A Sticky Development -- Once The Good-Guy, David Sucher Is Now The Bad Guy Who Wants To Disturb The Home Of The Honey Bear Bakery

What we've got here, besides one of those quintessential Seattle fights, is what you'd call a heavy amount of irony. How do you go from being a good-guy developer to, in the eyes of some neighbors, somebody who's ready to kick out a beloved cafe and a cherished little grocery store?

"If I hadn't done such a good job, people wouldn't be complaining," the 52-year-old man sitting across the table at the Honey Bear Bakery in Wallingford is saying. And he's right.

Meet David Sucher, 52, who's gotten neighbors near that cafe a little bit on the upset side. When the city had a hearing on Sucher's plans for the site, (which include tearing down the building and replacing it with something four times bigger) 200 people showed up. They were worried about the Honey Bear and the M & R Produce grocery in Sucher's existing building at North 55th Street and Meridian Avenue North.

"It's the owner wanting to max out the site that's frightening," Barbara Hartinger, a graphics designer who works out of her home in the neighborhood, told me. "We feel powerless."

Well, not so powerless, when 200 people can show up to grill a developer.

"Want to see what this building looked like when I bought it?" Sucher is saying. He's got a stack of photos. Back in 1984, when he purchased it for $185,000, it was a piece of junk, boarded up and empty except for a space rented by an artist.

Sucher gutted the building, put in large windows, tried to make it into a place that small businesses would want to rent. Then, he was the relatively good-guy developer, the one who has sold nearly 10,000 copies of a self-published book about his philosophy: "City Comforts - How to Build An Urban Village."

That urban village is a place where you can stroll to friendly businesses, where you can sit and talk, where you can be around fellow neighbors. His book is popular enough to have been translated into Japanese.

Then, he was the citizen-activist type who belonged to boards with names such as "Design Review Advisory Committee," which put together rules on what is and isn't good development. Now, Sucher finds himself making his case before such a review board, on the other side of all that public comment.

Back in the mid-'80s, it wasn't easy for Sucher to find tenants for his rejuvenated building. Finally, a real-estate broker put him together with a couple from Eastern Washington who eventually started the Honey Bear. Things were dicey enough for the bakery in those early years that the couple only rented half the space the cafe now occupies.

Then Sucher got George Le Blanc, owner of a neighborhood grocery store across the street that had lost its space elsewhere, to sign on. Le Blanc said he'd only rent if Sucher built roll-up doors for the store, as he wanted the feeling of a friendly produce market. After some negotiations, Sucher put in the roll-up doors.

The little commercial area began to thrive. The Honey Bear became a Seattle "landmark" within a decade. Seattle is a relatively young city. It doesn't take long to earn such a status.

The cafe even was featured in Esquire magazine as a mecca for middle-aged slackers, mostly men, who'd spend hours there sipping coffee and maybe typing on their laptops. The friendly shops became a selling point for nearby homes.

But times, they do change. Last year, the Honey Bear was sold to Ron Sher, the developer who turned Bellevue's failing Crossroads Shopping Center into a success. The cafe really isn't that quaint, family-owned joint anymore. It's a corporate quaint joint. Across the street from the cafe, a three-story residential and retail building is going up.

And so David Sucher decided it was time to do what developers do - which is develop. On a regular basis, he was getting inquiries about available space in the building.

Would the cafe and grocery store have a home in the new building? "Why would I throw out good businesses?" he says. But maybe they'd be forced out because of high rents to pay for the new project. "Rents are rents. It's irrelevant whether it's a new building or not."

The city is going to hold another public hearing, and probably 200 people will show up again, if not more.

Sucher said he has a question for those who believe he's the greedy developer. That Wallingford home they bought a few years ago for $175,000, and now is worth $300,000, would they sell it for less than market value?

"I haven't noticed any people doing that," he says.

Maybe it's time for a new chapter to that "City Comforts" book: "Why Developers Hire Public Relations Agencies." ------------------------------- Erik Lacitis' column runs Sunday, Tuesday and Friday. His phone number is 206-464-2237. His e-mail address is: elac-new@seatimes.com