SEATTLE — Neighbors looked on in pleasant disbelief Tuesday morning as boarded up homes were torn down right across from Roosevelt High School in Seattle. For the right to rebuild on the land a development group paid $3.48 million in liens owed by property owner Hugh Sisley.
The properties along 65th Street have long been an eyesore in the neighborhood and the liens stemmed from countless code violations.
“They just keep getting worse and worse and worse the longer they sit,” said neighbor Rachel Weghorst. “I've live here 30 years and I never thought I'd see them come down.”
The Roosevelt Development Group is now leasing the land from Sisley at 16th Avenue and 65th Street to put up a mixed-use building. It will have retail on the bottom and market rate plus affordable housing on top.
Once the homes being demolished Tuesday are gone the developer will break ground. But this is just the beginning. The Roosevelt Development Group now controls five blocks of Hugh Sisley properties along 65th. They'll tear it all down and build it back up. The whole project will take about five years.
Sisley still controls the land, but the ground lease means he no longer controls what's on top of it for you to see.
“It's such good land,” said Weghorst. “So they can put it to use instead of slums everywhere.”
KIRO
