By Lindsay Peyton

An overgrown lot located on the corner of 50 Ave SW and SW Dakota St has become the center of a big vision for a few dedicated West Seattle residents.

To most, the property would be easy to pass by. The decommissioned Seattle City Light substation stands vacant, adorned only with a chained up gravel pad, where electric equipment once stood.

Katie Stemp, however, recognizes the site as an urban forest grove, complete with Scots pine, Pacific madrone, Ponderosa pine, Japanese maple and Lebanon cedar.

She wants to save the trees – and turn the plot into a green space, complete with demonstration gardens, greenhouse, fruit orchard, workshop space, park benches and an outdoor cob oven.

“We would have a covered structure where we can host classes, tons of raised beds in front, dwarf fruit trees and a container garden,” Stemp said. “We could show a lot of ways that people could grow food in their own space at home.”

She first discovered the 10,000 sq. ft. lot about two years ago, when it came up for sale by the City of Seattle.

The Seattle City Council agreed to allow an extension of the sale date for a community organization, if the group could raise the funding needed.

Stemp joined forces with Kristen Bedford and Phoebe Ingraham to create a nonprofit to meet the city’s requirements.

They formed the Urban Homestead Foundation – and the city granted them until the end of 2017 to purchase the site, which was recently appraised at $650,000.

The women named the project the “Dakota Homestead Site.”

Ingraham said their plan includes partnering with other educational organizations, as well as groupd those promoting sustainability and the environment. The lot could become a home for a rain garden or solar power demonstration site.

“People can take classes, learn it here and bring it back to their own space,” she said.