Right on schedule, at 2:22 p.m in the middle of Ballard, a flash mob pillow fight began with a whistle blow. Pillows suddenly appeared out of nowhere, and over 50 people started swinging. Everyone was a little timid. At first. After the first few smacks, people started getting into it. Even this intrepid reporter took …
Safeway on Crown Hill has just opened its gas station to a low introductory price of $3.40 a gallon, which is about .15 cents cheaper than everywhere else. Plus, you can get an additional .20 cents off if you’re a Safeway card member and buy $50 bucks worth of groceries. You may remember, Safeway’s plans …
The group that’s worked hard to save the Denny’s building from demolition has sent My Ballard a letter responding to Benaroya Company’s lawsuit. Save Manning’s calls it an “obvious scare tactic” that’s designed to influence the administrative appeal process. “It’s one thing to try to overturn the Board’s decision. It’s another to go after the Landmarks Preservation Ordinance itself,” reads the letter. “The attack on the ordinance is a vindictive action by those who feel a great sense of entitlement. Rather than braying about how they’ve been ‘injured’ from an economic standpoint or deprived of their ‘rights,’ why not use their seemingly endless energy and resources to propose a win-win solution—one that preserves the building (not as a boarded up Denny’s but as a rehabilitated building), allows for an economically viable new development, and enhances the neighborhood? We have repeatedly shown there is a feasible alternative to demolition.”
The letter continues, “Save Manning’s is not anti-development. We are for sensitive and appropriate new development within the context of Ballard and Seattle’s existing built environment…. Let this decision stand; it was made thoughtfully, appropriately and legally.” The full letter follows below…
If you were driving along Leary around 10 p.m. on Friday, you saw a long line of fire engines outside an apartment complex at 41st. The fire was isolated to a single unit, and nobody was seriously injured. But it was exciting enough for a couple TV crews to show up.
After a couple months of preparations, the Ballard Mandarin Chinese restaurant has opened at the corner of Market and 8th Ave. “I ate there last night,” James told My Ballard. “(It) will take a while to work through the expansive menu, but they pulled it off fairly well. Not easy the first week or so …
If you’re feeling a little feisty this Sunday, bring your pillow to Bergen Place (that triangular park with the mural), on the Market St. side, between Ballard Ave. and 22nd. “Standard flash mob format,” reads the email that’s flying around. “Conceal your pillow, look busy. Listen for the whistle.” It’ll blow at 2:22 p.m., which …
University Swaging, looking to expand its aerospace manufacturing facility, has decided to move out of Ballard to Snohomish County. “We looked a lot in Ballard, it’s always been a great area for us,” said Conrad Scheffler, GM of the company, a division of Primus International. “But at the end of the day, trying to find …
The Stranger’s blog, Slog, posted this funny photo of graffiti on Ballard Ave. (Thanks Mantini for sending us the link!)
The Benaroya Company has filed suit in King County Superior Court to challenge the Landmark Preservation Board’s vote to designate the Ballard Denny’s building as a historic landmark. The lawsuit aims to reverse the board’s decision. “The boarded up former Denny’s is not an important historic or architectural building, nor the work of a significant architect,” said Marc Nemirow, spokesman for Benaroya, in a press release emailed to My Ballard. “The landmark board agreed with these conclusions, but incredulously decided to designate the building a landmark anyway. This action isn’t legal.” Crosscut’s Knute Berger writes that the lawsuit “alleges, among other things, that the Landmarks Board action is ‘illegal and erroneous,’ that it violated procedure, and that it violated the owner’s constitutional rights.”
Meanwhile, Nemirow says Benaroya will move forward with the administrative process and “assist the board in a proper evaluation of the economic impacts of its decision.” We’ll post reaction from the building’s supporters as soon as we get it. The press release announcing the lawsuit follows below…
You might not think of Ballard and Fremont as as tech corridor, but it is. “There are lots of interesting tech companies in the ship canal tech corridor — the Silicon Canal? — that would be great to surface at a tech event,” writes Seattle Times tech blogger Brier Dudley. Sure enough, coming on March …
We’ve never attended, but we’ve seen the massive influx of people every Sunday at the Mars Hill Church on Leary Way. What started in Ballard several years ago has turned into one of the fastest-growing churches in America with new locations in Shoreline, Redmond, West Seattle, Wedgwood and coming March 16th, in Belltown. Pastor Mark …
If you were driving down 15th Ave in Interbay (at Dravus) last night, you would’ve seen quite the commotion. Police tried to pull someone over, and he tried to escape by driving the wrong way down 15th until he hit someone. Then he tried to carjack someone else. That’s when officers tasered the guy and …