Comments

1
I smell change coming!
2
Dear hipsters: quit meeting your dealers here, and help turn things around for this corner, mm'kay? For the sake of the neighbors and the legitimate businesses. Just agree to meet somewhere else. Like on *your* damn street.
3
good.
4
Well, this is good news and bad news however alas, things change. I just hope the developers can look at Ballard and not make the same mistakes in that awful neighborhood.

I live close by and went to Med Mix 2x and both times it was just ok...
5
We've been waiting nearly a decade for this project to finally come to fruition, so "better late than never". And potential future development of the NW corner of 24th & E. Union, along with eventual re-development of the USPS branch that takes up the bulk of the block to the south represents a long-sought revitalization of what was once a thriving neighborhood retail core. I just hope it doesn't come at the cost of displacing many of the elderly long-term residents of the Squire Park Neighborhood it adjoins.

Sorry to hear about Med Mix, though. It may not have been great food, but ANYTHING keeping that poor, seemingly cursed location active was a GOOD thing. Maybe once there's new activity on the SW corner, someone else will be able to make a better go of it.

And @2, legalized cannibis retail will no doubt bring even more hipsters to the intersection, so be very, very careful what you wish for...
6
Coming soon: nail salon, Moneytree, Panda Express, Walgreens.
7
OK, it's great that something is finally happening to this corner, but does the design have to be so ordinary, so banal? This building is an anywhere, any town design. There's nothing distinguished or distinctive about it.

Another product of those architects who got "C" grades in their design classes.
8
Fnarf, we already have a nail salon on 22nd & E. Union, between the Ethiopian restaurant and the Middle Eastern sundries store. And there's a Walgreens and a Magic Dragon both at 23rd & E. Jackson, which is only about a 15 minute walk from 23rd & E. Union, so we've got those covered.
9
Word on the street is that the MedMix location is gonna be a pot store, and there's an application for one roughly where the nail salon is, between the Ethiopian restaurant that never has any customers and the Ethiopian clothes/hookah supply place that also never seems to have customers.

10
"what was once a thriving neighborhood retail core."

when, in 1922?
11
@8, Bartells then. In the future every retail store will be a Walgreens, a Bartells, a Rite Aid, a Chase Bank, or a nail salon or check-cashing place. And there is nothing at all stopping these stores from opening new locations fifteen minutes from another one; they're doing exactly that all over town.
12
@9:

I figured it was going to be either the Med Mix or the old Key Bank further up E. Union, or even the old SPD satellite office in the Midtown building across the street. But, another one in the little retail building kitty-corner across the intersection is a bit of a surprise, although like you said, most of those storefronts do seem to be considerably underutilized (although, I have to say, Adey Abeba serves pretty darned-tasty Ethiopian!)

Chalk it up to being one of the few locations in town NOT prohibited under the zoning laws, I guess...
13
@8,

A mile is a pretty long distance for most people. I don't like our city being dotted with Walgreens either, but telling people they can just walk a mile to pick up their prescriptions is a little unrealistic.
14
Lake Union Partners (located on Dexter Ave N) are responsible for some positive changes in Seattle, but they are still profit-oriented developers who are out for money more than they are the public good. Info on them is on their website (the partners bio/history, etc.) and these guys aren't liberal, community-oriented folks. Don't be fooled - they aren't friends of the people, they are just looking for a fat profit from their work.

15
@10:

In point of fact the intersection, located not far from what for much of the City's history was the geographic center of Seattle (subsequent annexations to the north & southwest have since moved the "centroid" to the Cascade Neighborhood in SLU) at the confluence of the Squire Park, Central & Garfield neighborhoods, was the de-facto "hub" of the greater Central District, and yes, a thriving retail area up until the late 1970's, when the influx of cheap crack-cocaine and associated gang activity essentially put the final coffin-nail in a decades-long decline of the area.

The surrounding blocks have slowly been gentrified in the intervening years, although it's still one of the most ethnically diverse neighborhoods in the city, with the influx of primarily Ethiopians, Somalis, Tunisians, Vietnamese and Cambodians, along with increasing white populations beginning in the early 1990's. But the intersection itself has been somewhat slower to recover. As the article states, the building that once occupied the site on the SW corner was razed in early-to-mid 2004 (I moved into the neighborhood shortly after), and has struggled along with a handful of mom-and-pop stores and the large Post Office annex, since then.

You get get more historical background from these sites:

http://23rdandunion.org/

http://seattletimes.com/html/localnews/2…

http://www.squireparkseattle.com/
16
@13:

I'm not saying the intersection couldn't benefit from a Walmart/Rite Aid type retail establishment, but with a Safeway pharmacy also just a few blocks north on Madison & BOTH easily reachable by bus (the 48 runs right up the north-south spine along 23rd for example), access to that particular service isn't exactly problematic for most neighborhood residents.
17
@14:

Unfortunately, that's what developers do, regardless of where they decide to build.

That being said, it was my understanding that Capitol Hill Housing (very much a community-focused developer) was driving the project at 24th & E. Union, so perhaps that will help to balance things out a bit.
18
it was such a shame that the building on the SW corner of 23rd and union was made inhabitable by the earthquake. It was a handsome old gentleman.

As for the Jack In The Box/Philly Sub/Med Mix site, I think the building is cursed. Tear it down and start over.
19
@8, the nearest retail intersection to me has panda express, bartells, subway, and chase bank at the corners. Within a few storefronts are four nail salons, two Thai restaurants, a headshop, and dispensary. You can never have enough of these things apparently.
20
@18

That was my exact thought when I walked past the other day and saw a For Lease sign. The building needs to razed. The earth beneath may have to be salted. It's a shame.

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