A year ago, the McGuire apartments were still standing on the half-block along Second Avenue between Vine and Wall Streets in Belltown. But the 26-story building had been condemned because of unsafe construction procedures. Now all that's left on the half block is an empty lot. The owner of the property, the Carpenter's Local 131, and its real estate consultants, Bentall Kennedy, would dearly have loved to turn the site into a temporary parking lot, a potential gold mine in parking-starved Belltown. But the city's Department of Planning & Development(DPD), would not give its approval to a land use proposal that encouraged more automobile traffic in the downtown core. Scratch that plan.

DPD said they wanted "greater public access" to the site, so that's what contractor Lease Crutcher Lewis, is doing. They've doubled the width of the sidewalk, and today they planted a few trees along the way. The trees are perfectly spaced to frame what could become Seattle's first pod for food trucks. More accurately, food carts, A longtime neighborhood restaurateur, who welcomes any increase in traffic along Belltown's sidewalks, says that's what the plan is--for the McGuire site to be home to Seattle's first food cart pod.

¸ All Rumor Mongering on Eater Seattle [-ESEA-]

