Luke Clark Tyler lives in a 78-square-foot studio in Midtown Manhattan for only $800 a month:

Here's Elizabeth A. Harris today in the New York Times:

Few are keen to crumple themselves and their belongings into an itty-bitty room and call it home, yet the eagerness to explore these spaces seems to spread like a determined little wildfire. Videos go viral; news media coverage quickly spans oceans; attendance is even up at a small Manhattan museum currently offering an exhibit on micro-apartments. Perhaps this voracious interest is mere curiosity about how living so small can be comfortably done. Maybe it is just voyeurism. More often, it seems, it is something else: schadenfreude, the pleasure one takes in the misfortune of others. Because, finally, somebody has an apartment smaller than yours.

The revolt some people feel toward small apartments is built partly on the belief that you're only human when you have a bunch of stuff, when you have lots of money, that you must live far away from other people. Huh. Monks in monasteries and nuns in convents—people who live with almost nothing in close quarters—are quite literally some of the happiest people I've ever met.

The Seattle City Council is holding a hearing on the controversial issue of micro-housing (also known as aPodments), in which small units share a common kitchen. It's a brown-bag lunch hearing—I brought peanut M&Ms—but I should have brought a bento box.

Watch LIVE HERE.

In brief: These units provide affordable housing without any subsidies. However, neighborhood groups around the city are complaining about them as "changing the neighborhood character" with "sketchy people" and "transients." They also don't like that there's no public input in the permitting process. So Council Member Tom Rasmussen has hijacked his own transportation committee meeting—which normally would have nothing to do with housing regulations—to advance new restrictions and possibly a moratorium on aPodments.

This guest post is by Seattle City Council member Nick Licata, who chairs the council's Housing, Human Services, Health, and Culture Committee.

Would you like to live in a neighborhood that has many job opportunities, good public transit, a grocery store, a huge public park and interesting restaurants? If you say yes, then move to South Lake Union (SLU) —if you can afford it. And there is the crux of the problem that the Seattle City Council must address: Can we make SLU affordable to those of us who would like to live in a nice neighborhood in Seattle, not in Renton or Kent? The answer is—YES WE CAN. And here is how.

It’s straightforward: In exchange for the city upzoning land in SLU, which in most cases will increase the property owners’ wealth by millions of dollars, the public receives a benefit by requiring the development of that land to contain a percentage of affordable housing. How affordable? I’m proposing that an affordable one bedroom apartment be offered for rent at $975 for a person earning $36,000 a year or less. The mayor and other council members are proposing that a one bedroom rent for $1,200 for those earning up to $45,000. I’m guessing that there are a number of young people and recent immigrants just starting out, that earn less than $36,000, who would appreciate living in South Lake Union.

Other cities make similar requirements of their developers; over 250 cities in California do so. We say we want our workers to live in Seattle. Most large cities with a higher percentage of their workers living in their city than Seattle, also have such requirements. Makes sense. Affordable housing allows workers to live in the city and not have to commute miles away, dependent on public transportation or purchasing a car and getting caught in traffic congestion—not to mention contributing to carbon emissions and global warming.

This is how it would work: Increasing affordable housing units in SLU, or anywhere in the city for that matter, is done by adjusting an incentive program. The programs obligates landowners who take advantage of an upzone to their property to provide a percentage of affordable housing units. The mayor and other council proposals provide less than 5 percent of the total residential floor area to be devoted to affordable housing, whether it is built on site or off site of the rezoned land. My proposal in comparison requires 10 percent for on site development or the equivalent of 15 percent for off site development. The increase in fees to developers allocated to building affordable housing consequently would increase from a high of $22 per gross square foot to $96. Both are applied to 60 percent of the new construction that takes place on their upzoned lot. In comparison San Francisco’s fee is over $300, and their real estate market continues to grow at a faster pace than ours.

So, what’s stopping us?

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Even worse than you thought:

Capitol Hill resident Charles Drabkin is surrounded by a community waging war to stop the surge of affordable housing aPodments, in which tenants share a kitchen. The way these things are permitted, there's no community notice, there's no lengthy design jury taking public input to delay the project, and there's no requirement to provide parking. Neighborhood community councils say it's too much density—and too many transient poor renters—for neighborhoods to handle. But Drabkin disagrees in a letter he sent this week to the Seattle City Council and The Stranger:

Council Members,

I am writing today to ask you two things first and foremost to support additional affordable micro-housing here in Seattle.

My husband and I are long time residents of Capitol Hill and in fact have a micro-housing project being built directly behind our townhouse (12th btwn Denny &Howell). These units will undoubtedly block our view of the Space Needle. I must tell you I don't care. The reason I live in the city is not because I cherish a glimpse of the Needle but because I love density and diversity.

These units will bring a large and diverse group of people to my neighborhood assuring that The Hill I love continues to have artist, restaurant workers, elderly and anyone who doesn’t want to spend $1,000/month on rent to continue to live in our neighborhood. When I first moved to The Hill 20 years ago this would have been a great option for me, if rents had been as high as they are today.

Additionally more people will bring more services, restaurants and shopping to the area making it a better place to live.

I would also urge you to have any public meeting on this housing during the evening when those of us who work will be able to attend. I know you are going to hear from many NIMBY activists bemoaning these projects, and I am all for making sure that we get good regulations to ensure environmental impact reviews etc... but a moratorium is not the answer.

Thank you for your consideration.

Charles Drabkin

Good for Charles.

On Tuesday night, the Seattle Community Council Federation, an umbrella coalition of neighborhood groups, voted unanimously on a resolution asking the council to pass a strict moratorium on these aPodments. The Capitol Hill Community Council, a Laurelhurst group, and several other community organizations have also called to halt their construction completely. But they don't speak for everyone. Lots of people appreciate that aPodments create affordable housing that requires zero subsidies or incentives, and they don't buy into scare tactics that these buildings somehow won't last as long as other new construction, that the residents are sketchy, or that working-class renters aren't part of their neighborhood community. It's important for the council see that opponents, organized and wealthy though they may be, don't actually speak for the entire city. Lots of people who don't spend their lives in a sewing circle kvetching about "transient renters" believe that we should be building housing people can afford. The council needs to hear from more people like this.

Vanessa Wong at Business Week:

Micro-apartments, in some cases smaller than college dorm rooms, are cropping up in North American cities as urban planners experiment with new types of housing to accommodate growing numbers of single professionals, students, and the elderly. Single-person households made up 26.7 percent of the U.S. total in 2010, vs. 17.6 percent in 1970, according to Census Bureau data. In cities, the proportion is often higher: In New York, it’s about 33 percent. And these boîtes aren’t just for singles. The idea is to be more efficient and eventually to offer cheaper rents.

To foster innovation, several municipalities are waiving zoning regulations to allow construction of smaller dwellings at select sites.

Is Seattle running toward micro-apartments like these other sensible cities? Will our elected leaders embrace this trend to affordably house workers in the city? No way. They're running away. Although Seattle doesn't have some of the preexisting restrictions that prevent small apartments in the first place, as far as I can tell, that's not stopping Seattle City Council member Tom Rasmussen from pushing for new restrictions that make 'em harder to build. Rasmussen floated a potential moratorium on aPodments—a form of affordable, small housing in which residents share a kitchen—and now the council is indulging a neighborhood campaign against the high-density housing for the working class.

The council is holding a hearing on micro-housing developments on April 18 specifically "in response to questions and concerns raised in several Seattle neighborhoods," according to a council press release.

When is the council's NIMBY-oriented hearing? At 11:30 a.m. on a weekday.

Critics say that's a time when neighborhood busybodies can pack City Hall but a time when workers are at work. So, in an e-mail to the council, Pinehurst neighborhood activist Renee Staton asked if "we will be able to hear from all stakeholders if the meeting is held in City Hall during a time that most people are working." She suggested the meeting be held in the evening.

My advice to the council: You should only agree to an evening meeting if want to give micro-housing a fair shake.

This guest post is by Roger Valdez, director of Smart Growth Seattle, a group supporting more housing in Seattle.

There are three types of land use that have generated lots of discussion and debate about how and whether Seattle grows in the next 20 years: zoning in South Lake Union; small, affordable apartments; and infill development. Who will control this growth? Who will determine how much housing will cost? How much will we build? Where will that growth happen?

We simply can’t and shouldn’t micromanage coming growth, trying to control the price of every apartment, the roofline of every new home, and the siding and color of every new apartment building. Trying to do that will slow growth, having the effect of lowering housing supply, increasing the costs to accommodate new people, and, in the end, increasing housing prices. And remember, dense cities are better for the environment, more efficiently using land, energy, aggregating demand for transit, and creating fewer climate-changing emissions per capita than sprawl.

Seattle has got to move beyond the confused notion that we can make the city more affordable and livable by imposing price controls on rental housing and trying to have a hand in the design and particulars of every new development. We’re a big city, too big to be acting like a couple rearranging furniture in their new apartment.

The broad outlines of what we need to do are pretty simple if leaders in the city can steer the debate in a different direction:

Lower Housing Prices: If we decide that housing prices are too high, then we need to increase supply (grant more building permits) and lower barriers and costs by reducing regulations and rules. Adding more process, imposing fees on new housing, and reviewing design won’t help lower prices—it will cause them to go up. A recent New York Times story reported that falling housing supply and increasing demand for housing is leading to rising prices. Nationwide prices went up 7.3 percent in 2012. "After six years of waiting on the sidelines, newly eager home buyers across the country are discovering that there are not enough houses for sale to accommodate the recent flush of demand," the paper reported.

Expand Choices: We need lots of choices for housing—from small, affordable apartments and cottages to new single-family homes. Singling out one form or another and bashing it doesn’t help. If it provides safe, healthy shelter and someone is willing to pay for it, we should permit it and let it get built.

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• Via Seattle Channel

Advocates for low-income housing are outraged by comments made on the Seattle City Council dais on Monday, comments they say are thinly veiled suggestions that Seattle "redline" the poor into designated ghettos. Council Member Richard Conlin made the case to his colleagues for focusing subsidized housing "along the light rail line in Rainier Valley" where it's cheaper to build instead of the "very hot neighborhood" of South Lake Union, where potential new zoning rules will actually generate the money to build that low-income housing.

Philippa Nye, of Ally Community Development, was the first to speak at a comment period, denouncing the idea: "Having everyone commute from Rainier Valley or Rainier Beach feels like housing segregation to me."

She was hardly alone—I heard from several people this week. "Having council suggest redlining and segregation is part of Seattle's future makes my stomach hurt," says Rebecca Saldaña, a program director of the housing advocacy nonprofit Puget Sound Sage. How the city should use resources generated by allowing taller buildings is an age-old dispute—one we saw seven years ago when the council allowed taller buildings in the adjacent Denny Triangle neighborhood and downtown—and raises a key question of urban planning: Are the wealthy entitled to monopolize an enclave of the central city while workers are expelled to the outskirts?

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As you may recall, the Seattle City Council is considering a moratorium on building aPodments, a type of small, affordable rental that houses lots of tenants in what are essentially dorm rooms inside of town houses. They're popular, they produce affordable rents without any government subsidies, and they drive neighborhood homeowners nuts (poor people could live nearby!). Listening to those concerns, Council Member Tom Rasmussen has floated a freeze of their construction. I posted recently about why I disagree with Rasmussen, noting that he owns a large, expensive home in West Seattle, and followed up by asking every member of the council if they support a moratorium.

Most council members skirted the question, saying they hadn't seen a bill or they wanted to remain open to conversation, so I pressed harder on Council President Sally Clark (who also chaired the land use committee for several years):

From: Dominic Holden
Sent: Wednesday, March 13, 2013 9:33 AM
To: Clark, Sally
Subject: Backing a moratorium on aPodments

Are you supportive or opposed? Since the impact is unambiguous—either it freezes construction of them or doesn't—you don't need to see legislation first. So... yes or no?

Dominic Holden
News Editor, The Stranger

Clark, Sally wrote:

Hi, Dominic — Sorry. I breezed by this yesterday and didn't get back to you.

I heard you posted Rasmussen's home (a pic?). Did you really do that? Could that be taken as intimidation? I'm really not comfortable with the idea that we shouldn't discuss all the options. We may discard options through debate, but this thing about "don't even talk about it" is a little weird.

Council President Sally J. Clark

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Seattle City Council member Tom Rasmussen is considering emergency legislation to stop construction of a type of small apartment that's extremely affordable to rent, quick to build, and wildly popular:

City council member Tom Rasmussen confirms this morning's caffeinated news and gossip that the council is considering legislation, which he may propose, that could place new restrictions (including, potentially, a moratorium) on so-called "aPODments," a brand name that's now widely used to describe buildings that contain numerous small housing units that surround a central living area and kitchen on each floor.

The units have been drawing opposition in neighborhoods like Capitol Hill and Eastlake, where residents are incensed: because they require no land-use review (each floor technically constitutes just one unit, even if it houses several unrelated people, so they're legal under existing code); because they don't typically require on-site parking, and, most importantly; and because they increase density—specifically, density of people like college students and low-income workers, the kind of folks who are frequently charged with diminishing the "character" of Seattle's established neighborhoods.

But they're making the NIMBYs furious.

APodments may not be perfect for everyone, but they are priced within reach for folks who otherwise couldn't live in the city. What makes them even better is that they produce this affordable housing stock without any subsidies. That's crucial because the city will never be able to provide enough subsidized housing with levies, or through zoning incentives, for all the workers who need to live in the city. If we don't have market-generated, affordable rentals like these, we push workers and poor folks to the outskirts, making Seattle a wealthy, white enclave. Rasmussen probably isn't thinking about that. He's wealthy. Rasmussen makes over $110,000 a year. He ran the most over-financed campaign in city council history in 2011 (out-raising his opponent by more than $300,000). His spouse is a partner at a venture capital firm, and, according to King County property records, they own a house valued near $1 million. But aPodments are great for thousands of other people.

I'm sympathetic to concerns that some aPodments have been built without going through the normal design review process. And if that's the beef, go ahead and propose legislation requiring more community notice and design input. But that has always been a superficial complaint. When I wrote about this years ago, I wrote about NIMBY neighbors' classist fears of "itinerant" workers and "very sketchy people." Neighbors say the units are ugly, they're inhumanely small, and they don't fit the "character" of the expensive neighborhoods around them. (The people who actually live in the aPodmencts are delightful, normal people who are happy to have a small, affordable home in the city.) But let's take this argument on its face—that this is about more review of construction projects (which I fear is still a tool for NIMBYs to oppose these projects): design reviews don't require a moratorium. They don't require freezing this type of affordable housing from being built—but that's apparently exactly what Rasmussen is considering.

It's an asshole move.

This New York Times article, documenting the inventive bribery and corruption techniques of Wal-Mart de Mexico, is a fascinating, enraging read:

SAN JUAN TEOTIHUACÁN, Mexico — Wal-Mart longed to build in Elda Pineda’s alfalfa field. It was an ideal location, just off this town’s bustling main entrance and barely a mile from its ancient pyramids, which draw tourists from around the world. With its usual precision, Wal-Mart calculated it would attract 250 customers an hour if only it could put a store in Mrs. Pineda’s field.

One major obstacle stood in Wal-Mart’s way.

After years of study, the town’s elected leaders had just approved a new zoning map. The leaders wanted to limit growth near the pyramids, and they considered the town’s main entrance too congested already. As a result, the 2003 zoning map prohibited commercial development on Mrs. Pineda’s field, seemingly dooming Wal-Mart’s hopes.

But 30 miles away in Mexico City, at the headquarters of Wal-Mart de Mexico, executives were not about to be thwarted by an unfavorable zoning decision...

Here's some credit where it's due: Richard Conlin:

Seattle City Councilmember Richard Conlin gave a generally glowing review of the proposed South Lake Union rezone in an interview with KUOW radio host Steve Scher this morning.

Conlin said, “I’m excited about it,” and added that the proposal to permit buildings up to 400 feet tall is “exactly the kind of density we should be encouraging.”

Before all the lesser Seattle yelpers jump in, supporting density like this—and 40-story towers—doesn't preclude extracting stronger neighborhood benefits from developers like Vulcan, mandating that larger projects include affordable housing, or requiring designs that keep interesting activity on the sidewalk. It's good for the mayor and council to tweak the proposal to build a really cool neighborhood, while still giving developers incentive to build there. But if any of the council members or mayoral candidates balk in the end—voting no or just rejecting an upzone altogether—they have no business being in office in any major city. They should run for office in Port Townsend instead.

Capitol Hill Seattle blog:

After 36 years, B&O Espresso has finally reached its end on E Olive Way. "He has his money to do his project," manager John Auseth tells CHS about word received last week that the mixed-use development in the works for the last four years that will replace the 1924-built building is finally in motion.

Demolition of the one-story B&O Espresso building has been a long time coming, with plans for a six-story building on the site. I've written about a neighborhood campaign to stop the development over here. But as I reported last year, financing is steadily coming through for exactly these sort of projects: residential buildings on the western slope of Capitol Hill, in corridors well served by transit.

Details are scant BOUNTIFUL at CHS (update: their post says the coffee shop will close on the 9th). But word on the street is that they're going close shop within two weeks, so I called B&O. An employee explained moments ago that they need to "be out by the 31st of December, so the 9th is our last day of business."

Want to help make Seattle affordable? We should do what the New York Times describes here:

IN July, when Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg announced his competition to create a building of residential “micro-units” in Manhattan, each ranging from 275 to 300 square feet, the plan ignited the imagination of countless architects and developers. ...

The allure of living in New York City, particularly for young singles, is as inexorable as the cruel math of making it happen. With rents heading in one direction only and more people wanting to live here, it’s a good bet that most people who move to the city will get considerably less space than they had hoped. But after they work through all the mental moves required to justify their choice to the dumbfounded — “You’re paying that much for this?”— comes the real adjustment: nesting in a space scarcely bigger than a bird’s nest.

You can already imagine the cries of classism if our City Hall encouraged developers to start building 150-square-foot apartments. The anti-density, lesser-Seattle howlers would line up to declare a competition like that a demeaning assault on the lower class, a threat to the dignity of renters everywhere, or evidence of gentrification! "Making our spaces smaller and our living conditions more congested and densely populated still smells like inequity," a commenter wrote when I advocated for smaller apartments a couple years back. And another scolded me, "Your perspective could use a level of class analysis and a little humility." Sorry, but I think that accommodating our growing population by shipping workers into the low-density sprawl of the exurbs is what reeks of inequity and classism. By shunting workers into areas poorly served by transit, they end up spending a giagntic chunk of their paycheck and time on car commuting. And a lot of those cries are insincere: Well-to-do residents of established neighborhoods oppose density in the name of legitimate-sounding concerns—like lack of parking, improper environmental reviews, and shadows from new buildings—while they mostly fear living near poor renters (Exhibit A). If you're actually interested accommodating houses and jobs for workers—which I am—then you also care about their right to live in the fucking city where they goddamn work. And, realistically, Seattle's trend of building 600-square-foot, one-bedroom apartments means a single person needs to pay upwards of $1,300 to live in town. Lots of workers just can't afford that.

The smattering of subsidies, like the city's housing levy, will never add up to provide homes for even half of the workers who want to live here but can't afford it. But by encouraging small apartments—200 to 350 square feet—affordable rentals can be built without any incentives or assistance at all. They'll need the cultural blessing of the mayor, the council, the media, the neighborhoods. And yeah, some sanctimonious dicks will scream bloody murder. Fuck 'em. They don't have to live in 'em, right? With property values eternally rising and the affordable stock disappearing in places like Pike/Pine, lower Queen Anne, Belltown, and the U-District, the way to keep the city diverse, vibrant—and accommodating for regular workers—is to build affordable rentals close to the city, where the jobs are. Seattle shouldn't be an enclave for the wealthy.

King County property records show that the million-dollar property with the lovely view on 333 Lakeside Avenue South belongs to Randall Spaan and Betty Lock, and over the last eight years, they've applied for permits that began with a retaining wall, added a large garage and basement, and then stacked two more floors to make the house what is—technically speaking—a three-story house with a basement. As you can see from this photo taken from the street, sent by a source asking not to be named, the home is rather large:

"The house now looms over the surrounding homes and already blocks the view of Mt. Rainier from many of the homes to the north," says our ticked off Slog tipper. "To add insult to injury, the homeowner has raised a banner on the house which reads:"

First, HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!

Second, I called Bryan Stevens at the city's Department of Planning and Development—aka The Government—about Mr. Spaan's property.

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Here's the newly released construction proposal for the Bauhaus Block that would wrap a seven-story, 160-unit apartment building around the old Timken Building and Melrose Building. This is an important, controversial project that tests the city's ability to increase density while retaining the character structures that define Capitol Hill. (We've written about the project here and more recently here).

You can look at Hewitt architects' designs in this fat design packet, and here are a couple images of their preferred design:

• HEWITT

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Miko writes with a question shared by many people with eyeballs: "Is it possible that during a public design review for these large real estate projects in Seattle (Capitol Hill), one could stand up and say, "Please, for the love of God, don't paint your building that horrible yellow/brown/orange scheme?"

WHAT COULD MIKO BE TALKING ABOUT?

• DH
• Baylis Architects did this.

Okay, okay, this thing on 13th and Madison Street—that Baylis Architects presented as something far more appetizing when it was just a drawing—is one of the ugliest things the human brain could imagine. Did Stevie Wonder design it? With help from Helen Keller? Who's dead. The problem isn't just the colors, which I kinda like, but just the fact that it's a composition failure. And there are lots of new developments now on the way because lenders are investing in urban, mixed use properties again and lots of design review meetings are scheduled this summer. So here's my message to Miko:

Hi, Miko, nice eyeballs.

You can totally go to the design review board meetings and beg developers to refrain from using hideous color palettes. But, I'll warn you...

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This is the first glimpse of architect Dave Hewitt's plans for a controversial development project at Melrose Avenue and East Pine Street. As we reported in April, Madison Development Group caused a firestorm when they bought several properties, including two character structures nearly a century old, with plans to construct a seven-story building on the site. But the firm was reticent to commit to preserving the structures—saying they could be gutted or razed. They have since committed to saving the two buildings.

Drawings released today show Hewitt's vision for constructing the new apartment building behind and around the old buildings.

• HEWITT
• A rendering of the preserved Timken Building (left) and preserved Melrose Building (right) with the new proposed structure being proposed by Madison Development Group

The exterior of the old buildings will be "exactly as they are today," Hewitt told me in a recent interview. The floor plans will also be kept largely intact, and they intend—they say—to maintain the same density of street-level retail spaces that make the block one of the most commercially and culturally vibrant stretches of Capitol Hill. The new building will be set back from the roof lines of the old buildings by around 15 feet. Hewitt and Madison Development Group will present their plans to the city's Design Review Board on July 18 at 8:00 p.m.

My TCW: Take these folks at their word that they'll preserve the building's old functions (dense, relatively affordable retail), but citizens should keep their eye on this project. Go to the design review meeting and ask questions. This block is exemplary of the neighborhood's useful stock of character buildings, and successful community pressure for good design will set precedent heading into the next development cycle.

Mayor Mike McGinn's office announced a new "zoning proposal for South Lake Union" yesterday in a press release that, strangely, didn't explain what that zoning proposal would be (or acknowledge that it will cause some neighbors to shit cinder blocks—which I'll explain in a bit). However, his office did boast that the plan would provide capacity for as many as 12,000 new housing units and office space for 22,000 new jobs. So I got a copy of the proposed zoning map, which would raise heights up to 400 feet high along Denny Way and 240 feet throughout most of the remaining neighborhood.

Here's an autumnal-hued diagram:

• South Lake Union: Current height limits in the area range from 40 feet to 125 feet—as you can see in these maps here and here.

Brace yourself for renewed howls from residents on the western slope of Capitol Hill and other neighborhoods who could lose their views of the Space Needle. (I've written about this view controversy, the earlier proposals, the community board stacked with real-estate interests, and assorted outcry when the planning began more than four years ago under former mayor Greg Nickels.)

The inevitable howls can and should be ignored. There are three reasons why:

First: This proposal won't create a wall of buildings. It would limit development to two towers per block, and it would, in buildings over 160 feet, limit their floor size to 10,500 square feet. Furthermore, residential towers could not cover more than half the property. This is to say, taller buildings will be set back from the street with many bright, view-friendly gaps between them.

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• Kyle Johnson

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UPDATE: I've confirmed with a spokesperson for Madison Development Group that the company is under contract to buy the property and has filed a proposal with the city to develop a seven-story apartment building on the site. The spokesperson says that construction is slated to begin in June 2013 and will last for roughly 18 months. All told, the development will consume roughly half the city block (the two buildings on Pine and one property behind them) and "There will not be a tanning salon," the spokesperson added, while explaining the type of retail they hope to attract will remain characteristic with the Pike/Pine neighborhood.

"We are Capitol Hill fans—we love the neighborhood and we understand how important it is to get this block right," says Jim Gallaugher, a partner in the Madison Development Group. "Our goal is to keep the character of Pine Street the way it is today—and to build on that culture with a project the neighborhood will embrace."

Madison Development has constructed several developments that fuse apartments and grocery stores, including the Safeway on 23 and Madison.

Here's the original post: Right now, there's no confirmation—despite calls to the rumor generator and the property owner—but according to the Facebook page of Spine and Crown Books, the beautiful warren of shops on Pine Street between Melrose and Bellevue has been sold:

Yep. They sold the building out from under us. June 2013, the whole block closes. That's Mud Bay, Edies, Le Frock, Wall of Sound, Spine and Crown, Scout, Vutique, and Bauhaus. Our spaces will be a hole in the ground thereafter.

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