A man died in a leap onto I-5 near the Denny Way overpass Saturday night and was struck by a vehicle that did not stop.

According to the Washington State Patrol, troopers and medics responded to the scene just after 11:30p Saturday night following a report of a body in a northbound lane of I-5. 

The man was pronounced dead at the scene.

The area near the overpasses between Capitol Hill and downtown over I-5 has seen regular occurrences of people jumping, falling or attempting to cross the busy freeway to access fenced-off areas often used by homeless people to camp. A representative for WSP says the preliminary investigation did not show that the man was trying to cross the roadway or accidentally fell in Saturday night's incident.

Troopers say that the man was struck by a vehicle after the fall. The vehicle's driver did not stop and continued to drive away. WSP is trying to locate the vehicle but has no information about the make or model.

Traffic backed up as lanes of the freeway were closed during the response and investigation.

CHS respects the sensitivity of covering suicide and attempts to cover incidents like these by sharing the facts in a responsible manner that provides information about what is happening on the streets and in the community around you. Here are two resources to help those in need: National suicide-prevention hotline: 800-SUICIDE. Local Crisis Clinic: (206) 461-3222.

A woman died just after midnight Friday morning in what authorities say was a leap from the upper stories of the apartment building at 200 Broadway E.

Medics arrived at the scene around 12:06 AM Friday morning on the backside of the apartment building at the corner of Broadway and John. Police and the medical examiner were at the building late into the night.

We do not have information on the woman's age.

CHS attempts to cover suicide by sharing the facts in a responsible manner that provides information about what is happening on the streets and in the community around you. Here are two resources to help those in need: National suicide-prevention hotline: 800-SUICIDE. Local Crisis Clinic: (206) 461-3222

Phillips, Rabut and Garfield (Image: CHS)

A fashion and vintage venture has moved into the former home of Atlas Clothing and is ready to debut on Capitol Hill with a Friday night party. Kaleidoscope Vision is "an eclectic melange of rare vintage clothing, antiques, informational books, work from emerging artists & designers, and all around intriguing items, lovingly curated for you."

Three partners with San Francisco roots are behind the effort -- Ballardite Ria Rabut and, now, Hill locals Mackenzie Garfield, Sophia Phillips. All three were on hand Friday morning tidying up the newly overhauled shop space left empty when Atlas Clothing shuttered in August. Friday night, the new shop will debut with a grand opening party featuring free food and drinks and showing off Kaleidoscope's debut theme, New Family.

(Image: Kaleidoscope Vision)

Kaleidoscope Vision's, um, vision is to provide vintage shopping but with a rotating thematic approach that should keep the shop's look and feel changing over time.

Each monthly showcase centers around an ever-changing and evolving mood, with inspiration taken from a multitude of sources including, but not limited to, anthropological studies of native peoples, alternate realities, teenagers, the natural world and the infinitely mysterious beauty of the cosmos.

The new shop joins recently opened In Commune on 12th Ave as new players in the Hill's popular formal and informal vintage scene. In addition to long-time vintage and consignment shops like Area 51, Pretty Parlor and Le Frock, a weekly indoor flea market at the Century Ballroom and even more eclectic efforts like the occasional Hangover Flea Market at the Comet keep the scene lively.

Garfield says the Kaleidoscope Vision experience should stretch to include demonstrations -- in February, watch for a terrarium session as part of New Family -- to items like custom perfumes created for each theme. What does New Family smell like? You'll have to stop by to find out. We're told to expect things to get a little darker with the next theme, by the way. No, we don't know what that smells like, either.

You can learn more -- and shop online -- at kvbazaar.com

(Image: CHS)

In the wake of the Komen Foundation's decision to reverse course after announcing it would no longer provide funds to the women's health service provider, Murray came to Seattle to speak on the ongoing fight to fund women's health in the country.

"We stood up and we spoke out," Murray said of the rapid spread of protest following Komen's announcement. Murray said she was surprised by how quickly the word spread and people sent email and letters of protest to elected representatives.

Local Planned Parenthood officials say about $50,000 was donated across the state in the wake of the Komen controversy.

Original Report: Senator Patty Murray will be on E Madison Friday to help rally support for Planned Parenthood following a decision by the Susan G. Komen Foundation to end its support of the women's health service provider.

The senator will speak at the E Madison health center, one of four Planned Parenthood facilities in the city. 

A fifth is planned for First Hill as part of a decision by Swedish Medical Centers to no longer provide elective abortion services.

The Murray appearance is slated for 11:45a at the 2001 E Madison Planned Parenthood of the Great Northwest headquarters.

Marchers at last February's Walk for Choice (Image: CHS) (more)

(Image: CHS)

It seems Capitol Hill auto row history will finish with a whimper, not a bang. The owner of the Bellevue Jaguar and Land Rover dealership has purchased E Pike's Phil Smart Mercedes Benz and plans to move the business to a new facility on Airport Way, according to a statement released this morning.

The Phil Smart dealership opened on E Pike in 1959 and has continued as a family-run business:

Phil Smart Sr. has turned over the management of this "family business" to his son, Phil Smart, Jr., who continues in the great tradition of his father. Under his guidance, Phil Smart, Inc. has flourished and is one of the largest volume dealers in the region. Senior, as he is affectionately known, works tirelessly in the local community, committing time and resources to making our city a better place for us all.

Old timey E Pike (Image: Phil Smart)

The move mirrors the 2009 exodus of BMW to a larger Airport Way facility in 2009.

The Smart family's connection to the area won't end with the dealership's move by new owner Al Monjazeb. The family continues to hold the land most of the block the dealership is built on between Pike and Pine for now, at least. What it plans for the soon-to-be empty dealership space is not known. CHS calls to the facility last week were not returned.

The facility left behind by BMW up E Pike looks to remain used if underutilized for the foreseeable future. We reported in January on a potential $10 million foreclosure on the property that has been planned for redevelopment for years. In the meantime, portions of the building have been leased to short-term tenants.

The Mercedes exit will leave 12th Ave's Ferrari of Seattle dealership as the last of its kind on the Hill. UPDATE: We have forgotten about Seattle Volvo at 1120 Pike in the past -- and we did again this morning. The dealership, perhaps, presents you with a more affordable alternative to (car) shop locally.

Like the Smart situation, the Ferrari and Maserati dealer's ownership also owns the prime piece of real estate where the $300,000 cars are on display. We speculated on Ferrari's potential exit from the Hill in 2009 when the BMW dealership began pulling up stakes. "It’s business as usual," Tino Perrina told us in 2009. "We’re doing well and have no plans to move." Of course, in the same article. a rep for Phill Smart also said the dealership had no plans for leaving Capitol Hill.

(Image: CHS)

The just-released revisions to Metro's proposed Fall 2012 service changes don't include any significant Capitol Hill area-related updates from the the proposals for routes on and around Capitol Hill CHS documented in November. You can look at that in two ways. On one hand, Metro planners decided not to incorporate any feedback you provided via their online survey or at a series of public meetings on the changes. On the other, at least the agency isn't proposing to tweak your commute any further.

Meanwhile, a community group is rallying around pushing back the changes proposed for Route 2. Details below.

A quick spin through Metro's "Have a Say" site shows this message in red for nearly all the area routes CHS took a look at:

The exception is Route 2. But the agency isn't, yet, backing off its plans to slice the route connecting Queen Anne and First Hill via downtown. Instead, the revision from the November proposal is a tweak designed to replace service on the QA end of things.

Our updates from November plus insights from Seattle Transit Blog's Bruce Nourish, then, still stand. We've included most of that information again, below. Not everything in central Seattle was static, however. Central District News reports that Metro has backpedaled on its proposal to trim route 27.

Nourish, meanwhile, sums up the rest of the revised proposal package here.

He provided this overview of the proposed fall 2012 changes to us in November. We also recommend reading the comment thread on that post for some good discussion of the changes and the process. Thanks much to Aleks Bromfield for his contribution to that discussion.

Bruce Nourish notes on Metro Fall 2012 service proposals:

* Route 11 gets a major boost in weekday midday frequency from 30 to 15 minutes, while nights and weekends remain at 30.

* Route 14N (the part of the 14 north of where it turns on Pike) is split off from the 14S and will cease service around 7 PM on all days; frequency will drop to 45 minutes on the weekends and weekday midday, staying at its current rush hour frequency.

* Routes 10, 11 and 14N will now terminate on 2nd Ave & Pine/Pike downtown, exactly like the 43 does now. This means you'll have to walk/transfer to get to the south parts of downtown and other places that those routes previously went to (Colman Dock, West Seattle, Jackson St/Mount Baker), but will make these buses much more reliable.

* Route 12 will now loop around at Colman Dock, requiring a walk/transfer to get to the north end of downtown. Its frequency will not change, but see the next point.

* Route 2's northern segment, from the point where it now turns from Seneca to 3rd Ave will be deleted; instead, it will be routed down Madison/Marion just like the 12 (It's probably worth showing the map below, to help readers understand this). The 2 will maintain its current frequency, but will be staggered to provide very frequent service from Colman Dock to the three-way intersection of 12th Ave, Union and Madison: 7.5 minutes during the day Mon-Sat and 15 minutes on evenings/Sundays. This is a very high level of service, some of the best in the city.

* Routes 9X, 43, 48, 49, and 60 remain unchanged on Capitol Hill, but see the next two points.

* Route 48X is replaced with more trips on the 48N, but the 48X operates only from Crown Hill to the U-District, so that shouldn't affect riders on the south part of the route.

* Route 60 is unchanged in Capitol Hill. Way to the south, it will stop serving the VA Hospital on Beacon Hill and be extended slightly in White Center, moving its terminus to Westwood Village.

At this point, the most significant community effort in the area now seems to be focused on preserving Route 2 service. Here's a flyer being distributed by a group hoping to push Metro to re-think the change.

R2 - Flyer 1-24

You have more opportunities to provide feedback either online or at one of the upcoming community meetings including the closest to our area on February 27. A rep from Metro also left a comment on our previous post inviting calls or email on the changes:

(206) 263-9768 (voice mail, but we listen to it every day and take down all messages as part of the public record) haveasay@kingcounty.gov

They’re not all Crooks!

I seem to be hearing more and more people say, “Ah, they’re all crooks!” whenever any positive comments are made about a particular politician.

Most recently I heard it while a group of volunteers were serving a lunch and complimenting the president on his State of the Union address. There were comments made by others about how it was all “just political” and that he didn’t mean anything by his comments beyond trying to lure in the unsuspecting. One of the people in the group asked a detractor whom they were going to support. The comment about all of them being crooks was readily accepted by a number of people inclined to vote for anyone but the current president.

It appears that those making such statements are unable, or unwilling; to sift through their minds the choices available that might be running au contraire to their preconceived ideas.

Enough with the equivalency remarks!

Everyone is not a crook and everyone doesn’t cheat on his wife or stash money in overseas banks. Not everyone... (more)

Swedish Medical Centers will have no changes in end-of-life policies and will transition elective abortions to a new Planned Parenthood clinic on First Hill as the plan to share resources in a multi-billion dollar combination of two massive health care providers won't be challenged by the FTC, according to Swedish and Providence Health and Services representatives.

In a statement released Wednesday, Swedish and Providence outlined the efficiencies expected from the combination of shared facilities and resources. In October, the Seattle Times reported that Swedish was working toward no longer offering elective abortions as the affiliation was being shaped and would instead back a new Planned Parenthood clinic on First Hill.

Despite the changes on the abortion front, Swedish officials have said there will be no changes in end-of-life policy at its facilities. Frequent CHS contributor Andrew Taylor spoke to Q13 in October about concerns regarding the end-of-life policy in light of the affiliation.

This fall, both organizations announced small layoffs, citing financial reasons.

Here is the statement on the finalized Swedish-Provident agreement:

Officials from locally based Providence Health & Services and Swedish Health Services announced today that the affiliation between both health systems is official. This unique affiliation will allow both organizations to work together to improve health care quality, access and affordability for residents of Western Washington.

Swedish joins with Providence’s Northwest and Southwest Washington operations to create a new organization serving the greater Puget Sound area. This new region includes all of Swedish’s operations in King and South Snohomish counties and Providence’s operations in King, Snohomish, Thurston and Lewis counties.

Through this affiliation both organizations will collaborate to better deliver health care to the region, while at the same time maintaining their individual identities and heritage. Providence will retain its Catholic identity and name, and Swedish will retain its name and will remain non-religious. While the organizations’ names and brands won’t be changing and patients won’t see any difference in how they access care, by working together, Providence and Swedish can reduce costs and increase quality and access for patients in Western Washington.

“This is an exciting day for both organizations,” said John Koster, MD, Providence Health & Services president and CEO. “Together, we will reach new levels of excellence and will be able to improve quality and access for Western Washington in a way we couldn’t as separate organizations.”

Finding a safe place to cross busy streets and dodging speeding cars are two of the biggest impediments to increased walking and biking, and groups from all over Seattle think they have the solution.

From North Delridge to Beacon Hill to Wallingford, citizen groups pushing neighborhood greenways — basically corridors of low-traffic residential streets with added traffic calming, greenery and safe crossings at busy streets — have been making the case to SDOT that fast, family-friendly walking and biking routes would be a cost-effective way to make their neighborhoods safer, healthier and more connected to their neighborhood destinations (schools, parks, commercial centers, etc).

Now (with the help of yours truly), a group is forming to promote neighborhood greenways in the CD and Capitol Hill. The first community meeting is 6:30 p.m. February 9 at Central Cinema. Presenters will explain how neighborhood greenways work, and the group will discuss ways to promote them to the city and to others in the neighborhood.

From Central Seattle Greenways:

Neighborhoods throughout Seattle are realizing their dreams for family-friendly walking and biking routes using Neighborhood Greenways – safe, low-cost and low-stress walking and biking corridors connecting people with the places they want to go. By adding traffic calming, safe crossings at busy streets, and extra trees and greenery, a network of low-traffic streets can be transformed into useful, park-like routes around the neighborhood.

In 2012, the Seattle Department of Transportation will fund or build Greenways in Wallingford, Beacon Hill, Ballard, North Delridge and Greenwood, with plans to continue funding community-driven Greenways through 2013. Let’s make sure Central Seattle – Central District, First Hill, Capitol Hill, Madrona, and Leschi – doesn’t get left behind!

Neighborhoods that have been successful at bringing Greenways to their streets relied on engaged citizens to build community consensus around routes and advocate for them during planning and funding processes. Following this recipe for success, we invite you to participate in Central Seattle Greenways, a community group dedicated to bringing Neighborhood Greenways to Central Seattle.

Join us for our kickoff community meeting at Central Cinema (21st & Union) on Thursday, February 9th, 6:30-8:30 pm, as we start building momentum for safe, direct, and low-stress walking and biking routes that serve Central Seattle’s residents, families, businesses and neighborhood organizations.

For more on the meeting, check out the Facebook event. To keep up-to-date with the group, you can follow Central Seattle Greenways on Facebook.

For more on what neighborhood greenways are (and how they work), here's a good video from StreetFilms:

Portland's Bike Boulevards Become Neighborhood Greenways from Streetfilms on Vimeo.

Congratulations. Still some work to do.

  (more)

Brenda, you've looked better (Image: Sound Transit)

After only seven months of digging, Sound Transit contractors already have bored more than 60% of the twin tunnels running between Husky Stadium and downtown via Capitol Hill. An update on the project from Sound Transit and a few notes from CHS are below.

The monthly newsletter update -- you can sign up here -- also makes some positive notes about the Montlake Murmur issue with our neighbors down the Hill. Notes from last month's community meeting posted in the most recent edition of the Montlake Flyer (PDF) are less sanguine and the group notes it has asked Sound Transit to return for its March meeting to offer further updates on the noise and vibration problems some residents are facing.

CHS has reported that similar vibration issues felt around Volunteer Park have mostly faded away. We still receive an occasional burst of one and sometimes two or three reports from an area as tunnel boring machines pass nearby but nothing on the scale of the Montlake complaints.

Boring began last May with a dignitary and champagne-fueled ceremony at Husky Stadium. The Broadway to downtown component got underway in June. With the tunnel boring progress, we've asked Sound Transit if their contractors are ahead of schedule but haven't yet heard back. UPDATE: A Sound Transit rep says they're happy with the progress but even after the tunnel routes have been bored there will still be more work digging out the cross passages required to connect the twin tunnels.

Meanwhile, Sound Transit says that TBM Brenda is back on the move again climbing her way on a second journey from Broadway to the Paramount. Here she is in early December after having broken through on her first journey downtown. From the picture above provided by Sound Transit as she began her second trip, you can see the underground work has been tough on her skin.

(Image: STArt)

Sound Transit also announced the addition of a new work on the big red construction wall. "Otters Holding Hands"  by artist Vida Rose now appears at Broadway and Denny. The paintings were inspired by a popular YouTube video.

Here's the latest update sent out by Sound Transit:

The tunnel boring machines are continuing their underground journeys. All three have made tremendous progress. Brenda has started her second trip towards downtown Seattle (see below). Togo and Balto are both due at the Capitol Hill station this spring.  

Brenda is Off on Her Second Run  Brenda is digging her second tunnel from Capitol Hill to downtown Seattle. She made her first run in a little less than six months, digging 3,795 feet. Her estimated arrival in downtown Seattle is in early summer. Once Brenda has reached her final destination below Pine Street she will be disassembled, and parts of her will remain underground. Too bad she can't be part of the official Seattle Underground Tour.

View Brenda's trailing gear and lots of great construction activity at the Capitol Hill construction site.

Construction Vibration As Togo and Balto dig their way south to Capitol Hill, their passing has not gone unnoticed. In recent months, some residents above the path of the tunnel have reported hearing a low rumbling from the machines as they dig. However, the disturbance only lasts a day or two. Digging at 50+ feet per day, the TBMs quickly move on.

A number of people have also reported experiencing noise and vibration from the construction supply trains used to carry heavy tunnel segments up to the TBMs, mainly in the Boyer and Shelby-Hamlin neighborhoods. Sound Transit has reduced the impact from the supply trains by grinding the joints between sections of temporary rail, and installing thick rubber pads underneath the temporary rail support. The mitigation appears to work well, as many residents report the noise and vibration is now unnoticeable or substantially less of a nuisance.

It is possible that construction vibration may be noticeable above the alignment on Capitol Hill as the TBMs work their way towards the station at Broadway and John. If you have concerns about the tunnel construction or questions about noise, please contact Sound Transit's 24-hour construction hotline at 1-888-298-2395.

Tribe Seattle -- the men's club formerly known as Basic Plumbing -- has shut down on 10th Ave after 17 years on Capitol Hill:

From tribeseattle.com

Thanks to Jeff Hennes from Doghouse Leathers and the Cuff for alerting us to the closure. Hennes also helped us fill out some of the history of the bathhouse as he remembers it:

BP had opened about 1995 in the Villa Apts Building on Pike before it was remodeled.  This leaves Club Z and Steamworks as the only two private men's clubs. 

We've left messages with management and Vernon Anderson, president of the corporation that ran the club, to see what else we can learn about the decision to shut down. A check of city records shows no new projects underway or violations at the address.

Over the years, the 10th Ave location for the unmarked sex club had become more and more a juxtaposition between an older, grittier Pike/Pine and the new era including neighbor Elliott Bay Book Co. down the street.

The building Tribe/BP called home has been owned by the same landlords since the '90s. It remains the home of the Comet and The Lobby Bar. We reported in August on change coming for the retail spaces in the neighboring building on E Pike as restaurant Ballet and art space Square Room were told they would be losing their leases. Ballet has worked out a month to month deal to stay until the next project is ready to move in or Ballet finds a new home. The Square Room has since closed its storefront. UPDATE: Square Room says it didn't lose its lease, exactly. See comments, below.

CHS never ventured inside Tribe so we'll have to turn it over to this first person account posted on Yelp of all places describing the club. It's written by an apparently disinterested party but gives you an idea of what you'd find behind the red door on 10th Ave:

As it so happens, late one night I escorted a friend who wanted a bit of fun. True to the virtues of friendship, he paid my entrance fee and bought me a membership.

Basic Plumbing isn't like other bathhouses where you disrobe and walk around in a towel or nothing at all. Quite the contrary, you just walk around and around and around and around in semi-darkness wearing the clothes you came in with.

The labyrinth-like rooms and pathways are all situated on one floor. Along one corridor are a series of short stalls; I'm assuming this area is perfect for gay midgets or men who simply want to have a seat on their knees. I seem to remember a lounge area where you can surf the web or purchase a soft drink. God knows when I'm at a bathhouse I always want a Mountain Dew when I'm chatting with friends on MySpace.

In the second such incident in only four days, a pedestrian was struck by a car at 15th Ave and E Denny Way Tuesday night.

Early reports indicated the female victim in her 20s was conscious but suffered arm and leg injuries. She was transported to Harborview. Thanks to Alexander for more details from the scene just after 8p:

FYI, looks like another car vs. pedestrian (or possibly bike, not 100% sure) at 15th and Denny, tonight at around 8pm. SFD sent two ambulances, an engine, and the medic supervisor. It appeared that the person was being transported in the Medic unit, which I believe indicates relatively serious injuries. I hope they are OK.

In an incident Friday afternoon at the same intersection, a woman was struck by a car as she crossed 15th Ave. The driver was evaluated for impairment but does not appear to have been cited. We do not have any updates on the woman's condition or the extent of her injuries. (more)

"Jurisdictions across the nation are being besieged with proposals to privatize government services, assets, and functions. Everything from public schools, prisons, highways, bridges, military, Social Security, air traffic control, natural resources, national parks, tax collection to pension funds, voting machines, liquor sales, lotteries, worker’s compensation, welfare, and parks.  And with very mixed results."

Thursday, Feb. 2, 7:30 PM,Seattle First Baptist Church 1111 Harvard Ave, Seattle

Moderator - Eleanor Licata

Speakers -

Don Comstock, PhD, Stanford, teaches political economics in the graduate Management and Leadership program and the Environment and Community program at Antioch University. Don has created and led public and nonprofit organizations in fostering community development and community-based economic development. He also has consulted with public agencies and small businesses and published in the areas of organizational and community change,... (more)

We're sure there's a demographic explanation for it. Four new dentistry-related projects are open or underway around the Hill. Here are updates on each.

• Sweet Tooth: We first told you about the plans for Sweet Tooth Family Dental to move into an antique shop on 14th Ave across from Safeway back in September. In the meantime, Dr. Gene Beck has opened his practice on Capitol Hill:

I am the owner of Sweet Tooth Family Dental on 14th and John.  The office is totally new but in a 1904 historic Capitol Hill home.  The remodel was carefully planned to respect the work that Henry and David of Henry's Bed and Breakfast Antiques  did in 2007.  The space feels really homey and comfortable and almost like it has always been a dental office.  I'm hoping to have the office up and running by January 9th. I've been a dentist for 15 years and have worked in Seattle area for the past ten years.  I have a community health back ground and love working with families to improve and maintain dental health. I also love to bake, so plan to treat my patients with a a package  some of my baked goods to make their dental visit a little sweeter, thus the name Sweet Tooth.  We are a new practice and welcome all patients.  Our website is sweettoothfamilydental.com  and our office # is 206-323-1436.  Our address is 211 14th Ave E,  one house North of the violin shop in the big blue house.

Sweet Tooth, we should note, is a CHS advertiser.

• Packard Building: We've also learned about a dentistry project planned to bring a new tenant to the Packard Building. We already told you about the coming-soon gelateria at 12th and Pine. We can now tell you that D'Ambrosio Gelato will have a neighbor to help you take care of cleaning your sweet teeth. Filings with a city indicate a $50,000 construction project is being planned to transform a retail space in the Packard Building into a new practice space for Philip R Howard Family Dentist.
• Smiles on Madison: The Safeway and apartment complex at 23rd and Madison will also soon be home to a new dental practice. Filings indicate Smiles on Madison is destined for 2209 E Madison after a buildout of the space is complete.

• Swedish Hospital: First Hill also has added a special dentistry clinic focused on providing "complex specialty care:"

Swedish recently added adult specialty dental care to the extensive list of free services available to low-income uninsured and underinsured patients at the Swedish Community Specialty Clinic (SCSC). This is the only specialty clinic of it kind in the Puget Sound area. Staffed by local volunteer dentists and oral surgeons from the Seattle-King County Dental Society, the dental clinic focuses on complex specialty care. The focus is starting first with difficult tooth extractions and plans to add root canals in the future.

 Swedish is making the new specialty dental care clinic available to interested media for a two-hour window. This will be an opportunity to tour the clinic and interview key people including a patient, a couple of the volunteer dentists, as well as key administrative reps from Swedish, Project Access Northwest (PANW; www.projectaccessnw.org), and Washington Dental Service Foundation. Media will also be able to watch and photograph or film an actual procedure being done on a real patient.

 The clinic has three fully outfitted dental surgery and treatment rooms paid for by community grants and the Swedish Foundation. Severe mouth pain related to dental problems is one of the most common problems seen in hospital emergency rooms. Often, despite their best efforts, emergency department physicians can’t fully treat patients who have active oral infections or abscesses until a problem tooth is removed. Specialty Dental services are available by referral from a primary-care dentist and by appointment only. Swedish estimates some 25 volunteer dental professionals will see up to 450 patients in the first year of the clinic’s operation. As many as 45 volunteer dentists and oral surgeons will treat an estimated 2,000 patients in year two. SCSC opened in September 2010 with medical services, but because of the known need for specialty dental care in our region the clinic was designed with space that would accommodate three dental chairs. Swedish partners with PANW for operational support. PANW personnel provide effective patient triage and case management, and work with SCSC support staff to help maintain dentist schedules and set initial visits and follow-ups. Some community health centers offer primary-care dental for adults, but no one is doing specialty care. With the health-care safety net slowly being eliminated, hospitals have no place to send these patients, so Swedish and PANW had to step up to meet a growing need. The dental clinic is designed as a referral-based service. Patients likely to use it come through the Swedish system, or through a variety of low-income community clinics authorized to refer patients. For more information on specialty dental services, call Project Access Northwest at 206-788-4559 or visit www.swedish.org/Services/Swedish-Community-Specialty-Clinic.

The changes we reported here involving a transfer in operations and overhaul of the Capitol Hill Times have hit the street -- or at least the Web. So far, the typical stacks of copies of the free paper aren't showing up around the Hill but the new Wordpress-based Web site is live and a new sortie of articles has been posted including a look back at the recent snow. Meanwhile, Pacific Northwest journalists are taking their cracks at trying to tell the peculiar story of RIM Publications, a company built on the back of our region's manifestations of the mortgage crisis.

The inaugural note from editor Stephen Miller sums the new effort up:

It’s a hell of an undertaking for a new publication, but The Capitol Hill Times has been around for a while. Editors before me have been dropping copy on Broadway since 1926. Unfortunately, the industry has taken a dive as of late, and this paper was a casualty. It lost touch with all of you as a result. I aim to change that.

The goal for this paper is not to re-create the Weekly and the Stranger or to eclipse the Capitol Hill Seattle Blog. Rather, we plan to bring a new voice to the discussion, to give you information you can use and to tell your story in a way it hasn’t been told before.

Last week, The Oregonian examined RIM parent company Northwest Trustee Service and owner Stephen Routh's entry into newspaper ownership -- complete with the hand wringing expected from a company with skin in the game:

Routh and his partners have built Northwest Trustee Services into a vertically integrated foreclosure machine. 

Need a law firm? Check. Northwest Trustee has its affiliate, Routh, Crabtree & Olsen, which has 51 lawyers and offices in seven Western states. Need an escrow officer to help with documents? Check. Northwest Trustee has a title company. Need a process server to post a foreclosure notice at a specific property? A property manager to maintain vacant homes? An auctioneer to conduct foreclosure sales? Check, check and check. Northwest Trustee has it all in-house. 

Until recently, one of the few elements of foreclosure that the 1,000-employee firm couldn't offer its clients was a venue in which to advertise pending auctions. 

Oregon law could be shifting to make RIM's gambit less effective, the Oregonia hopefully speculates.

Seattle's own Crosscut also took a crack at RIM with a new post this morning documenting the company's businesses and lamenting its approach to journalism:

Routh's seemingly single-minded focus worries longtime community journalists; what happens, they ask, when the housing market returns and foreclosures decline? Most believe that the small RIM papers will be sold or simply closed when their need is gone. "I question the wisdom of a long-term business plan that depends on something as cyclical as the foreclosures market," observes Bill Will, executive director of Washington Newspaper Publishers Association.

Surprisingly, perhaps, Routh told me he could be in newspapers for the long haul. He expects "three years, maybe beyond" of heavy foreclosure activity. The economy "is not working so well," and the value of under-water home mortgages"makes the national debt look trivial." So, those pages of foreclosure ads are not going away any time soon.

As for CHS, we can't say how this is all going to play out and we're happy to not have to depend on the foreclosure market to keep our servers turned on. But we can say one thing -- this kind of shit will not stand:

When asked what the co-op has coming up, Charmaine answered, “We’ll be organizing our chick sales for the early spring, and looking for more ways to get urban farming in the spotlight on Capital Hill!”

Two projects that provide insights into the state of development in their respective neighborhoods take steps in the Seattle Design Review process this week -- one a 300-foot-tower at the base of First Hill, the other a 4-story multifamily project just off 15th Ave E.

802 Seneca
The project surrounding the new 300-foot apartment tower planned to rise above lower First Hill and Freeway Park might be the rare example of a developer responding to the community and taking a voluntary step back to square one in the city's design process. With plans approved five years ago before the development was mothballed during the economic downturn of the late 2000s, developer Laconia revived its 802 Seneca project last year. In the meantime, height limits had risen and the development economy had irrevocably shifted. Instead of moving forward with the design framework approved years ago, Laconia's Paul Menzies came back to Seattle with a significantly different project that still fit within the approved use of the First Hill land acquired for $4 million in 2005. Other similar projects in the area have barreled forward. But this First Hill tower project worked out differently.

Project: 802 Seneca St  map

Design Proposal available (84.2 MB)

Review Meeting:	February 1, 8:00 pm
	Seattle Vocational Institute
	2120 S Jackson St  map
	Room 102/103
Review Phase:	Recommendation past reviews
Project Number:	3012797 permit status | notice
Planner:	Shelley Bolser

"As a developer, you really want to get it approved. And you want to build it. And sometimes you get contrary ideas. The fact of the matter is you always get a better project," Menzies told CHS of the decision to start back with an Early Design Guidance session for the rejiggered Seneca project.

That first meeting was held in early January and, by account of the notes from the session posted by DPD, the community dialogue was productive in shaping what will be a significant new structure on the First Hill skyline. The plan presented in January did away with the two-structure concept -- instead there is one chunky 300-foot tower. The plan for condos is long gone. The name of the project is the Seneca Apartment Community.

The plan calls for more than 300 residential units and 3,700 square feet of retail. 285 parking spots are planned - and some of you will be glad to note that feedback from the January 4 EDG included comment that the project had too much parking for First Hill. The project could also help to increase connections to Freeway Park with a planned sculpture garden connecting the private and the public land. Kwan Henmi is the project's architect.

For Menzies, who has been developing up and down the West Coast for decades, he's looking forward to hearing more feedback on the effort to make the tower look more residential and less like an office building.

"It's a good process," Menzies said of the Seattle way of design. "It's a process very much based on consensus. But not everybody can be satisfied, of course."

At the current rate of progress, construction could begin this summer.

DRProposal3012797AgendaID3457 New

1406 E Republican
A mile and change away and some 250 feet shorter, a new project at 14th and Republican takes its first steps with the Capitol Hill Design Review Board this week. It, too, could face some sharp community pushback as new projects creep off of Capitol Hill's main arteries and into some of the area's quieter streets. Developer John Schack says the time has come to put the land currently home to a 1943 triplex to more appropriate use:

Actually, if you look at the intersection of 14th and Republican, our site is currently the only corner that doesn't have an apartment building on it.  That being said, we understand the concern of the community.  Our goal is to capture the intent of the newly revised Lowrise code by organizing our building around a series of ground floor courtyard spaces that will emphasize community, promote ad-hoc interactions/activity, and provide units with maximum access to light and air.  This is one of the backbones of our concept: to cultivate a symbiotic relationship between interior and exterior spaces by drawing out the benefits of each to provide a design that is greater than the sum of its parts.  Each living room and unit entry will be oriented toward the central courtyard to promote both a sense of community and security; "eyes on the street" if you will (thanks Jane Jacobs).  The added benefit of eliminating the double loaded corridor is that each unit will have the opportunity for cross ventilation; a rare feature for new apartment product.  Also, by organizing the building around these open spaces, the building has a natural modulation that is reactive to usable outdoor space rather than implemented for the sake of forced variety.

The development is the first project of Schack and partner Dugan Earl's new firm Revolve. Schack's architecture firm schack A+D is handling the design.

Project: 1406 E Republican St  map

Design Proposal available (3.59 MB)

Review Meeting:	February 1, 6:30 pm
	Seattle Vocational Institute
	2120 S Jackson St  map
	Room 102/103
Review Phase:	EDG--Early Design Guidance
Project Number:	3012837 permit status | notice
Planner:	Bruce Rips

Plans call for demolition of the triplex and construction of a four-story, 36-unit residential building with parking for 22 vehicles in a partially below grade lot. The land was acquired in November 2011 for $1.4 million.

And, no, sadly, those aren't slides on the roof in the massing diagrams. Schack says they're stairways. You can lobby him for the slide idea at Wednesday night's meeting.

DRProposal3012837AgendaID3449

If you are one of the many Capitol Hill and Central District urban farmers, a place to find worms and wholesale feed just got a little closer. Seattle Farm Co-op — a member-owned urban farm co-op — moved-in at 18th and Jackson late last year.

The co-op moved from SODO, where game day crowds made it difficult to operate many days. Now the volunteer-run co-op shares a space with Cascadian Edible Landscapes, Amaranth Urban Farms and a bio fuels co-op. They plan to be open 3-4 days each week, depending on volunteer schedules. A calendar of open hours is posted on the SFC website.

Aside from selling all local and organic feed and supplies for raising chickens, goats and rabbits, the co-op hosts skill sharing classes and a big spring plant start exchange. Past classes have included topics like chicken slaughtering, canning, cheese making and raising goats. The co-op also hopes to develop a tool library for gardening items.

You do not need to be a co-op member in order to buy from SFC, but members get discounts and... (more)

A car struck a woman crossing the street at 15th Ave and E Denny Way Friday afternoon. The woman in her 30s was taken to the hospital alert and conscious but with serious injuries. A pool of blood and a pile of clothing was being photographed at the scene by SPD investigators.

A drug recognition was called to the scene to evaluate the driver.

The collision happened just before 3p and closed 15th Ave to traffic for 30 minutes as medics and police responded.

Thanks to Adam for the picture and Mary for the headline. Here's to love.

UPDATE: Babylonia says Sunday's wedding is still on. Picture of the lovely couple together from @adamantra, below.

(Images: Flora and Henri)

Children's clothing boutique Flora and Henri has announced it is closing its E Pine shop next week after two years in the space. The upscale shop opened next to Molly Moon's in September 2009 after closing their downtown Seattle location earlier that year.

According to the statement on the closure, Jane Hendreen will continue to operate florahenri.com and plans to open office and studio space to customers by appointment. 

The Odd Fellows building is also home to eco-friendly retailer Nube Green and shares a block with retailers Fleet Feet and the Everyday Music and Elliott Bay Book Co. complex. Elliott Bay's move to the neighborhood has been touted as a success by the store's management and was seen by many as an opportunity to establish a retail anchor for the Pike/Pine neighborhood. Last summer, CHS reported that retailer Totokaelo would be replacing Everyday Music in its current location by this spring. Everyday Music is currently working out plans for a move to a new location in the neighborhood.

No word at this point if anything is lined up for the Flora and Henri space.

(Images: Flora and Henri)

Here is the announcement from Flora and Henri.

dear flora and henri friends,

 

due to the decline of our economy and the growth of our website, the oddfellows boutiqe located on capitol hill will be closed as of tuesday, january 31st.  until then we will maintain regular business hours: monday through saturday 11-6pm.  we hope you can take advantage of our designer samples, paul and joe clearance, and fall/winter sale during our last five days in the oddfellows building. 

 

as for what is next for flora and henri, starting in february, we will open our design studio and office to our local customers.  by calling ahead or setting an appointment, we will open our showroom to you.  all of our previous retail services will be provided in this new location.  you will have access to all of your favorite flora and henri merchandise as well as our upcoming spring/summer 2012 collection;  new items will begin to appear late february through early april. 

 

if you are unable to bid farewell to our oddfellows boutique, we look forward to seeing you in our showroom downtown.  it is located at 1816  8th ave between stewart and olive.  appointments may be made monday through friday from 9-5pm by calling 206.749.0004.  you may also contact us via email at: .  any updates regarding your contact information, email and phone numbers may be sent to this email address and will help us better serve you.

 

thank you for being a wonderful flora an henri supporter. 

 

love,

flora and henri