Aurora Place Seattle

Downtown Emergency Service Center (DESC) recently held a meeting at Cyndy's Pancake House in which they conversed with neighbors about their plans for an affordable housing development "with supportive services for homeless men and women living with mental illness" at the current Cyndy's property (10507 Aurora Ave) to begin in the summer of 2011.

But less than a year ago, Cyndy's was on the verge of becoming a strip club until the city declined to issue the prospective buyer, Bob Davis, the necessary permits - leading one Aurora|Seattle contributor to proclaim, "Pancakes Trump Strippers."

The Seattle Times is reporting today that a federal judge has ruled in favor of Davis, who filed a lawsuit against the city in 2008, "saying the city's failure to provide applicants with a deadline for obtaining a license violates the First Amendment protections of would-be club owners."  It remains to be seen whether or not the city will owe Davis any damages related to the loss of his potential business.

The ruling in Seattle this week by U.S. District Chief Judge Robert Lasnik came in a case filed by Davis in 2008, which claimed the city was obstructing his efforts to convert a Aurora Avenue North restaurant, Cyndy's House of Pancakes, into a strip club. Davis challenged the city's requirement that he obtain a license and comply with a zoning ordinance that requires "adult cabarets" to be sited away from schools, community centers, child-care centers and public parks.

Lasnik found the city's current licensing ordinance — passed in 2005 after the last one was struck down by another judge — fails to provide applicants with a time frame in which the city must issue a license if its requirements are met. The upshot, the judge said, is that the ordinance could allow a city to delay issuing a license indefinitely.

In 2008, the city tried to fix the ordinance by adopting a policy saying it would notify applicants within 30 days, said Assistant City Attorney Carlton Seu. But Lasnik said those efforts fell short.

Lasnik said that policy isn't the same as law, and that Davis' "First Amendment rights should not depend on what is essentially a promise to act promptly in the future."

The ruling comes after Davis has apparently abandoned his plans for Cyndy's. His attorney, Kristin Olsen, said he waited more than 19 months to buy the property, which eventually was sold to someone else. He is asking the city pay him damages for lost business.

SeattleCrime.com is reporting on a police bust at the recently reopened "Dancing Bare" near 105th and Aurora:

City officials say the Dancing Bare, on 105th and Aurora, reopened sometime in May—staff at the Department of Executive Administration did not have an exact date—after shutting down for about five years.

The building on 105th and Aurora has been licensed as an adult club since at least 1987, and was in operation until 2005, when they allowed their license to lapse. Although the club's small stage went dark, the adjacent adult book and video store—which are connected—remained open.

Last year, the business—which operates under the name Carnieville—filed to re-up their license.

When staff from the Department of Executive Administration went to inspect the business in March, it was still in a state of disarray. "It wasn’t even swept up," says inspector Michelle Crooks.

The club managed to get cleaned up and got their license back, and reopened in early May.

Shortly thereafter, Undercover Vice detectives dropped by and, according to police sources, found a sad scene.

Police tell Seattelcrime.com that only one dancer was working in the very small club—which one police source described as "a hole"—on several visits.

That dancer just happened to give an undercover detective a "dirty" dance and the city is now working to suspend her dancing license for 30 days.

See the full story here.

The life of the truck at 90th and Aurora operating as "Cubano Loco" was short-lived.  It is now the "Chunky Monkey".  Check out their website and a note from the new owners below.  Welcome to the neighborhood Lauren and Gabriel!

A few weeks ago we posted a rumor about the possibility of someone looking to develop condos at the former 1/2 Price Pots property at 8101 Aurora Avenue.

We were totally wrong about the condo thing - and are totally happy about that - because someone is getting ready to buy the property for an entirely different purpose.

According to some neighbors who have spoken to the current property owner, a sale is pending for the property to a man from Yakima who intends to operate a Farmer's Market at the site!  The market will sell 7 days a week, all year long.  In addition to having his own stand and renting space to other farmers, he plans to use the site as a central hub, including refrigeration, to store fruits and vegetables that will be sold at other sites around Seattle.

The sale is expected to be complete by the end of July and the buyer hopes to open the Farmer's Market within 3 months.  No changes are planned to the buildings on site beyond adding refrigeration to one building.  Tests are currently underway for environmental contamination on the property, since a gas station was located there in the 1920's.

Though the site includes plenty of parking - about 30 spots on the north side and 8 spots on the south side - it will be within walking distance from the nearby neighborhoods of Greenwood, Green Lake, and Licton Springs.

We'll keep you posted as we hear more!

I meant to post this on June 30...  Eighty years ago the Seattle City Council voted in favor of extending Aurora Avenue through Woodland Park.  The Seattle Times vociferously opposed the move, and expressed it in their headlines, such as, "Friends of Playfields Deceived in Aurora Act."

Here's an excerpt from and a link to the HistoryLink essay:

On June 30, 1930, by a vote of six to two, the Seattle City Council approves an ordinance extending Aurora Avenue through Woodland Park. The Council majority follows the advice of city and state highway engineers, supported by Mayor Frank E. Edwards, that the multi-lane Aurora "speedway" is needed to provide a direct approach from the George Washington Memorial (Aurora Avenue) Bridge then under construction to north Seattle and beyond. The council decision to bisect Woodland Park's 200-acre urban wilderness triggers outrage among park supporters and other speedway opponents. With the vociferous backing of The Seattle Times, opponents gather sufficient signatures to force a referendum on the council decision, but voters in the November election approve the ordinance and two years later the speedway is built through the park.

Last week we reported that Paladar Cubano at 90th and Aurora closed... but, then, the truck was still there.  One of our neighbors followed up on the story and got the scoop.  Thanks, Joe!

Goodbye to the much-loved cuban sandwich truck that has been stationed at 90th and Aurora for a little over a year.  The Seattle Weekly is reporting today that Paladar Cubano closed on Wednesday.  No explanation was given for the closure.

Here's hoping a taco truck takes its place!

As previously reported, there are plans afoot to convert Cyndy's House of Pancakes to supportive housing for formerly homeless people. On June 9, Bill Hobson, Executive Director of the Downtown Emergency Service Center (DESC), went to Cyndy's and spoke to a group of concerned neighborhood residents.

DESC is a leading advocate of the philosophy of "housing first." Many other homeless housing projects insist that residents be clean and sober before moving in. (This practice is often called "creaming," which refers to the tendency to focus on the most treatable homeless populations.) On the other hand, DESC believes that agencies get better results if they provide housing first and then focus on the other social services. This approach is understandably controversial, but there is some pretty good empirical evidence from the New England Journal of Medicine and elsewhere that the strategy is generally effective.

Hobson began the meeting with some brief comments that summarized DESC's mission and a discussion of how the group runs its other properties. He invited neighborhood residents to learn more about the organization at DESC's website. 

Hobson stressed that DESC requires all residents in all of their buildings to sign a rental agreement with a "good neighbor" clause. Basically, this means that residents promise not to drink, drug, or panhandle in the neighborhood. In addition, the building will be staffed 24/7.  There will be 14 to 15 full-time employees devoted to the building, so 2 to 8 DESC staff will always be on site (depending on the time of day).  There will always be at least one mental health clinician there--and several more will be present during daytime hours.

There were about 50 people in the audience, and about 80% of them were either extremely skeptical or downright hostile toward Hobson at the start of the meeting. Nevertheless, about 60% of attendees seemed to leave the meeting feeling that DESC was sincere in its desire to be a good neighbor. This is not to say that they were totally happy or that all their concerns were allayed, but rather that they seemed to come away with a sense that the neighborhood could live with this project.  About 40% of the audience remained strongly opposed to the idea of putting homeless housing here.

Cyndy's House of Pancakes has been at the corner of Aurora & 105th since 1972.

The bulk of the meeting was taken up by Q+A, which is summarized below. This is NOT a verbatim set of minutes. I've combined and rearranged some questions, and I've undoubtedly made some errors in paraphrasing what the questioners and Hobson said. Nevertheless, here are the gist of the main queries and replies:

Q: How will you determine who will be residents in the new building?
A: This will be a housing project for homeless people with mental illness. We use a vulnerablility index to assess who is most in need of housing. The vulnerability index looks at many factors, but it basically seeks to determine who is most likely to die or be seriously injured if they stay on the streets. 90-100% of residents will have a psychiatric disorder, and 30-40% of them will also have a drinking or substance-abuse problem.

Q: Will the population of your housing project at 1811 Eastlake [chronic, life-long alcoholics] be transferred here?
A: No. This facility will serve a different target population, the vulnerable mentally ill.

Q: Will their be families and homeless women in the building?
A: All of our residents are single people. There are no families. About 60% of residents are men, 40% women.

Q: Do you have a zero-tolerance policy for drinking and drugging in your building?
A: No. We have a zero-tolerance for drinking and drugging in the surrounding neighborhood.

Q: How do you prevent a spill-over of anti-social behavior (drinking, panhandling, etc.) into the surrounding neighborhood? (This question was asked in several different forms by several different people.)
A: I've already mentioned the good neighbor policy in our rental agreements. In addition, the city pressures us to make sure that there is no spill-over. We leave our phone number with all the folks who live close to the building. If they see someone panhandling or doing something disturbing, they call us. When we respond to calls, we find that about 80% of the time, it's not one of our residents. But since we're there on site, we stay to problem-solve and refer the case the appropriate folks--mental health services, the police, detox, Harborview, etc.

Q: Will there be sex offenders in the building?
A: Maybe--but we're willing to listen to the community on this matter.  DESC owns 8 buildings, and 7 of them allow sex offenders. In one case, the neighborhood absolutely refused and threatened to kill the project if sex offenders were allowed in. DESC relented. DESC is open to a dialog on this issue and will heed the wishes of the community. However, DESC does believe that sex offenders should be allowed.
"Look at this from the wider perspective of the city as a whole," said Hobson. "We know that there are close to 300 homeless sex offenders in Seattle. Are we safer as a community if we leave them out on the streets? Or are we safer if they live in a supervised housing situation and are receiving treatment?"
(One person in the audience replied, "The city might be safer, but will our neighborhood? There's an elementary school bus stop right in front of this building.")

Q: Do any of your residents have a history of violence?
A: Not generally. There's a stereotype that the mentailly ill are dangerous because of the news stories and TV coverage you see when violent incidents do occur. But actually the data show that mentally ill are less violent than the general population. I can't promise you that none of our residents will ever be violent. I just can't promise that. It does happen from time to time, and when it does, we evict that resident. But overall you're not going to get any more increase in violence than you would from any other 80-90 unit building coming into the neighborhood. When we treat this population, violence is an extremely rare problem. The main problem we face with this population is the tendency of our residents to isolate inside their rooms.

Q: What will the building look like?
A: Our architects are in the very early stages of the design process, so we don't really know yet. You can see examples of our other buildings on our website. Our buildings tend to be attractive; the newer ones are three-star Built Green or LEED certified. The community will have a lot of say in the design of the building. We are going to form a Design Guidance Review Committee, probably in August of this year. If you signed our sign-in sheet, we'll let you know when the first meeting of that committee will be. That committee will seek feedback from the community on the building design, amount of parking, and all those sorts of issues There's a mandatory green space that's a part of any development of this size. We usually like to have gardens or p-patches for our residents, but we're open as to what the final design of that green space might look like.

Q: Can residents come and go as they please at all hours of the night?
A: Yes. This is an apartment building, not a prison. Most of our residents keep normal hours, just like anyone else, so there is not a ton of coming and going at night. We do restrict visiting. Residents can have no more than two visitors at a time, and visiting hours are 8am to 10pm. Overnight stays must be approved by our staff at least 48 hours in advance.

Q: This neighborhood already has a lot of problems. Why are you coming in here, adding to them, and running our property values down?
A: DESC views itself as part of the solution, not as a problem. We view ourselves as part of the neighborhood, and we require our building manager to join the local neighborhood associations. Our residents join trash paint pick-ups and graffiti paint-outs. Our buildings are attractive, and we keep them extremely well-maintained. Just go look at our older buildings yourself to see. And, as far as property values are concerned, there is good evidence that this type of supportive housing doesn't reduce nearby property values. Sometimes it increases them. There's a study up on our website about that. With transit-oriented development coming to Northgate, we view this neighborhood as a good investment. We expect our property values to increase substantially in coming years and our neighbors' values to increase right along with us.

Q: Look at that guy dealing drugs out of that black mini-van over at the AM/PM. How can you think that it's a good idea to put a homeless shelter right next to that? That can't be good for your residents.
A: First of all, this isn't a shelter; it's an apartment building for the formerly homeless. And we have a similar building on 3rd and Yesler, and that's a lot rougher neighborhood than this. We know how to cope in these environments. And we're committed to helping stop that kind of stuff. Our staff can take down license plates, and we cooperate with the police and neighborhood watch. Our buildings are well-lit and we have closed-circuit TV cameras to aid in an investigation in case there is any sort of crime on our premises. But the bottom line is that we help make our neighborhoods safer places.

Q: What was your site selection process? Why did you pick this particular site rather than, say, one of the troubled hotels on Aurora?
A: This property was available and none of the hotels were. This particular site met several of our needs. It's on major bus lines. I has a 40-foot height limit so we can put in enough units to have an "economy of scale." What I mean by "economy of scale" is that we''ll be hiring about a half-dozen staff to provide services, and that's expensive. It only makes sense to do that if you have a building that can have enough units to make it worth our while. We liked the size of this parcel, and we had been looking to open a center in North Seattle for some time.

Q: This lot is zoned commercial. Will you have commercial space as part of this project?
A: Yes. The first floor of the project will have to be commercial space. The top three floors will be housing. We're not in this to make money as commercial landlords, so we want to listen to the community as to who our commercial tenants should be. In our building on Rainier Avenue, the Rainier Beach Merchants Association and a neighborhood association are our tenants. We'd love to have a neighborhood group move into this property. We charge substantially below market rate for commercial leases. We'd prefer not to have a tenant that is going to have a huge parking requirement because we'd like to have as many housing units here as possible. But, again, we're open to listening to what the community wants.

Q: This is a pretty small lot. How are you going to fit 80-90 units of housing in here?
A: Actually, it's a pretty big parcel. The building will be four stories, and our units are small. We're probably only going to have about 15 or so parking spots because none of our residents have cars. Most of their visitors don't either. Mostly, we'll need parking for our staff and our commercial tenants. So, the exact amount of parking will depend on who those tenants are.

Q: Do you require your residents to take their psychiatric medicines?
A: No. You can't require someone to take psychiatric meds without a court order in Washington State. And our experience is that forcing our residents to do something that they don't want to is counterproductive. We ask that they engage with our staff and seek treatment, including medication. 98% of them do that. That % would be lower if we made them take their meds.

Q: You mentioned the eviction process a couple of times. How does that work? What happens to the people who are evicted?
A: We don't like to evict residents, but sometimes we have to. Our two rock-bottom requirements are that our residents have to pay their rent and that they have to avoid violence. For something like assault, we almost always evict the resident who committed the assault. For something like panhandling or drinking in the neighborhood, there are a series of escalating consequences for those who break those rules. We do have to evict some chronic violators. Those folks who are evicted don't stay in the neighborhood. We take them back to one of our emergency shelters downtown, and they typically stay downtown because that's where the social services are. Overall, our eviction rate is low, especially after the first year a building is in operation. After a building has been around a year, residents tend to develop a sense of community. And then there's a sort of peer pressure on other residents. People who break the rules are seen as messing things up for the rest of the building. Most of our residents like where they live, and think of the neighborhood as their neighborhood too. In our established buildings, 75% of residents have been there 24 months or longer. In market-rate apartments, that figure is 18 months.

Q: There are already some halfway houses up the hill in the neighborhood. Aren't you crowding too many social services into too small of an area?
A: Not really. The City of Seattle has certain requirements about how many social services you can have in a given area--and how much low-income housing. These are called dispersion and concentration criteria. Before offering to buy this site, we checked this out and found that this site complies with those regulations.

Q: You mentioned that your residents pay rent. How do they do that? Do they work?
A: No, most of them do not work. They typically receive about $650/month in SSI Disability payments, and we require them to pay 30% of that to us as rent. As far as work goes, we like them to work, but it's important to be realistic about that. We estimate that about 30% of our residents can return to work--real, competitive work rather than make-work types of jobs. But it takes time. Many of these folks have lived on the street for several years, and you can't get that out of your system overnight. And some of them are too mentally ill to work even with treatment. So, you shouldn't come back to this property in two years and expect to find 30% of the residents working. But you would find that in some of our buildings that have been around for many years.

Q: Could you give priority for our local homeless population? That is, would homeless folks who are sleeping up here in North Seattle have priority?
A. Not quite. We'd be happy to interview and consider any homeless people that you'd like us to talk to. We've done that before and some of the people to whom we were referred were eligible for housing. But in the end, that vulnerability index that I talked about earlier is going to be our main criteria for deciding who has the biggest need for our services.

Q: What are the next steps for this project? Have you lined up funding for construction?
A: The Cyndy's property is currently under contract. We have the money to buy the property, and we expect to close within 45-60 days. In the meanwhile, Cyndy's House of Pancakes has signed a two-year lease and will stay here as the project moves forward. We have not yet lined up funding for the actual building, but we expect that we will be able to secure funding from a combination of city, county, and federal sources. If we didn't think we could secure funding, we wouldn't be buying the property. But we don't have it yet. After we purchase the property, we'll form the Design Guidance Committee that I mentioned earlier. And we'll begin the design and permitting process. The flyer that you received said that we could start construction in August 2011. That could happen, but it's a little optimistic. Lining up funding and going through permitting always take longer than you think. It might be more realistic to expect construction to begin at the end of 2011.

Hobson said that anyone in the neighborhood can contact him at bhobson@desc.org if they have additional questions about the project. He promised to try to return e-mail within 3 business days.

A message from Über Tavern:

First things first: Happy Birthday...to us. Über Tavern turns 4 years old this Saturday, June 26th.

Why not join us for a little something special?

Flyers Cab Ride on tap. We will be offering 4oz pours for $2.50!

- Starts at noon when we open, as long as it lasts. There are only 3 pony kegs in existence -- this is one of them. You can find out more about the beer HERE If you don't know about Cab Ride, it is a very special barley wine made exclusively for Über. Wood-aged x2, booze-aged x2:

- American & French Oak

- Booker's Cask Strength Bourbon & Laphroiag 10 Year Single Malt Scotch

- Base beer is 10.5%, based loosely on J.W. Lee's Vintage Harvest Ale

- Final strength after bourbon/scotch aging unknown

IN OTHER NEWS: We will be closed Sunday July 4th. We'll all be at the SEATTLE INTERNATIONAL BEERFEST that day. You should come join us!

See you under the bar,

Your friends at Über Tavern

Aurora|Seattle received confirmation today from Rod Swift of JSH Properties, Inc. that a lease agreement has been reached with the new tenant of the former Stupid Prices building at 7906 Aurora Avenue.  

Aaron's rental, a rent-to-own store with over 1700 locations in the U.S. and Canada, hopes to open its doors by August 1.  Aaron's has a number of stores in the greater Seattle area, with its nearest locations in Burien and Everett.

The Aaron's promise is "your total satisfaction by always providing the highest level of service, a large selection of name brand products and the guaranteed low price."

And, yes, they do intend to paint over the infamous yellow exterior of the building!

Also, file this in the "neighborhood rumors" category - there are whispers that someone may be preparing the former 1/2 Price Pots lot for a condo development.

It is indeed literally true that Aurora has got Green Lake's back - or is Green Lake's back - since good old highway 99 runs along the west side of the lake...

But it's also true that Green Lake has got Aurora's back - or at least its great neighborhood blog, My Green Lake, does!  Our friends over their have covered two Aurora-related happenings in the last two days:

Taco Express Truck Comes to [Aurora]

Vehicle Crashes Into Light Pole on Aurora

An announcement from "Celebrate North Seattle" event organizers:

Local Community Businesses and Groups Come Together To Sponsor Block Party to Get to Know Their Neighbors

Seattle, WA, June 10 2010 - Today AMC Oak Tree Cinemas, Northwest Face, and Epic Life Church announced an inaugural community block party to celebrate the businesses, community groups and people represented by North Seattle. This event will be hosted in the Oak Tree Cinema Parking lot June 13th from 2-6PM.  Admission is free. Celebrate North Seattle will feature local musician, Sid Law as well as entertainment for the whole family including inflatables, children’s games and food. Door prizes and gift bags will be provided by a variety of local businesses and community groups on a first come first serve basis. 

“We’re excited about the opportunity to get to know our neighbors in this unique community,” says Epic Life Church Pastor, Keith Carpenter. “There is so much good in North Seattle and along Aurora - we want to see that being celebrated. Getting to know one another is the first step.”  

About Celebrate North Seattle

Celebrate North Seattle is a community event dedicated to acknowledging and celebrating the interaction of people and businesses in North Seattle. It is a free event open to the general public June 13th from 2-6 PM in the Oak Tree Cinema parking lot.  Participants are invited to come enjoy live music, games and learn about ways to be involved in their community.

From the SeattlePI:

State Department of Transportation crews estimate that more than 100,000 vehicles cross the Aurora Bridge daily.

But how many of those drivers know the history of the 88-year-old landmark?

Seattlepi.com staff pulled dozens of archived photos and a few articles about the bridge and are posting them here – a way to share some of the historical images we have in our archive.

The bridge – officially called the George Washington Memorial Bridge – was dedicated Feb. 22, 1932, which was the 200th anniversary of Washington's birthday. Then-president Herbert Hoover pressed a telegraph key that severed a silk barrier across the span and released flags furled over each end. The ceremony was broadcast across the western United States by NBC radio.

A photo that ran the following day in the P-I shows the bridge packed with thousands of spectators for the Monday morning ceremony.

Click here to see a gallery of 39 bridge photos. Follow this link to download a PDF of ceremony coverage, which includes the photo of the crowded bridge.

The day of the bridge dedication, the president of West Coast Construction, the general contractors for the bridge approaches said the structure would be more important for the international highway than the suspension bridge completed months before across the Hudson River in New York. That bridge also was named in honor of Washington.

Before Interstate 5, that stretch of Aurora Avenue North was part of Pacific Highway 1, which in Washington went from Canada to the Oregon border. The Twin Teepees was among the restaurants on the route, built as roadside attractions.

West Coast Construction Company also worked on the Spokane Street Bridge, Cleveland High School, six other Seattle schools, several commercial buildings and apartments.

The bridge was completed for $5,060,000, West Coast Construction president E.R. Erickson told a P-I reporter in 1932.

The suicide prevention fence, which is expected to be completed early next year, is estimated to cost $4.6 million.

The Aurora Bridge was designated by the Seattle engineering firm Jacobs and Ober, whose principal engineers were Major Joseph Jacobs and Captain Ralph Ober, according to Historylink.org.

Ober died in August 1931, about six months before the bridge was dedicated.

When the bridge was dedicated in 1932, officials estimated 10,000 vehicles would drive across it daily. In 2008, neighbors at a fence meeting were told more than 100,000 vehicles cross the bridge daily.

The bridge is 2,945 feet long, 70 feet wide and 167 feet above Lake Union – about about the height of a 15-story building, according to the State Department of Transportation. None of the traffic lanes are more than 11 feet across.

For the complete article, click here.

The Seattle Solidarity Network, an organization with the goal of, "support[ing] our fellow workers' strikes and struggles, build[ing] solidarity, and organiz[ing] to deal with specific job, housing, and other problems caused by the greed of the rich and powerful," has recently expressed support for a former tenant of a property at 8806 Nesbit Avenue.

A flyer posted outside the apartments claims that the owner of the property, Nelson Properties, offers substandard housing, charges extra "hidden" fees, steals security deposits, harasses tenants, and refuses to clean up endemic black mold.

This is not the first time that the Seattle Solidarity Network has joined Nesbit residents.  In the spring of 2008, they stood with tenants of the Green Lake motel (now the Oak Tree Motel) apartments who were evicted after the state health department shut down the motel for numerous violations.

Interestingly, the Solidarity Network may have gained a significant ally this past week.  According to the Seattle Times,

The Seattle City Council voted Tuesday to establish a city inspection program for rental-housing units, but it left many of the program details for a citizens group to figure out over the next two years.

Tuesday's vote sent a clear message that the council wants the city to be more aggressive about making sure the city's 100,000-plus rental units are safe and landlords adhere to city building codes.

The city will charge landlords a license fee, but it hasn't determined how much. The city could inspect every unit in the city, or just a sampling, or just in certain neighborhoods. The new program likely won't be in place until 2012.

Seattle's Downtown Emergency Service Center (DESC) has begun notifying north Seattle residents and businesses that they will be developing affordable housing where Cyndy's House of Pancakes, which almost became a strip club last fall, is currently located.  DESC will be hosting an informational meeting for neighbors on Wednesday, June 9.

According to the notification letter and flyer:

DESC is working on a future affordable housing development in the North Aurora Ave neighborhood, located at 10507 Aurora Ave North, at N 105th Street.  Our plans are not to make changes to the existing use before the summer of 2011, when a new building would be constructed.  When complete, DESC will own and operate 80-90 studio units of affordable housing with supportive services and indoor/outdoor community spaces for men and women who are homeless and disabled...

DESC invites you to an Informational Forum about new affordable housing project under development with supportive services for homeless disabled men and women to be built at 10507 Aurora Avenue North.

Wednesday, June 9.  6:00 - 7:30 PM

10507 Aurora Ave. North (Cyndy's House of Pancakes)

refreshments will be provided

Staff from DESC will share details and answer questions about this new project.

Contact DESC's Administrative Services Director, Nicole Macri, at nmacri@desc.org or 20-515-1514, and/or Jessica Cohen, Housing Developer, at jcohen@desc.org or 206-515-1522.

Paladar Cubano, Aurora's Cuban food truck at 90th, has received countless raving reviews.  Now Crosscut.com has provided a thorough and favorable review of Aurora's Tropicos Breeze Restaurant, which features a host of El Salvadoran specialties.

For more reviews or to add your own, check out Aurora|Seattle's Reviews page!

Another tasty beer reminder from Uber (7517 Aurora Ave):

Join Mark Marzano, Brewery Liaison for Deschutes Brewery, Bend OR, as we tap all these bad boys today.

Bar opens at 4pm.

We will also have $3 pints of Hop Henge!

• 2008 Black Butte XX
• 2008 The Abyss
• 2009 The Abyss
• Hop Henge
• 2009 Mirror Mirror
• 2010 Super Jubel
• complimentary gourmet cured meats, artisanal cheeses, & pub snacks

NEXT UP: Tomorrow! 5/20 Lagunitas Specialty Keg Night

See you in rehab (but let's pretend we don't know each other),

Your friends at Über Tavern

The Seattle Department of Transportation (SDOT) has just passed a construction alert on to Aurora|Seattle about the upcoming "Pedestrian Safety Project" being implemented at Aurora Avenue North and 115th Street.

Construction on the project, which is sponsored by the Aurora Traffic Safety Project and funded by the voter-approved "Bridging the Gap" transportation levy, is expected to begin June 7 and last 3 to 4 weeks.

According to SDOT's Jim Curtin,

This project will improve pedestrian safety and facilitate access to transit along Aurora Avenue North at North 115^th Street.  The project  will install 330 feet of new sidewalk on the east side of Aurora Avenue North (adjacent to Evergreen-Washelli), three new curb ramps and a new crosswalk on the south leg of the intersection.  The sidewalk component will fill in a gap in the existing sidewalk network.  The new curb ramps and crosswalk will dramatically improve the pedestrian connection across Aurora Avenue North at N 115^th Street leading to the bus stop on the west side of the street. 

SDOT's "Construction Alert" states,

This project will involve construction of pedestrian improvements at the intersection of Aurora Avenue North & North 115th Street to improve access to transit.

Work Includes:

• Additional pedestrian crosswalk at existing signal
• 3 new wheelchair ramps
• New concrete sidewalk on the east side of Aurora Ave N next to the cemetery

What to Expect During Construction

• Traffic Detours
• Access to transit will be maintained
• Pedestrian detours
• Parking Restrictions
• Moderate construction noise and dust
• Normal work hours will be 7 a.m. - 3 p.m., M-F

For more information, contact:

A Message from Uber Tavern:

REMINDER: Thursday 5/13 - 6pm New Old Lompoc Rare Kegs Night Join brewery owner Jerry Fechter & brewer Dave Fleming for a semi-hostile takeover of Über Tavern tomorrow. Specials all start at 4pm when we open. The boys will arrive from Portland at about 6pm. They will have the Bourbon LSD & Flamingo kegs with them, so those two beers will get tapped right then. Everything else will already be flowing.

New Old Lompoc Brewery, Portland OR

- C-Note - $3 PINTS

- Centennial IPA- $3 PINTS

- LSD - $3 PINTS

- Bourbon Barrel LSD

- Bourbon Barrel Doppelbock

- Flamingo (Condor Pale in Cab-Franc Wine Barrel w/ Hood River Sour Cherries)

- complimentary gourmet cured meats, artisanal cheeses, & pub snacks

NEXT UP: Fri-Sun: OREGON BEERS RULE!

Mon: SOUR POUR WITH CASCADE BREWERY

Wed: VINTAGE CELLAR KEG NIGHT W/ DESCHUTES

Thur: SPECIALTY BEERS & MUSIC OF LAGUNITAS

See you under the bar,

Your friends at Über Tavern

Man & Woman Found Dead at Aurora Motel

More Details Emerge About Motel Murder-Suicide

The Washington State Department of Transportation (WSDOT) is in the process of installing a Dynamic Messaging Sign southbound on Aurora at 96th Street as part of the SR99 Intelligent Transportation Systems Project.  While work crews were breaking ground earlier this week, the final installation will likely take place by the end of May.

What's a "Dynamic Messaging Sign"?  Thanks to Seattle Department of Transportation's Jim Curtin, we've got answers:

ITS, or Intelligent transportation systems, employ electronic and communication technologies to enhance mobility for all modes of travel.  ITS is the generic term for a number of different technologies that aim to increase the efficiency and safety of transportation infrastructure and provide a variety of real-time roadway related information to users to improve travel times and reduce fuel consumption.  The particular technology being installed at 96^th and Aurora is a DMS, or Dynamic Messaging Sign.  These signs are used to give travelers information that can be used in making real time travel decisions on the roadway.  This information may include alerts about traffic congestion, incidents, roadwork zones, projected travel times, guidance or special events. These signs may also recommend alternative routes, limit travel speed, warn of duration and location of problem, or simply provide alerts or warnings such as Amber Alert Messages.   The installation should only last a few days so there should not be major construction impacts.  Currently, SDOT has four signs that are operational with plans to install 14 more DMS (WSDOT and SDOT combined) in 2010.   

It's been about a year since Aurora's "Stupid Prices" changed its name to "Smart Buys."  The change didn't seem to accomplish the hoped for turnaround; instead, the business ended up closing the doors to the yellow building soon after.  But now, one year later, it appears that there is a new tenant for the large space at 7906 Aurora Avenue, just west of Bagley Elementary.

Work crews are currently cleaning and preparing the space for the transition.  Meanwhile, the leasing agent, who was unable to reveal the identity of the new tenant, told Aurora|Seattle that a lease agreement will hopefully be signed within the next week.  Stay tuned for more details.

Check out news about other new Aurora tenants here.

You're invited to join fellow Aurora|Seattle readers and neighborhood folks at St. Andrews Bar & Grill at 7406 Aurora Avenue this Thursday, May 6 at 7:30p.m. - no formal agenda, just a great chance to connect with neighbors (or just me if I'm the only one there!) and talk about all things Aurora.

After enjoying beverages and/or food at St. Andrew's, we'll head over to Duck Island Ale House (7317 Aurora Ave.) at around 9p.m. or so.

Hope to see you there!

Our partner site, the Seattle Times, has more details about yesterday's murder-suicide at the Way West Motel:

The woman was 34, and her husband was approximately 10 years older, said Pierce. The woman has family in the area while the man was from somewhere in the Midwest, though he told Pierce he'd lived all over the country.

"He told me he didn't like it here because of the rain," Pierce said.

The couple wasn't behind on their $750-a-month rent and had lived there for three months, said Pierce, who lives two doors down from the couple at the motel. The woman would sometimes come by to borrow kitchen utensils from Pierce, or bring him ribs or other food she'd made, he said.

"They didn't cause any problems," Pierce said of the couple.

Seattle Police, including homicide detectives, are on the scene at the Way West Motel on the 8600 block of Aurora Avenue North.  The motel manager broke down the door and found the two bodies shortly after noon today.

Neighbors in the adjacent motel room called the manager after beginning to notice a stench as well as noticing the deceased residents' cars had not moved in over a week.  When the manager opened the door, the neighbors reported seeing two bodies slumped over and suspected homicide based on the blood that was "splattered all over the wall".

The police have not yet commented on whether or not it is a homicide.

UPDATE: SPD is now saying this is a murder-suicide.  They recovered a handgun in the room.