December 2008

On Dec. 15 the Seattle City Council passed a bill in an effort to create more housing for low-income residents. Two projects planned for Ballard are seeking to do the same thing.

In late February the Compass Center, with the help of loans from United Way of King County and the city of Seattle, purchased the property at 1753 N.W. 56th St. from the Low Income Housing Institute with the intent of constructing low-income housing for single adults.

Rick Friedhoff, executive director of the Compass Center, said the project is in the early stages of development but it will most likely be a six-story, 50,000-square-feet building housing 60 to 75 residents. Construction should start in fall 2010, he said.

The Compass Center provides housing and services to low-income and homeless adults in King County. They operate about 16 sites, including a 26-person veterans center in Shoreline and a 32-unit residential building in the Cascade neighborhood. Construction is set to begin on a residential building in Renton that will be similar in size to the Ballard project.

In July the Crown Lutheran Church at 1501 N.W.

People may not dining out as much in Ballard but they seem to still be flocking to the bars.

While restaurant business is down, happy hours, specials and promotions are on the rise.

For the Austin Cantina, "business crashed right along with the stock market," said owner Jefe Birkner. The restaurant is likely to close before the holidays.

Retrospectively, Birkner wondered if it would have been a good idea to try to lower meal prices to meet people's expectations and needs.

Even though restaurants are feeling the effects of penny-pinching attitudes, they are hanging in there and adapting to customers new savvy-spending trends.

"They (people) are still coming in to dine, but being more cautious about what they are spending," said Rays Boathouse marketing and public relations manager, Lori Magaro.

Update: 5:20 p.m., Monday The power outage below has reportedly been fixed by Seattle City Light crews.

Dave Leask is mild-mannered, amicable, and loves his job. If you met him you might like him. But if you drive and are in a hurry, you may not like what he does.

From his 10-by-12 foot office, a tower perched precariously 64 feet above Salmon Bay, he opens and closes the double-leaf bascule Ballard Bridge for commercial and pleasure boats over 40 feet high, while leaving no stalled vehicles, bicyclists, or stragglers on its 218-foot expanse. The bridge's clearance is 44 feet in winter, 42 in summer.

Heavy snowfall and freezing temperatures the last few days has made travel hazardous and forced many Ballard residents to stay home from work. But the snow wasn't bad news for everyone in the neighborhood last Friday.

Hattie's Hat on Ballard Avenue was three times busier than normal on Thursday afternoon said Hattie's bartender Brian Plonsky.

"A snow storm around here makes it busier because people don't want to drive," Plonsky said.

After last week's full city council vote, Seattle Parks had been approved for the purchase of both Seattle School District surplus properties Webster Park and Crown Hill Elementary; however they do not expect to close in on any deals until mid-January.

Crown Hill Elementary priced at $5.4 million and Webster's purchase price was $1.6 million.

In October Small Faces Child Development finalized a purchase price for the former Crown Hill Elementary School building from the Seattle School District after it was declared as surplus property.

The building and childcare playground was finalized at a purchase price of $1,003,000.

Last week on the same property the Seattle Parks Department was approved for purchase of the playground and playfield area.

With the recently passed Parks and Green Spaces Levy in November, there will now be money to make improvements to the Crown Hill Playground said Donald Harris, manager 2 of Seattle Parks and Recreation.

Eric Lanzillotta is sitting behind a counter on the wide-open top floor of Resolution Audio Video on Leary Way. He's surrounded by blackness; the walls, floor, ceiling and railing; even the half-filled CD shelves are black.

Lanzillotta's dark corner is the record store Dissonant Plane, which he opened in late November with his son Tanith, and it could not be more at odds with the rest of the floor, which is covered in light colors from ceiling to carpet.

The jarring visual split between Dissonant Plane and the rest of Resolution Audio seems fitting for a record store that takes seemingly every opportunity to go against the status quo.

Lanzillotta is opening Dissonant Plane at a time when a slumping economy is forcing business closures all over the country and the record business is suffering through an eight-year sales nosedive.

To further fight convention Dissonant Plane will focus its stock on metal, avant garde, experimental and classical music, among other genres, ignoring popular music almost entirely.

"It's all about presenting things we believe in," Lanzillotta said.

Extra funding beyond the $2.8 billion committed to replacing the viaduct, which will be necessary to pay for a bored tunnel to go with a surface-transit scenario, should come from local taxes or tolling.

Committee members, who fought snow and ice to attend the last meeting of the Alaskan Way Viaduct Stakeholders Advisory Committee Thursday, Dec.

When my heart doctor could not find anything broken last week he noted my walking stick and shortly enrolled me in muscle therapy lessons on the Highline Medical center campus.

A week later I wobbled into the classroom for my first lesson and met my instructor, a girl less than a quarter my age.

She took one look at this human wreckage, pointed at an adjustable padded bench and asked me to sit down. I backed up to it, grabbed the edge with both hands and plopped down with a crash.

She frowned and said "no, no, no, no plopping. You are a plopper. No hands.

The Sloop isn't just your average bar. Call it dive bar of dive bars. If a yuppie Belltown cocktail lounge is on one end of the spectrum, then on the opposite end is The Sloop. I enjoy both.

There's something about this establishment that makes it a Ballard icon, a throwback to Ballard's true fishing roots.

Owner Charley Files has owned The Sloop for almost ten years.