Two winters ago my bathtub faucet wouldn't turn off. I turned the water off at the shutoff valve on the floor and started taking the faucet apart. While I was able to get the thing off the bathtub, I couldn't figure out what to do to fix it and I couldn't get it taken further apart. I took the whole awkward setup to the back of the mercantile where a man with a scraggly red beard showed me how to fix it. "What you need is a bigger wrench," he said. Using the largest crescent wrench I've ever seen, he very delicately took the fixture apart. He showed me the crumbling washers. "There's your problem right there." After digging through little plastic drawers for o-rings and flat washers, he put the whole thing back together. Not only that, he dispelled my fear of plumbing for good. It's the tools that make the difference, I know that now. The whole transaction cost me about 14 cents.You can bet I was disappointed when they closed.

 

I'm not the only one in the neighborhood who had that kind of positive experience in the Mercantile. When we had our block party last summer, the community's post-Mercantile depression was all anyone could talk about. Our sense of loss was real and our sense of trepidation about what was to come next kept us all on our toes. The guy who cuts my hair had a different story for me each time about what was happening next: Fred Meyer, Trader Joe's...who knew?

 

We'd heard a lot of different things about what was going to happen on that site and were expecting, community wide, a mixed use project with street level businesses and affordable housing on the second and third floor. The city had built just that two blocks south of the Mercantile site. They'd charmed the district with the project and when it was done we all responded in much the same way. "Hey, it's not bad. Not bad at all, actually, I kind of like it." We got a two small businesses and nice little restaurant along with some new neighbors who didn't need our already scarce parking spaces. It was a successful project and what we hoped for from the new project just up the block. Instead, we got a Walgreen's.

 

The site is just two blocks from my house. I'm sure I was not the first person to notice that something was up. The developer was very carefully gutting the project. The east wall was buttressed with supports that anchored it to the roof. The roof itself was getting the same kind of treatment. It seemed as though every other beam was spared, new beams were installed, then the old beams were knocked out. It was peculiar and the entire neighborhood eyed the site with suspicion. We all had the same reaction: we thought they were trying to circumvent city code.

 

There's an old brick apartment complex just behind the Walgreen's site. It's not just any old brick building, it's an Anhalt building. Anhalt built a number of apartment complexes in Seattle in the 1920's and they are city treasures. This one recently went condo, displacing some sad long term renters and bringing in a lot of well heeled new owners. There's only one way to describe those new owners: They're mad as hell and not going to take it any more. They've been living in a construction zone for over a year now, not only because of the Walgreen's, but because of the new condos built just north of them on the former site of two little ramshackle Capitol Hill houses.

 

The Anhalt residents are mad about how their alley, the one they use to access their parking spaces, is going to be used as a loading zone by Walgreen's delivery trucks. They're mad about the new super bright lighting installed outside their windows. They're mad about the revision of traffic patterns through the parking lot which will direct exiting traffic straight in to the West side of their building. They're mad about the lack of a barrier between the parking lot and their homes. They're mad about a host of other things   too. They're mad at the city and the developer and Walgreen's and they're still mad that the Mercantile could leave us like this. How could they?!

 

Visions of pitchforks and flaming torches went through my head at last night's community meeting. Angry villagers were preparing to storm the castle, routing the evil scientist and his monster too.

 

The representative from the Department of Construction and Land Use (DCLU) stood at the front of the room trying to form complete sentences but was continually interrupted by one angry citizen after the other. I'm pretty sure his heart was in the right place, but he didn't have a chance. In his heavy black suit and aviator style glasses, he was out of place from the start. My neighbors glared at him through their skinny designer spectacles and jumped to their sport-moc shod feet to interrupt him. They crossed their performance outdoor wear clad arms. They unwrapped their imported textile scarves and clenched them between their carpal tunnel weary hands. My neighbors are, in general, a well educated bunch of citizens, familiar with not just the spirit, but the letter of the law. They're articulate, bold, and as I've already stated, mad as hell. The DCLU guy was tarred and feathered by the community. All he wanted to do was tell the story about how the project had come to fruition, but he was continually shouted down with "how could you let that happen?!" types of interjections.

 

The other non-neighborhood representatives faired somewhat better. The broker who'd arranged the deal showed up in a rather snappy turtleneck and stated clearly that he was no advocate for either side but had come prepared to share information. The two additional DCLU representatives made kind and soft-spoken suggestions to the room about how their feedback could make a difference to the permitting process in the future. 

 

There were a few clear statements.  The DCLU agreed to get an inspector to the site as soon as possible. The Community Council leader suggested that the community needed to hire a land use lawyer. The broker stated that he would be available to arrange a meeting between a Walgreen's representative (I pity her) and the community in the next few days. The meeting broke up shortly thereafter, but only because the hall was closing.

 

Who knows what's going to happen on the Walgreen's site. I suspect we'll get our Walgreen's like it or not, and that the neighbors will furiously boycott it. I wouldn't be surprised to a picket line outside. I anticipate a lawsuit focusing on quality of life will be brought against the Walgreen's, or perhaps against the city, by the residents of the Anhalt apartment building. I imagine that more businesses in the district will go under, only partially because of the Walgreen's.

 

I'll be going to more community meetings, that's for sure. While I'm neutral on the Walgreen's from a business perspective, I have a strong connection to my neighborhood and I don't want to see big box stores coming here. I want the character of the neighborhood to be treated with respect. There's no doubt that the neighbors feel, in varying degrees, the same way that I do. The challenge will be to make the outsiders coming here to respect the way we feel about our neighborhood. Maybe in respecting the neighbor's feelings, they will acquire some of that feeling for themselves. It seems only good common sense to win over the people who live in the vicinity of your business. Without winning them over, you're left with nothing but a bunch of angry villagers that are sure to shop elsewhere.