Boom The Old QFC Building on Broadway
I hate the old QFC building. We all do. To see it …
… is to hate it.
And to see it as a bird sees it …
… is to hate it even more. That’s it on the left — with the orange marker. Nature abhors a vacuum, and yet there it is. All that unfilled space! And across the street on the east side of Broadway is another void: the old Safeway, also with an orange marker.
The old Safeway is slightly less offensive, if only because we know that it will soon be developed. As this classic Slog excerpt proves, we enjoy arguing over that design.
The cinderblock wall of the old QFC comes right up to the sidewalk. Like this:
Yes, that's a homeless man. At least one can be found shuffling along this woeful stretch every minute of the day. A few weeks ago, I encountered two transients circling each other, fists raised. I tried to pass just as one took a swing at the other, who backed right into me. Trapped between a bum and the wall of the old QFC. Very unpleasant.
Here is the view of the building from Broadway and Republican, looking north:
Magnificent.
And here is the building's northernmost edge:
Yes, nothing says "vibrant, safe neighborhood” quite like a vacant store, a pay phone and a Taco Bell. Is that Laredo, Texas?
But hope has arrived in the form of a new land use posting. This site will soon become a 6-story mixed-use building. On the ground floor there will be 25,000 foot of retail. "I'm looking for boutiques like apparel,” says the developer Bob Burkheimer. "Independent shops, maybe a restaurant. The idea is to get more street-level retail on Broadway, liven it up.”
The five floors above the retail will be filled with apartments roughly 335 units. Naturally, an apartment at that scale will add major density, especially since this project will be across the street:
That's the site of the old Safeway, which is being developed by Schnitzer Northwest. It will also be six stories tall. It will add more ground-floor retail, along with 350 condo units.
"We're working together,” says Burkheimer, speaking of Schnitzer Northwest. "We don't want to duplicate. Both projects are good for the block. The block is dead now.”
It sure is. There is no artist rendering for Burkheimer's building, but there will be a design review meeting Wednesday June 21 at the Miller Community Center, which is sure to attract interest from Capitol Hill activists. As soon as we get an artist rendering we'll update this post.
Burkheimer estimates a groundbreaking in roughly a year. He hopes that by 2009 construction will be complete.
This site's past is as enigmatic as it's future. Look for an article by Erica C. Barnett in next week's issue about how the lifting of building height restrictions was supposed to be salvation, then wasn't. And maybe she'll be able to tell us why Capitol Hill residents have had to wait so damn long for some real land use action.
There better be some independent businesses in there. The death of places like Orpheum Records, the Body Scent, Rocket Pizza, Ernie Steels, the Bagel Stop and all the other locally-owned and operated treasures that used to occupy Broadway is on of the prime reasons Capitol Hill bores me to tears now. It's just depressing up there--reminds me of the U-District (nowdays a much more enjoyable hood) in the mid-'90s.