Design review upcoming for Madison project where developer went 'above and beyond'

There will be a final design review meeting for 2026 E Madison St , the old site of Deano's,  on May 6th at Seattle Central. Dominic Holden recently wrote a nice piece about this site, but I thought I would do a little more analysis on the project here on CHS.

First the project details: 222 residential units, 9,576sq ft retail, and 229 below grade parking spaces . As always, the parking seems excessive, but at least it's underground.

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This project, along with the old Twilight Exit site across the street, and another lot south at 23rd and Union , are all being developed by prominent local architect Jim Mueller . Mueller is perhaps best known for his work with Vulcan in South Lake Union. He's had a hand in pretty much all recent development down there, including two projects I have found refreshing, 2200 and Alley 24 . As Central District News relates , Mueller has gone above and beyond the Design Review to engage the community about his developments, which is always nice. The design for this building was done by Weinstein AU (of Agnes Lofts at 12th and Pike)

So how does this project stack up? Personally, I think it's pretty well done (except for the amount of parking). The design calls for a 6-story structure with a public courtyard in the center. The courtyard will be accessible from a double-height passthrough on Madison, as well as two East-West breezeways that approximate the alley that ran through the site. There will be four or five retail spaces, which will mainly face Madison but will wrap around a bit onto E. Denny street. Most spaces will also have entrances from the courtyard area. The rest of the ground floor will be two-story walk-up townhomes with street entrances, as well as courtyard entrances. Both the townhomes and the public courtyard seem pretty ambitious to me, based on the history of the location, and I really applaud them for that. They could have done something like the Summit at Madison Park , with a fotress-like wall facing 23rd and a single, huge retail space.

For more info on development in this area, check out Andrew Taylor's very informative google map.

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