Just wondering if anyone knows if something is happening with this space? It appears to me that some cosmetic changes are being made externally but I could be mistaken or just wishfully thinking. Thanks.
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It’s true that something’s happening, but I don’t have any info and am curious myself. I saw a man cleaning inside before the windows were papered over, and I think there’s been some external cleaning or replacement of wall surface.
Whatever business opens there, I look forward to our new neighbors.
Hi there –
I talked to the new owner a few months ago. He bought the building and the two adjacent lots from the Dilettante family. He is a local who owns a business refurbishing wood for construction, and he told me that he was hoping to use one of the lots for that.
He also said that he was hoping to use the space for another coffee shop, though he didn’t say what his plans were for the back of the building where the kitchen was. He thought the space needed to be more visible from the road and have more accessible parking in order to succeed as a coffee shop.
There are actually four lots on that corner. If you look there is a small for sale sign for the land on the north part of 23rd avenue with a drawing advertising how the space could be used for a small townhouse. It will be interesting to see if the land will sell or not.
This past weekend there was a crew of people working on the building and I noticed that they removed some of the tiles created by students on the exterior of the building. I personally hope that they aren’t planning on removing all of them.
Re the tiles – I hope that any that are removed will be saved and displayed again in some appropriate way, perhaps in or on the replacement business. If nothing else, they could perhaps go to the Garfield Community Center or the new Performing Arts Center, i.e., in a location geographically close to the original, with a plaque telling their history.
The tiles broke when they removed them, so I don’t think any will be saved. Not sure how we can have any influence over that one…….The tile describing the project and the students involved was also cracked and thrown away. Does anyone know who originally did the art? I’ve always assumed it was a project from Garfield High School, but I don’t know.
Coyote Junior High did the tiles for the building. Same school that made the whirley gigs for Gerber Park which is located at Cherry and Temple Place.
This upsets me. We talk about connecting with the kids, and sometimes they respond, and then we (the community or individuals or whoever could help) express our thanks and talk about it for a while but then don’t follow through to preserve what they did or at least the history of it. I’m as guilty of this as anyone. Maybe we need some sort of accountability group to just monitor this sort of thing and sound an alarm when necessary. Work with CAYA or something. I don’t know anything about all this – I just care.
Here’s the latest: I talked to a guy doing construction on the building this morning. They’ve completely gutted the building and made three separate commercial spaces. Word is that the guy who bought the building and the other two lots may have sold it to someone else yesterday.
The guy I talked to said he didn’t know anything about who might have bought it, but he thinks it’s likely that a coffee shop could go in. He said they are planning on making the lot to the East (between the building and the storage units) spaces for parking.