We are excited to share that we recently partnered with the City of Seattle on a year-long project to manage a building in Lake City for like-minded sustainable organizations and educational opportunities. We’ll host classes and events, and we will also invite other small reuse-and-repair-focused organizations to rent space at a highly subsidized rate.
A couple of organizations that have already signed on to join us in the space are Thread Together, Salvation Arts Collective, and Revolve Solar. We continue to chat with new folks, and we are still searching for other reuse and repair organizations to join us in the space.
This is all possible through the Seattle Restored initiative, which aims to “revive neighborhoods with creativity and commerce by empowering our local entrepreneurs to reinvigorate our city by activating empty storefronts,” and additional funding from SPU. They invited us to lead what we’re calling the Lake City Reuse Commons (LCRC) project. LCRC is a one-year pilot that will evaluate the feasibility and viability of a shared, neighborhood-based circular economy hub.
The hope of this initiative is that it will generate sufficient public interest and benefit from a circular-economy hub, enabling the city to see value in purchasing a building for Seattle REconomy and our partners.
We signed the lease for the building on April 14, and we plan to spend the next two months on repairs and updates. We’ll have a soft opening held alongside the tenant organizations at the end of June, with a grand opening planned for PNW Climate Week (July 13–19).
Look out for information soon on how you can help us maximize this opportunity and grow our class offerings in this new Lake City space!
As things develop, we’ll have more news to share, so be sure to sign up for our newsletter and follow us on social media (@seattlereconomy on most platforms). If you are interested in supporting this new adventure, please email us at info@seattlereconomy.org, and we can discuss what is needed and how you can help!
