Stories

A reader pointed me to this PI story from earlier in the week, announcing a new deal between the developers of the big project on the Goodwill property and the surrounding communities that have been very outspoken against it.   

Some of the concessions listed in the story aren't new.  For example, the project has always had 200 units of affordable housing.    Here's the new pieces that I haven't heard of before:

Hire contractors that pay prevailing wages, provide health and retirement benefits, participate in minority- and women-owned business programs, strive to hire local residents through pre-apprentice programs and ensure that apprentices perform 15 percent of all work hours.

Ensure that grocery and drugstores stay neutral if employees decide to unionize and apply the same standards to janitors, security officers and other employees of the development.

Offer below-market rents on 5,000 square feet of space in the project to community nonprofits, equating to $1 million worth of rent subsidies.

Contribute $2...

Christine Palmer of Historic Seattle in her weekly e-newsletter of the Historic Seattle organization (www.historicseattle.org) has posted a message from the National Park Services Cultural Resources office regarding a historically significant neighborhood house now for sale.

According to Gretchen Luxenberg of the National Park Service "the George Washington Carmack House at 1522 E. Jefferson Street is for sale and being offered as a 4,800 square foot lot (no mention of the house) in a neighborhood that has already lost all its single family residences due to Swedish/Providence hospital construction."

The house is the last home of Carmack whose gold strike is credited with setting off the Klondike Rush. Luxenberg writes that "the National Park Service has initiated a National Register nomination form for the property. ... The house will likely be demolished as it is surrounded by Swedish Hospital buildings and a parking garage.  While it could make for a wonderful addition to Swedish's building inventory, they...

We spent part of the morning here tuned in to the live stream of the city council's Land Use and Planning Committee, where the 23rd & Union rezone was a part of the agenda.   The result should be good news for developer Jim Mueller and neighborhood supporters of the project, as it was approved on a vote of 2-0 and forwarded to the full council for consideration.

Long time readers of the site know that it's been a long process for the project:  design reviews, planning department recommendations, and a turn before the city's hearing examiner.   Today was the second to the last step, where the rezone had to make it out of Councilmember Sally Clark's committee before going before the full council.

Among the topics of discussion were the changes in height from 40 to 65 feet, a reduction in parking from the standard of 95 spaces down to 74, and the level of neighborhood support for the project which was described as 20 in support vs. 5 against.  

Councilmember Tim Burgess seemed especially supportive of the project,...

Last week Bill gave us a heads-up about the design review for the new mixed-use building at the corner of 12th & Fir. Designed and developed by Pb Elemental (advertisers on the site), it's a pretty big project, with 4,500 sq. ft. of ground floor retail and 18 loft-style apartments.  

If you can't make the design review, the digital files of the presentation are available on the DPD website to give you a preview of what will be discussed.    If you browse through the files, you might notice a page that includes some long-range plans for the two properties to the north of 151 12th Ave.   I spoke to James Ellison from Pb Elemental this morning, and he described those as being only in the most preliminary stages, with nothing concrete at this time.

Here's some architectural renderings we've pulled out of the presentation:

View from the northwest:

Looking north from Fir:

Interior Shots:

Way back at the beginning of the year when this site was but a wee lad, we did a story on several high-priced homes that had been on the market for a long time.    Now it's 8 months later, and all three homes are still looking for buyers:

1.  820 21st Ave - A new construction house that took over a long-vacant lot, and introduced 21st Ave to the world of unfriendly front fences.    It's seen a price drop from $879,000 down to $819,000 (only $4,141 a month with 20% down).  But this one could have a happier story soon:  Windermere says that there is a contingent offer to buy it.

2.  824 21st Ave - This big remodeling project on a house built in 1900 still sits empty, and has been since 2005.   The price has dropped since January from $643,000 to $550,000.   That's a full $200,000 lower than what it was originally listed at several years ago.   And the most painful part:  the current owners, evidently flippers, paid $625,000 for it back in 2006.   Details available on Redfin.

3.  2315 E. Columbia - This massive, newly...

Townhomes, tear-downs, and tales of change in the CD:

1.  We'll start at 1320 E. Remington Ct., across the street from Juvi Hall, where a triplex of townhouses and a single-family home are already in the framing stage.   The developer is applying to divide the lot into 4 pieces to accomodate their eventual sale.   Although it's early, so far these look pretty interesting.  They've got big windows facing the front, tall loft-like ceilings, and stairs that go all the way up to the roof to accommodate access to a deck.  http://web1.seattle.gov/dpd/luib/Notice.aspx?id=8481

2.  At 808 16th Ave, just across the street and a few doors north of a house that met it's end earlier in the month, there's a two-story yellow house that may soon be gone too.  Lead Construction, LLC has applied to tear down the house and replace it with 4 separate townhouses, each with surface parking and about 1800 square feet of living space.   http://web1.seattle.gov/DPD/permitstatus/Project.aspx?id=616

3.  Remember where the MadCap farmers market<...

With the pending closure of the Starbucks at 22nd & Madison, we'll soon be left with a string of vacant storefronts there next to Safeway along Madison St.

Our friend Andrew has a theory:  businesses would have a better chance of taking root there if parking was available on the street in front of them.  He's proposing that we work together as a neighborhood to get the city to remove the no-parking signs on that side of the street.

He's even set up a survey to get your thoughts and ideas on the topic.   Click here to help fill it out.  

Today I got a call back from Alan Justad, spokesman for the Seattle Development & Planning Department, to give some of the details behind the denied permitting of the proposed restaurant at 25th & Union.  

According to Mr. Justad, the permit wasn't officially denied.  What was rejected was the classification of the business as a restaurant.  Instead, department planners had decided that it was a "liquor establishment" that bumped it into a different level of permitting, requiring a separate conditional-use permit that would set additional approval steps such as an additional layer of community comment and stipulations surrounding things like noise levels, maximum size, etc.  The requirement for conditional-use permits applies to liquor establishments in NC1 and NC2 zoned areas, but not NC3 (24th & Union is on the eastern edge of a NC2-40 zone).   

In an email response, Bottleneck owner Erin Nestor says that they take exception with the city's classification, saying that they had presented a restaurant concept with...

Based on the comments we got back in June, there were a lot of people who were looking forward to the possibility of a new restaurant at 25th & Union.   Neighborhood residents Erin & Rebecca, owners of The Bottleneck Lounge on Madison, had proposed opening a spot for food and drinks inside the new live/work building at that intersection.

In an email sent to friends and supporters earlier today, Erin announced that the city's Deparment of Planning has denied them a building permit for the project:

Although the building is zoned for a restaurant which serves cocktails, the Land Use staff rejected the notion that we would serve liquor in the space and denied us the right to move forward.  It was a terrible blow and we were prepared to fight City Hall (so to speak) but it would appear that the developer, Randy Spaan, sold the property the next day.  We're out of luck.

That being said we both feel very lucky to have garnered so much neighborhood support over the course of the past month.  All those letters to the Liquor...

The sluggish real estate market is having a definite impact on the pace of development in the neighborhood.  It's been three weeks since we've had any notices to talk about, and this week there's only two:

1.  There's a wide and deep vacant lot at 2415 S. Norman where a developer has applied to build 7 cottages arranged 2x2 towards the back and heading downhill on the property.   Parking will be provided in a 7-space surface parking lot right next to the sidewalk (grrrr).   It looks like they'll be 2 stories tall, ranging in height from 18 to 23 feet.   Since they're on a downhill slope towards the I-90 park, those second stories should have some reasonable territorial views.

2.   Sitting right over the I-90 tunnels at 1418 30th Ave S there's a set of two low-slung duplexes that are slated to be town down in favor of three single-family residences and two 2-unit townhouses.   That makes for 7 total units, which of course come with parking for seven vehicles, six of which will be in the structures and one on the...

As of today, there's been some new work at the site of the proposed new apartment and retail development at 23rd Avenue and East Union. I talked with Jay Janette this afternoon, the lead architect of the project, and he says that the work is related to the on-going mission to remove toxic chemicals from the ground -- using environmentally-sensitive methods such as "organic breakdowns" -- in the wake of a dry cleaning shop that used to be there. So if you see more backhoes and plows out there, construction on the project is not underway just yet. But for now, it's looking good.

That's because new land use signs went up today around the perimeter of the site. Those notices indicate that the city, through a hearing examiner, has given a crucial green light for the rezoning of the structure from four stories to six (or 40 to 65 feet), stating there's been "conditional approval" for the change. Janette says this is a tremendous hurdle that's been jumped. Up next: The full city council vote, expected by early...

The  Squire Park Community Council meeting on Saturday featured a presentation about the status of the big new development on the Goodwill property at Rainier and Dearborn.  The presenter was Darryl Vange of Ravenhurst Development, one of companies involved in the project, who was chalking up his 126th community meeting on the topic.

The short answer on the status is that the project is stalled at the city level for the rezoning of the property from industrial to retail/residential mixed-use.   In May the rezone was recommended by the city's Director of Planning & Development, and that was appealed by project opponents.  An appeal hearing was originally scheduled for June, but got pushed out to September 22nd because the appellants weren't prepared to present their challenge at that time.  If the appeals are denied in September, the next step would be city council approval of the rezone in the first or second quarter of 2009.   According to Mr. Vange, this pushes the earliest start of construction out to late...

Back in February we mentioned that there was a land use proposal to rezone a row of houses in the 1100 block of 33rd in Madrona, right across the street from Madrona Elementary.    As mentioned in the comments of that original story, the owners of those properties have banded together to sync up their own zoning with that of everything else around them, which is "neighborhood commercial" (NC1-30) instead of their current lowrise multifamily (L2).   The change would allow future development to have about 66% more space in the buildings and allow commercial establishments on the first floor.

Now we've gotten word that the rezone has been recommended by the Director of Planning & Development.  The approval did come with some conditions:

• Existing street trees must remain
• No additional curb cuts (driveways) can be added
• New development will need to study parking utilization and access

The next step is a public hearing in front of the Hearing Examiner.  If approved at that level, it will require final approval from the...

Last month we talked about the plans for the old copier building at 20th & Union, and one big concern was their plan of having surface parking for 10 vehicles.  Big parking lots create a lot of unfriendly dead space and are definitely not a positive addition for a budding business district.

Last week they held the first design review for the project, and now we can get a glimpse of what they're planning.  They sketched out three options - one with a surface parking lot in the back of the development, and two with underground parking garages.   Every option has a varying amount of ground-floor retail, with 2 stories of residential units above that.   Here's some details for each:

Option 1 contains 4 retail spaces with between 600 and 1000 square feet of space each.  There's an underground parking garage with a driveway on the west side of the building along 20th Ave.   Ten two-story residential units sit on top of the retail, seven facing Union, two facing east towards the gas station, and one facing west on 20th...

I was walking down Columbia the other day when I saw a small group of neighbors gathered in front of a property in the 700 block of 16th Ave.  They were looking at a pile of splinters that just a few hours earlier was a big, three-story, four-unit home.

The old house was built in 1901, and had almost 4,000 square feet of space across each of its four apartments.  It sold in June of 2007 for $1.25 million.

According to permits filed with the city, the owner of the property is planning to build a single three-story home with 1,962 square feet of living space and a 350 square foot garage.

That's not a whole lot of house to fill an unusually large, 9,600 square foot lot, so I'm guessing there's bigger plans in store for this property.  The key will be to see where they site the new home.  If it's on one side or a corner, I'd expect to see a future application to subdivide the lot for townhomes.

And a quick note to developers:  when you're tearing down an old house, can you at least try to salvage some of the stuff inside...

 This is an individual message from Chris Leman (206) 322-5463, cleman@oo.net, and not offered on behalf of any organization.  

My busy morning kept me from immediately catching this bit of news in the Seattle Times:  Washington Hall is up for sale, and one of the interested buyers wants to put condos into it.

The current owners are the Sons Of Haiti, an African American order of the Masons, and they are tired of the maintenance hassles of dealing with such an old and needy building.

Charles Adams, a building manager and an officer with the Sons of Haiti, said the group, which purchased the building in 1973 for $50,000, hopes to sell it for $2 million to $2.5 million so it can buy a newer building in Renton for meetings and activities.

As far as the building's history is concerned, no one knows more about it than Adams. Now 75, he was there when Brown, Hendrix and Cab Calloway played. The hall was often rented out for shows by the legendary black performers. 

Historic Seattle is interested in buying and preserving the building for the community, but the asking price is steep when considering the potential cost of repairs that are needed on...

Just last week GatorTV wrote about the vacant storefronts on Cherry between 23rd & MLK.  But as I was out and about this weekend, I discovered that there is some change coming to Cherry on the far side of MLK towards Madona.  

First, at the northeast corner of 29th & Cherry, a vacant building that previously held a pizza shop has undergone a big transformation, and a new sign says that King Creole Louisiana Gumbo and BBQ will have their grand opening "Soon". A good creole joint would be a fantastic addition to the neighborhood.  I'm eager for them to open so we can give it a try.

And then on the other end of that same block, a previously neglected set of store fronts have been remodeled.  The only clear indication so far is that the middle one will be a convenience store (grrrr), but that leaves two other locations where we might get something good.   Let's keep our fingers crossed that a couple of local entrepreneurs will get inspired and start something cool in those spots. 

If you ever listen to CNBC, they'll often talk about which investments are "recession proof" and likely to hold their value even as the economy declines.  I think we can add the townhouses construction sector to that list, since they're holding to a steady pace of development even as interest rates rise, credit tightens, and property values slide.

And townhouses are exactly what is planned for a line of properties in the 1100 block of Yakima Ave S.  First, at 1115 there's an old one-story triplex that will be demolished, replaced with 4 units of townhouses across two buildings.  It appears that the new structures will have the usual first floor garage and parking court arrangement.   http://web1.seattle.gov/DPD/permitstatus/Project.aspx?id=617

Then just to the south at 1119 there's a vacant lot where they're planning another 4 units of townhouses in two more buildings, again with attached garages.  Both of these properties are midway up the hill towards Leschi/Mt. Baker and will have pretty good views towards the...

A big excavator suddenly appeared this morning and quickly got to work on clearing the long-vacant lot at 814 22nd Ave.   They're preparing the site for a new single family house, designed by local architect David Foster.  You may recognize his work from two other properties on that block, at 822 22nd and next door to that at 2201 E. Marion.  The latter property is the only house in the CD that I ever recall seeing in Pacific Northwest Magazine.

The house will be a 2-story structure with a daylight basement and a total of about 2,500 square feet of space.

One of the problems I have with new single family houses in the neighborhood are the garages.  The city requires off-street parking for all new construction (boooooo!), and on our narrow lots that usually means that the whole front of the house ends up being an ugly, unfriendly garage door.   But in this case, the architect is getting around that by purchasing an easement from the property to the north, which he'll use to create a shared driveway and move the...