It's latte limbo for B&O Espresso

When B&O Espresso opened its doors on Capitol Hill three decades ago, there was hardly a good cup of coffee to be found in Seattle. People told the owner she was crazy to think she'd make money on lattes and a cookie or two.

Ever since, the cozy restaurant with eggplant-colored walls, velvet couches and sumptuous desserts has catered equally to the desires of iconoclasts, students, engaged couples and ladies who lunch.


		Dan DeLong / P-I
	Victor Janusz of Seattle sips tea Thursday in B&O Espresso on Capitol Hill. The future of the coffee shop is in limbo with development plans to tear down the building.

Now the venerable coffee shop is in limbo, with a proposal to tear down its one-story building for a mixed-use development with apartments or condos above retail space.

"To me it's a cultural landmark. ... I can't imagine it not being here," said Eleanore Drummond, a Seattle native who manages a nearby strength-training facility.

"It represents everything that's stylish and friendly about Seattle, and it's been a hangout for college students and intellectuals since the entire time I've been aware of it," she said.

John Stoner, the owner of the building at the corner of East Olive Way and Belmont Avenue East, said he'd love to keep B&O Espresso as a tenant in the ground floor of the new building, which could be up to six stories.

Despite incomplete details posted on a city land use notice -- which led many to fear the proposed retail space would be too small for B&O -- Stoner said he's willing to design the building's commercial area to meet the restaurant's needs.

"We have a wonderful tenant that we'd like to keep," he said. "I think the ultimate decision as to whether the B&O stays in that location is their decision as to whether they want to wait for the space."

B&O owner Majed Lukatah said he's not sure what will happen, but that his family intends to keep the business going.

He worries what a yearlong construction closure would do to his employees, some of whom have worked there for decades. If customers start finding coffee and company somewhere else, would they return?

"I have mixed feelings. I don't know whether I should just wait and come back to my own location or go somewhere else," he said.

He and his wife, Jane, who started the B&O in 1976, tried to buy their building the last time it went on the market. But they came up several thousand dollars short compared with the money that those with redevelopment plans could afford to pay.

Lukatah says he's interested in other Capitol Hill locations, ideally one with charm rather than the bland new spaces going up everywhere.

"I have lots of options with the new buildings but I want a building with character," he said, waving his arm in a place with people eating everything from Egyptian soup to corned beef hash to exquisite pastries.

"The new places have concrete walls and no charm and no life," he said. "Not any building will fit the B&O. The B&O has a special character, which I will try to create again."

Hayley Young, who got her first job in Seattle as a waitress there, said she's not necessarily opposed to the taller buildings going up everywhere if it helps make apartments more affordable and addresses some of Broadway's chronic problems with panhandling, drug use and other street troubles.

But the 23-year-old -- who's helping launch a non-profit to raise awareness about uninsured artists, musicians and service workers -- doesn't like projects that fail to respect or even destroy the unique fabric of a neighborhood.

"When the (Broadway) Market got turned into QFC, Broadway took a hit and lost a certain neighborhood vibe," she said. "This place is kind of a staple for that."

Wednesday is the first community meeting about the development project, which would have about 75 housing units and an underground parking garage that could be a huge benefit to a business like B&O Espresso.

There are some general choices for neighbors to consider, such as whether they'd rather see glassy retail or townhouses fronting the more residential Belmont Avenue side, said Brandon Nicholson, with Nicholson Kovalchick Architects.

Nothing is set in stone, he said, in part because the design team didn't want to go too far in any one direction before getting community input.

Drummond said it's not enough just to provide a physical space for the B&O. It would have to remain affordable, and the design ought to look like something other than a corporate, cookie-cutter retail space.

She's less concerned about tall buildings and denser neighborhoods than she is about the gentrification that seems to inevitably occur in the process.

"I know that we have to grow up, and it's important," she said. "But I also think balance is important and a lot of times gentrification just destroys the old and puts in the new and that's what I'm concerned is going to happen here."

WANT TO GET INVOLVED?

The community can have a say at the first design meeting for the B&O Espresso property. It's set for 6:30 p.m. Wednesday at Seattle Central Community College, 1701 Broadway, Room 3211.

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