impact as much as possible.

“We’re trying to take all of those considerations into our building design,” said Wise.  “We have a really good record of being good neighbors.”

But Nautica’s HOA president says about three quarters of the condo residents would have their views negatively impacted in some way.  He’s also worried about a possible drop in property values because of the new building.  Dan Wise tells us that Catholic has been meeting with residents as they push forward with the project that is expected to open in 2012.  Once the project moves into design review with the city, residents and nearby businesses will have other opportunities to voice their opinions.

A proposal to close the gym at the Queen Anne Community Center was met with strong opposition during Wednesday night’s public hearing on the city budget.  Under the mayor’s plan, the gym will be closed in 2011 to make room for BizKid$, a national public television series for children.  BizKid$ will use the gym as a production studio until at least the end of 2011.  Volunteers and supporters of the community center showed up Wednesday in Northgate to tell the City Council they want the gym to stay open.

“Yesterday afternoon the phone was ringing off the hook.  All kinds of parents and coaches wanted information,” said Pat Barger who serves as a volunteer at the community center.

A sign urging the City Council to keep the gym open

The community center gym and McClure’s gym are used by 22 youth basketball teams, and Barger isn’t sure how many of those teams can be relocated.  The gym is also used for several other programs.  Even though the rest of the community center will remain open, Barger fears BizKid$ may eat up other space in the facility.

“It impacts everyone from babies to the elderly.”

The community center will also go from 5 full time staff members to one full time person and two half-time staff members.

Another impact from the proposed budget involves the East Queen Anne wading pool, which will only be open three days a week next summer just as it was this year.

A crowd lines up to speak at Wednesday night’s budget hearing in Northgate

To see more on the mayor’s proposed budget, click here.  

The next public hearing on the budget takes place Wednesday, October 13 at South Seattle Community College at 5:30pm.  The City Council has also set up a  web page where you can submit ideas to balance the budget and vote on other suggestions.

Underdawg Records, located at 532 Queen Anne Ave, is closing up shop soon. There’s a “for lease” sign in the window, next to another sign detailing the neighborhood record shop’s “retirement sale.”

According to the sign, call vinyl is on sale for 20 percent off, CDs and DVDs are also marked down, and anyone who wants to nab some cheap VHS and cassette tapes can nab them for 50 cents and 25 cents respectively. The folks at Underdawg say they expect to be open for about one more month.

The community is invited to an event to help continue renovations to a Queen Anne historic landmark. The Seattle Church of Christ at 2555 8th Avenue West will hold its 3rd annual Auction and gala event this Saturday, October 2 from 6pm to 10pm. The event will help raise funds needed to match a $25,000 landmark challenge grant. A ribbon cutting celebration will open the evening, followed by appetizers and fine wines. Cost is $20 in advance, $30 at the door. Click here for more information.

Photo from Seattle Church of Christ, Dale Lang

Engineers with the Seattle Department of Transportation will be inspecting the Ballard Bridge on Thursday. This means the right-hand, southbound lane of the bridge will be closed from 10 a.m. to 2:30 p.m. The sidewalk will remain open.

For the second year in a row, a Wallingford pastor will lead a group of people back and forth across the Aurora Bridge as part of a 24 hour prayer vigil. The vigil, set for October 8 and 9, is designed to bring attention to the problem of suicide jumpers.

Pastor Heath Rainwater, a Seattle firefighter who also leads the Vine Christian Ministries in Wallingford, started the “Take Back the Bridge Project” after responding to a suicide on the bridge. He was with the fire crews staging at the bottom of the bridge when he looked up and saw what was happening up top.

“I could see the young man. He was desperate,” Rainwater recently told KIRO-FM. “My heart wanted to be on top of the bridge saying something that could give him hope.”

WSDOT photo

Unfortunately, that young man jumped and died instantly. The “Take Back the Bridge Project” now helps raise money for the Crisis Clinic in Seattle which fields tens of thousands of calls a year. Rainwater says he also hopes the new suicide prevention fence currently being built across the Aurora Bridge will help.

“The reason why we’re so happy about the fence is it causes that separation of time for you to be able to get through that moment when you would impulsively jump and make a permanent solution to a temporary problem,” said Rainwater.

The 24 hour prayer vigil starts Friday, October 8 at 11am. That’s followed by a community march across the bridge on Saturday, October 9 at 12pm. Click here for more information or to register.

Page Ahead Children’s Literacy Program is hosting its annual restaurant benefit, Dish Up Literacy, on Thursday. Eat at Ten Mercer in Queen Anne or 12 other Seattle restaurants, and 20 percent of the proceeds will support literacy programs for children in need.

According to Page Ahead, 61 percent of low-income families have no books at all in their homes for children.

Page Ahead operates on one simple and astounding fact: growing up in a house with books is the foremost predictor of academic success in childhood—and a child who succeeds in school will remain there. Page Ahead is dedicated to helping children in need succeed in school by developing strong reading skills.

Participating restaurants include:

• Smokin’ Pete’s BBQ (Ballard) *dinner only
• Hopvine Pub (Capitol Hill)
• Tutta Bella (Columbia City, South Lake Union, Stone Way, Issaquah)
• Carmelita (Greenwood) *dinner only
• Barrio Restaurant (Madison Park)
• Rusty Pelican Café (Wallingford)
• Casa d’Italia (Wedgwood)
• Fiddler’s Inn (Wedgwood)
• Ten Mercer (Queen Anne)
• Barrio (Bellevue)

Bus riders, take note: Metro is revising some routes on its current schedule, beginning this Saturday, October 2. Routes that go through Queen Anne undergoing changes include:

• Route 17—There are routing changes in downtown Seattle for both northbound and southbound trips—Northbound trips to Sunset Hill will operate via 3rd Ave north of Virginia St and on Blanchard St between 3rd Ave and Westlake Ave N. These trips will no longer operate on Virginia St between 3rd Ave and Westlake Ave, and on Westlake Ave between Virginia St and Blanchard St. Southbound trips to downtown Seattle will operate via 9th Ave south of Republican St, on Bell St between Denny Way and 3rd Ave, and on 3rd Ave between Bell St and Virginia St. These trips will no longer operate on Westlake Ave south of Blanchard St or on Stewart St.
• Routes16—On weekdays, the northbound 12:40 am trip will leave 15 minutes earlier at 12:25 am. Discontinued: The northbound trips to Northgate from the Seattle Ferry Terminal at 12:10 am weekdays and 12:38 am Saturday.
• Route 26—Discontinued: On weekdays, the southbound express trip to downtown Seattle from Woodlawn Ave N & Ravenna Blvd at 7:02 am.
• Route 28—Discontinued: On weekdays, the southbound express trip to downtown Seattle from Aurora Ave N & N 143rd St at 5:34 am and all shuttle trips operating between Aurora Ave N & N 143rd St and Fremont Ave N & N 34th St.
• Route 30—Weekend service between the Seattle Center and the U-District will begin about 6 am on Saturday and 10 am on Sunday. With the addition of 80 trips per week, there will now be service between the Seattle Center and the U-District until midnight seven days per week.
• Route 31—Discontinued: The westbound Route 31 trip to central Magnolia from 12th Ave NE & NE Campus Pkwy at 6:23 am.
• Route 45—Discontinued: The eastbound trip to the U-District leaving Roy St & Warren Ave N at 7:02 am.

Metro says it’s making the schedule and route changes to save money, preserve bus service, and operate more efficiently. Bus riders should check fall schedules for the routes they use most often to see what’s new. You can prepare by picking up a new orange timetable, Special Rider Alert brochure, or use the online Trip Planner for some advance research. When using Trip Planner, be sure to input a date of October 2 or later.

Mayor Mike McGinn unveiled his proposed 2011-2012 budget today, and it will have some big impacts on Queen Anne.  The community center will remain open, but will have reduced operations.  The gym will be closed in 2011 to make room for BizKid$, a national public television series for children that focuses on financial literacy, entrepreneurship, and life skills.   BizKid$ will use the Queen Anne Community Center gym as a production studio until at least the end of 2011 and provide the city with additional revenue.  While the gym will be closed, there will still be programming in the upper portion of the community center including childcare, preschool, and senior adult activities.  Parks will maintain some staffing for teen program development and continue its partnership with the Community Learning Center at McClure Middle School.

Meanwhile, the East Queen Anne wading pool will only be open three days a week next summer.  

To see more on the mayor’s proposed budget, click here.  

The City Council will now dive into the proposed budget.  One of three public hearings will be held this Wednesday (9/29) at 5:30pm at the Northgate Community Center gym at 10510 5th Ave NE.  The Council has also set up a web page where you can submit ideas to balance the budget and vote on other suggestions.  You can find that page here.



After months of slow moving real estate on Queen Anne Ave N, it seems things are finally picking back up. Homegrown is moving into the former Pete’s Coffee & Tea space on caffeine corner, and ‘for lease’ signs are dropping like flies (look more updates on what else is moving into Queen Anne soon).

One prime piece of retail space in Queen Anne that has just been snapped up is the corner spot in the Sweetbrier building (at Queen Anne Ave N and W Crockett St), which will soon be home to Seattle’s first Menchie’s frozen yogurt outpost.

California-based Menchie’s has locations all over the U.S. and Canada, and is expanding like crazy. (According to their website, the franchise is opening new outposts right and left, including locations in Japan, Dubai, Australia and Mexico).

An anonymous reader tipped us off to Menchie’s moving in at 2101 Queen Anne Ave N. They wrote:

These folks came all the way from Tacoma and were disappointed, showing me their iPhones, that they store wasn’t open. They said it is the best yogurt, like Greek yogurt, thick and tangy!

Menchie’s offers a rotating selection of frozen yogurts and toppings—”from fresh, locally grown fruits to classic rainbow sprinkles,” according to the company website. Customers mix and match whatever they want, and pay by weight, not topping number or cup size.

Up until this point the Queen Anne Farmers Market has been using the space as storage for the weekly market through an in-kind donation from the Sweetbier building. Market director Julie Whitehorn confirmed that the non-profit is currently looking for a new storage space.

Menchie’s already has two locations in Washington state—one in Federal Way, and another in Vancouver. According to its website, it will also be opening a new spot on Broadway, though the exact location has not yet been announced. We sent a note to Menchie’s asking when they plan to open the Queen Anne store, but have not yet heard back. We’ll keep you posted as we learn more!

I took a walk today from my house to Green Lake and back to revel in the last day of summer. It was glorious out. Perfect temperature, not too fall cool and not summer hot hot. Only taking one short break to kick out the rocks in my shoes, it took about 90 minutes.

Using a new pedestrian-centric map the Seattle Department of Transportation (SDOT) has created that conveniently shows the number of minutes of different street segments, I added up what their estimated time would be for the approximate same route and it came out to 72 minutes.

Not so bad, considering these estimates don’t take into account the steepness of the street or an individual’s physical condition. There is going to be some variation, so the numbers should be taken as rough estimates.

A zoom-in on the Queen Anne part of the SDOT map

As Seattle residents know — and as visitors quickly pick up — city streets vary in slope from pancake flat to whoo-boy steep. Those streets are colored yellow on the map.

The routes on the Seattle Walking Map come from a variety of sources, including The Feet First walking advocacy organization, King County, and SDOT. Routes follow sidewalks, shoulders on quiet streets, and park trails.

This new series of maps divides Seattle into three sections: north, central, and south. Adjoining sections of the map include a limited amount of overlap, should the selected route cross from one section to another. You can print out PDF’s of all three and or the full city map here, or you can fill out a form on that page and have SDOT mail you a copy.

Tonight, FOLKpark and some landscape architects are asking for your ideas on how to include Lower Kinnear Park in an uptown loop trail.  The special workshop takes place tonight (9/23) from 7pm to 8:30pm at the Queen Anne Neighborhood Center (160 Roy Street).  For more information and to RSVP, go to their Facebook page.

Image above from FOLKpark detailing Uptown Loop and how Lower Kinnear Park acts as a link to the waterfront.  Click here for larger maps.

This just in from the SPD blotter:

On September 23rd at approximately 2:44 a.m. officers responded to a 911 call of an armed robbery of a convenience store in the 1600 block of Queen Anne Avenue North.  Preliminary investigation indicates that two male suspects wearing black ski masks and armed with handguns robbed the convenience store and fled the scene on foot.  Officers and K-9 units conducted an extensive area search however, the suspects remain at large. Nobody was injured during the robbery.

SPD says the robbery is part of an active and on-going investigation.  Anyone with information about the incident, or the identities or whereabouts of the suspects, should call 911 or Seattle Police immediately.

Just when you thought WSDOT was finally done with its work on the Aurora Bridge, it turns out crews found more rivets to remove. Crews found the rivets when they began repairing corroded steel portions of the bridge at 23 fence post locations.

Photo from WSDOT

It means more lane closures and planning for traffic delays if you’re using the bridge this weekend.

• On Saturday, Sept.25, two out of the three northbound lanes will be closed from 5:30 a.m. until 1:30 p.m.
• On Sunday, Sept. 26, two out of three northbound lanes will be closed from 5:30 a.m. to 4 p.m. and again from 6 p.m. until midnight. Seahawks fans, WSDOT is giving you that window of opportunity to use all the lanes from 4 p.m. to 6 p.m. to accommodate post game traffic.

There are a total of 186 additional rivets that must be removed as part of the steel repair work. The rivets are located under the bridge in tight areas where access is difficult, requiring at least two more weekends to bust them out.

WSDOT can provide you with industrial strength earplugs if all this racket is causing too many sleepless nights. Call its 24-hour noise hotline, 206-440-4099, for more information.

The work is part of a WSDOT project to install an anti-suicide fence on the outer railing of the bridge. Work began in May.

Unfortunately, there was a recent suicide from the bridge on Sept. 11. One of our readers, Ryan Healy, who lives on 34th across the street from the Lake Washington Rowing Club, and has a view directly of the bridge and water beneath it, e-mailed us to let us know.

I heard her scream and looked up in time to see her hit the water with a loud and large splash. I called 911 and I thought I saw her swimming on the surface. A pleasure boater came to her rescue and pulled her on to the boat but she was motionless. After the police and fire crews arrived and were about finished I walked down near the Lake Washington Rowing Club dock to check on her condition. I asked a fire department official if she was going to be ok. His response was simple: “No.”

This is the second suicide I’ve seen in the past 5 months.

Seattle Police confirmed there was a successful suicide from the bridge that day at about the same time as our reader mentioned, about 1:15 p.m.