The Central District‘s Pratt Fine Arts Center is gathering proposals for the creation of an arts-based community, with a mixture of housing, studios, office space, and gathering space. This “arts district” will transform the center’s property between South Main and Jackson streets and 19th and 20th avenues south.

The exact make-up of the district and the timeline for the build out will be largely left up to the developer chosen through the proposal process. Proposals are due October 11.

Image by Alec Miller. (Left to right) Glass Artist Kelly O’Dell blows an Ammonite, assisted by Patricia Davidson, Lydia Boss, and Raven Skyriver at the Pratt Open House, “One Hot Night,” Sept 7, 2013

Currently, Pratt’s offices are crowded into inadequate space, overflowing into classrooms and studios in some places, so part of the impetus for a new development is to relocate the office space. Other parts of the project will help Pratt establish a Jackson Street-facing front office, and perhaps a public cafe and/or other gathering areas where artists can mingle and share work.

“The whole concept is an artists’ hub,” says Pratt Executive Director Steve Galatro. “These spaces will face inward to create synergy among the buildings.” The new development will utilize parts of the property that currently sit empty or house parking, which Galatro envisions moving underground. He says about 120 residents may be housed in the future loft space.

The new development will share the block with one of Pratt’s studio spaces. Here, and in Pratt’s space on S. Main Street abutting Pratt Park, established artists and curious beginners can take classes on glass blowing, jewelry, metals, drawing, painting, printmaking, and more. The nonprofit welcomes around 20,000 visitors a year to its classes, exhibitions, and open houses.

Pratt is working with real estate advisory firm Heartland, LLC, to oversee the development. The timeline on accepting a proposal and beginning construction is very open, but Galatro emphasized the nonprofit wants to move things along as quickly as possible.

The announcement of Pratt’s new project comes on the heels of another potential development along the Jackson Street corridor. Developer Isola Capitol proposes building 160-unit Atlantic Flats at 1801 S. Jackson Street, and the area is poised for further projects.

“It’s a viable retail corridor, with the population density going up,” says Galatro. “Pratt is at the heart of it all.”

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A gaggle of judges and home brewers packed into Standard Brewing on Saturday for a people’s choice competition among members of the Central District Brewing Collective.

Judges sampled ten home brews and rated them on their aroma, appearance, flavor, mouthfeel, and overall appeal. The top-rated beer of the day was from Central District resident Chris Prost, whose creation “Simarillion Pale Ale,” made with Simcoe and Amarillo hops, received the highest marks.

“The name [Simarillion] is both a play on the hops used in the beer and an off-hand reference to one of J.R.R. Tolkien’s ‘mythopeic’ works (although spelled slightly differently),”
Prost says. “I brewed the beer as an anniversary gift to my hop-loving wife, Michelle. It’s a golden-hued ale with a biscuit-y malt character and a bold citrus/pine aroma and flavor.” A keg of Simarillion will be on tap at Standard until it runs out.

Second place went to Greg Guzauskas with a Belgian twist on an IPA called Mr. Belevedere, and third place went to Tim Frommer for his Backyard Plum Dubbel.

In other news, Standard’s Justin Gerardy is planning to turn his patio space into a winter beer garden of sorts. Gerardy is waiting on a custom covering to keep you dry until the sun comes out again. He’ll heat the space with a propane heat lamp, too. The set up will be ready any day now.

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This Mayoral forum will be moderated by Jim Kelly, Executive Director of 4Culture and cosponsored by Allied Arts and League of Women Voters. While there is a slight arts twist in that they touch on things like historic preservation and arts education, they really focus on key issues for Seattle as a livable city – transportation, public safety, education, and zoning.

Bring friends and neighbors too!  It will be more than worth your while.

The doors open at 6:30 and the program starts at 7:00 p.m.  The event is being held at the Cornish Playhouse – formerly Intiman – at Seattle Center.

Thousands of students have passed through the doors at TT Minor.   It is indeed, a special place.   All of us at Hamlin Robinson are honored to call TT Minor home.  This location has proven a good step for HRS, our students, their families and the greater Seattle community.  HRS serves students with dyslexia and related language difficulties.

Thanks to the larger space, we have been able to increase enrollment from 106 in 2009 to a projected 190 in 2013-14.  We have also been able to extend our reach into the community by developing the HRS Learning Center which provides over 200 tutoring sessions each month as well as professional development opportunities for parents, educators and professionals.

However, this was always intended to be a temporary location.   Our five year lease with Seattle Public Schools expires in 2015.

On nearly an acre of land, our new home will be located just behind the Oberto’s retail store on Massachusetts Avenue South.

Parents and residents in a northern swatch of the Central District, from Madison Avenue to Cherry Street and from 14th to 23rd Avenues (called Areas 42 and 43) are hoping to influence the school district to reopen TT Minor as the area’s elementary school.

The group’s impetus for forming is a recent projection that Stevens Elementary School will surpass its current capacity for students in the next several years. As a result, Seattle Public Schools has proposed boundary changes that will reassign students near Stevens’ southern boundary to either Madrona K-8 or Lowell Elementary. The group would prefer the district reopen TT Minor.

The school district is fielding feedback on its proposed boundary changes at several upcoming meetings, including one on Monday at Meany Middle School from 6:30 to 8:00 p.m. The neighborhood group will be present at the Monday meeting to express their thoughts on TT Minor.

The group outlined its goals in a recent media release sent to Central District News:

Our short-term request is to maintain the current boundaries in order to provide stability to the families of Area 42 and 43 that have been shuffled around time and time again in the years since the closing of TT Minor Elementary.  Our long-term goal is to reopen TT Minor as a neighborhood elementary school as soon as funding and administrative processes allow.

Utilizing the Seattle Public Schools Guiding Principles as a template, our opinions concerning the matter are as follows:

• Since the closure of TT Minor Elementary in 2009, there has not been adequate data capturing the current density and growth projections for Area 42 and 43.  We are asking SPS to collect growth and density data for this neighborhood.  Based on our own knowledge of data from 2011 American community survey, Area 42 and 43 encompass two census tracts that together serve nearly 600 families.  Even if every family had only one elementary aged child and then, only two-thirds of families sent their child to a neighborhood elementary school, at least 400 students could be served.  This is more than the current or projected enrollments for Stevens, Montlake, Madrona, or McGilvra.
• Area 42 and 43 census tracts represent some of the most diverse in Seattle, yet it is one of the only neighborhoods that lacks a walkable neighborhood elementary school.  This is not an equitable application of public resources from a racial, cultural, or socioeconomic perspective.
• TT Minor provides a safe, walkable elementary school for all of the children of Area 42 and 43.  Travel to Madrona, Lowell, and Stevens requires busing and/or the crossing of multiple large and dangerous intersections. A walkable elementary school is also a key piece of the solution to the childhood obesity epidemic plaguing this country, especially minority children.
• The principle of minimizing disruptions by aligning new boundaries with old is totally ignored in the case of Area 42 and 43.  There is a long history of boundary changes in this neighborhood that do not allow for any sort of consistency with school assignments among neighbors and sometimes, even within families.  There are cases where on a single block there are 4 families being served by 4 different schools, all of which were assigned, not chosen.  We feel the introduction of a stable neighborhood school would rectify this issue in the long term.  We are located such that we are bound to be moved time and time again as density more near to neighborhood schools like Stevens, Madrona, and Lowell increases.
• By reopening TT Minor as a neighborhood school, the district will save transportation costs as well as the cost of repurposing a building currently suitable for elementary students for any other proposed use.

We are asking Seattle Public Schools to deeply consider our request based on the needs of Area 42 and 43 as outlined above.  We are devoted parents asking for equitable access to a neighborhood school.  Reopening TT Minor Elementary is a sensible and sustainable long-term strategy. The current proposed growth boundary changes are yet another Band-Aid, short-term fix, ignoring the SPS’s own data and guiding principles.

Central District News plans to further cover the boundary changes as the story evolves.