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Friday, January 16, 2009

Boom Broadway Haunts May Be Demolished for New Building

Posted by Dominic Holden on Fri, Jan 16, 2009 at 1:00 PM

Café Septieme, Noah’s Bagels, and Pho 900 may close if a proposed apartment compound at East Thomas Street and Broadway East—currently a Bank of America building—is expanded. The building may consume two houses on Thomas and up to three buildings on Broadway.

3736/1232139292-restaurants_on_broadway.jpg

“There is at least one [parcel of land on Broadway that the apartment project may purchase] and the owner is in negotiations with some of the tenants in there, so the design is certainly fluid at this time,” says Brian Runberg, owner and principal of Runberg Architecture Group, which is designing the apartments. The project had previously been scoped at 113 apartments but now "is in the 180- to 190-unit range,” he says. The new building would include commercial space on the ground floor.

Allen Jones, a partner of Russell Jones Real Estate, which owns the building that rents to Noah’s Bagels, gave nebulous answers about whether his building would be sold. “Certain things in business are confidential, and there’s a time to discuss it and there’s time not to,” he says.

It's inevitable that high-density construction on Broadway—a half-block from the new light-rail station—will replace the squat buildings. And it should. But this makes me melancholy, nonetheless. I used to wait tables at Café Septieme, along with the best server in on earth, Rodney Bradshaw, and it would be sad to lose one of the coziest places on Capitol Hill for a drink and coffee. If Septieme is swallowed in this deal, I hope it can move somewhere else.

SRM Development, which is planning the project, did not return calls before this post. My thanks to Calhoun, who left an unconfirmed rumor on Capitol Hill Seattle blog. UPDATE: CHS just confirmed that the Cafe Septieme building sold to the developer last week.

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Comments (35) RSS

Oldest First Unregistered On Registered On Add a comment
1
What kind of idiot is thinking about development NOW? They could just give me the money, I could shit on it and toss it down a hole, and they'd make about the same return.
Posted by demo kid on January 16, 2009 at 1:04 PM
2
Off-topic topic #1:

Uh, what's happening CC?
They still call it the White House
But that's a temporary condition, too.
Can you dig it, CC?

- lyrics from Parliament's 'Chocolate City,' 1975

Off-topic topic #2: Rush regrets that Hutch was unavailable today for color commentary on the Steelers, but tune in next Friday for Limbaugh/Hutcherson scrimmage.
Posted by Off-Topic Troll on January 16, 2009 at 1:05 PM
3
It's that transit oriented development the Stranger has told us so much about! Potentially taking out one of the Stranger's favorite haunts (or used to be). Too bad Cafe Septieme just sunk a bunch of money into rehabbing its place.
Posted by Trevor on January 16, 2009 at 1:05 PM
4
Sorry man, I know noboby wants to lose the old buildings and businesses, but you've just got to suck it up. If you want light rail, density and transit-oriented development, this is how it happens.
Posted by Hernandez on January 16, 2009 at 1:09 PM
5
Used to love me some Septieme, until the mass firings.
Posted by Lola, Now in Iowa City on January 16, 2009 at 1:10 PM
6
One of the best servers on Earth worked at Cafe Septieme??? I went there about a dozen times (before all their health code violations made front-page news) and the servers were always slow, inattentive, and rude. Slow, slow, slow. Good riddance.
Posted by Lisa on January 16, 2009 at 1:11 PM
7
Pho 900 is tasty, but so is progress. Tasty, tasty progress.
Posted by AJ on January 16, 2009 at 1:12 PM
8
Yeah, Septieme--great food, slow, inattentive service.
Posted by tiktok on January 16, 2009 at 1:21 PM
9
Rrrrrrodney! Still there, the wonderful man. Love the occasional pearls-and-black-t. Always helps figure out what's best on the menu that the cook on duty at the moment can swing. A treasure. A joy.
Posted by tomasyalba on January 16, 2009 at 1:25 PM
10
Septieme used to be wonderful, way, way back when I first lived on Capitol Hill in the early/mid 90s. After a while, the service declined horribly, but I still have lovely memories of the food and the atmosphere.
Posted by KJ on January 16, 2009 at 1:36 PM
11
Septieme has been shit for a couple years now. I won't miss it.

I'll be sad if Noah's closes. I need my Saturday bagel fix.
Posted by Trouble on January 16, 2009 at 1:36 PM
12
I'm gonna miss me some bagel dogs :(
Posted by Henry on January 16, 2009 at 1:36 PM
13
FUCK. that sucks. a lot.
Posted by genevieve on January 16, 2009 at 1:37 PM
14
YEAH!!! I can have Bellevue just by heading up to Cap Hill!!

I am THRILLED!!! When is the Stranger Building going to be bought and torn down along with the Cuff Complex?

Hurry and buy those up!! PROGRESS PROGRESS!!!
Posted by Progress at any cost on January 16, 2009 at 1:37 PM
15
More importantly, the space where Noah's is now used to be Eggs-Cetera, the first place I went to eat in Seattle when I visited my sister here in 1992. That and my first mocha ever - at Espresso Roma down the block - were two things that made me fall in love with this city. I moved here a year later and have said goodbye to a lot of wonderful places in the last fifteen years. But change is good for a city. We'll always have our memories.
Posted by thanks happy on January 16, 2009 at 1:39 PM
16
Great memories of Torry's Eggs-Cetera -- SECONDED! Those old queens knew how to make a young gay geek feel like a real person without fawning over me :)

Let's add memories of Andy's Diner (which inhabited the Septieme space for decades before the walls were painted red). True, it was a dive in the don't-eat-there sense of the term but it was an honest dive.
Posted by James Jackhammer on January 16, 2009 at 1:51 PM
17
uh, I think they spent $12.99 on some cheap ass yellow paint and a sponge...

but, this does suck because Septieme USED to be great before the current owner FUCKED it up...

and Rodney IS one of the best waiters in town!
Posted by michael strangeways on January 16, 2009 at 2:06 PM
18
I'm waiting for them to be torn down and then sit as empty lots when funding falls through. It's gonna be awesome!
Posted by Jigae on January 16, 2009 at 2:12 PM
19
Woo Hoo!

So, where did they get the funding?

Let me guess ... Bank of America?
Posted by Will in Seattle on January 16, 2009 at 2:26 PM
20
I'm reminded of that scene in a movie where Ray Liotta is eating his own brain.
Posted by Vince on January 16, 2009 at 2:28 PM
21
I'm glad this is being designed by someone decent. Rundberg has done some decent work especially down in PDX.

Even if you don't like Rundberg's work it could be worse, the developer could be using Driscoll.

I'll miss Café Septieme, but to be honest it is more a place of fond memories than anything else.
Posted by Christopher Stefan on January 16, 2009 at 2:32 PM
22
Do these count as disappearing Gay-spaces?

There will probably be retail in the lower front, so perhaps some of them will re-open. Cafe Vita and Dilletante seem to be doing alright in their new apartment building digs.
Posted by Inkweary on January 16, 2009 at 2:39 PM
23
I have to say that I like Rundberg's stuff. Check out those modern Mansard roofs.
Posted by I used to hate Mansard roofs. on January 16, 2009 at 2:41 PM
24
@21 and 23 -- Rundberg's stuff looks exactly the same as everything else that has gone up in Seattle in the last 15 years. The Heights on Broadway/Denny? Check. The Ellington, Vine, Bellora, etc.? Check. The new Veer lofts in SLU? Check. Am I missing something? Admittedly, I'm not much of an architecture wonk so I may not appreciate the finer details, but... this is good? Really?
Posted by Judith on January 16, 2009 at 2:56 PM
25
Cafe Septieme = no great loss.
Posted by Simac on January 16, 2009 at 3:00 PM
26
Yeah, but they just dropped their prices, Simac.
Posted by Will in Seattle on January 16, 2009 at 3:08 PM
27
It's been about 15 years since I've been to Septieme. If you got there early enough the biscuits & gravy were great (shredded chicken breast instead of sausage). But the decor (jet black walls and bright blood red booths) were not conducive curing a hangover. The service was the worst (probably before you got there Dom). I could be sitting at a booth within eyesight of the waiter for 15 minutes while I had to wait for him to finish his cigarette and read the Stranger before taking my order.

I can make biscuits & gravy myself and I don't get hangovers anymore either. Though part of me is sad to to see another landmark of my youth disappear, I won't cry over Septieme.
Posted by elswinger on January 16, 2009 at 3:11 PM
28
Hooray! Let's hope they leave room for a Desert Tanning Spa, a Starbucks and a Cellphone store! Seattle just can't get enough of that kinda progress.
Posted by The Insatiable Beast Must be Feed on January 16, 2009 at 3:19 PM
29
Small biz is dead! Grab your emovers in angst, Crap Hill hipsters, cuz you're about to meet the Subway/Starbucksisation of your neighborhood!
Posted by Corporate Claws on January 16, 2009 at 3:37 PM
30
Um, hasn't Starbucks been on Cap Hill since the eighties? What is scary about that?

In fact, the bronze dance steps in the sidewalk in front of the old QFC space between Republican and Mercer have coffee beans in the heels because that was the location of one of Starbucks' first satellite stores when it expanded out of the Market, pre-monster corps.
Posted by Inkweary on January 16, 2009 at 3:58 PM
31
They should build on the empty Manray/Pony block of Pine instead.
Posted by very bad homo on January 16, 2009 at 4:36 PM
32
@28,

You forgot the Quizno's.

Posted by Mr. X on January 16, 2009 at 5:21 PM
33
I really think capitol hill could use another lovely parking lot, just like over on pike street, lets just knock those buildings down and not build anything there.

for bonus points we could dig a giant hole and then just leave it there once the economy gets even worse
Posted by high and bi on January 16, 2009 at 5:28 PM
34
Pho 900 has the best broth and ingredients, i'm going to be very sad if this idiocy goes through :(
Posted by maus on January 16, 2009 at 5:29 PM
35
If the Bank of America development does get expanded, I hope it's worth it for the neighborhood. I hope the building will be an architectural gem, the apartments affordable, and the new businesses to occupy the retail space useful and mostly local. Because I'm not against development. I'm against oversized, ill-conceived, shoddily built, neighborhood-character destroying development. Here's hoping that the Runberg Architecture Group is against bad development too.
Posted by Comrade Bunny on January 18, 2009 at 10:09 PM

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