Let’s be frank. Who else but Capitol Hill is going to give a shit about an E Pine development replacing a parking lot of the Camlin building wedged between the transit station and downtown? And we should care. We’re going to have to look at this thing ever time we make a trek downtown. The design for the six-story mixed use building will come before a Seattle design board for the first time Tuesday night.
In addition to its geographic relationship to our normal design and development beat, the 1601 9th Ave development happens to be an interesting project on the engineering end of things. In a zone for high-rise heights, developer Teutsch Partners says its 74-unit approach is the only design that is financially feasible given the lot’s precarious position above the Metro tunnel below:
Development on this project site is highly constrained due to the under ground Metro tunnel that occupies more than sixty percent of the site footprint with the lid of the tunnel occurring fairly shallow below-grade not allowing below-grade parking.
A surface parking lot has occupied this desirable location for many years due to the tunnel’s footprint which requires a complex structure to span the tunnel, let alone construct vertically. Previous feasibility studies for this site have shown that high-rise development allowed by the zoning code is not economically feasible due to the tunnel’s size in relationship to the size of structural systems needed for a high-rise building.
The Runberg Architecture-designed project, kitty-corner to the Paramount Theatre, is also being planned to include more than 3,000 square feet of retail and parking for less than 40 vehicles:
According to the design packet for Tuesday night’s meeting, the location was once home to a Swedish Baptist Church.
The site from above (Images: Runberg)
In 2009, Wyndham — owner of the neighboring Camlin — sold the parking lot to developers for $2 million.
Project: 1601 9th Ave mapDesign Proposal available (10.5 MB)
Review Meeting: January 24, 5:30 pm City Hall Boards and Comissions 600 5th Ave map L280 Review Phase: EDG–Early Design Guidance Project Number: 3012469 permit status | notice Planner: Scott Kemp
During the real estate bubble, I saw billboards for Ava, a new condo building, which would provide “the Zen of urban living” at that site. No mention was made of the light rail tunnel. I seem to recall Ava died out because of the condo industry’s collapse, not because of the site itself.
(Incidentally, there is a newer building called Ava on West Queen Anne, but it’s apparently unrelated to the abandoned downtown project.)
Feedback you are correct – my company met with that developer back in the middle of the boom, and they originally planned a taller condo tower. For parking, they might have been planning on above-grade parking rather than underground parking, in which case the actual condo units would start higher, like on the fifth floor for example.
I think the new “Ava” apartment projects are an urban rebrand of Avalon Bay Apartments, BTW.
Design features 74-80 units and 36 parking stalls. Good parking ratio for this location, well done! We need more projects like this near high frequency transit.
Ava was on the adjacent property, west of the alley from this project, 8th and Pine St.
When East Link is built … busses will be removed completely from the DSTT … this means that the CPS station will be closed and that tunnel no longer needed.
Wouldn’t simply waiting allow them to build whatever they wanted to within zoning requirements/limitations
Six stories is such a bummer. A total waste of space down there.
They show the proposed Ava building in the building heights map in the development packet. I bet the developer is still planning to develop the Ava, just stalled until the market picks up.
So people will park their cars on the street?
No, so people take transit from the station that is directly across the street.
This will encourage people who understand that living in a dense urban core can be done easily without a car to live in that dense urban core. More than likely, people occupying these units will be working downtown as well, so it only makes sense. If they need to make trips outside of their neighborhood, they can catch a bus on Pine, Pike, Olive, or in the Tunnel (all within a one block radius). In a 3-4 block radius, they can catch even more buses and two different types of rail as well. On top of that, within a 5 minute walk they can catch transit to all corners of the city, and most of the region via Link, ST buses, and a short bus/Link connection to King Street to catch Sounder and Amtrak.
Not everyone on the planet owns a car or feels that one is necessary.
Did you not read the article? It can’t be built larger due to metro taking the space underground. Anything is better than a shitty parking lot anyways.
It could be used as something else though. If they lidded the station, it could be some sort of terminus (it’s already set up like a terminus), or at least maybe a big streetcar storage/repair facility. Instead of having a bunch of facilities around the city, they could have a big central terminus, like pretty much every city in the world that has a large or growing streetcar network.
It could also provide some sort of connection between Link and the streetcar network somehow someday by doing this.
Of course, this is just a pipe dream and Seattle will probably never figure out how to link regional and citywide rail systems.
I agree!
And still all of these big cities with world-class transportation systems have cars.
It won’t encourage a thing.
Of the dozen or so people I know that live downtown, not a single one of them owns a car. A lot of city dwellers see a car as a burden, not a perk. Most of the cars you see downtown are coming from outside of the city.
I know the Washington State Convention Center has their eye on this land to build a convention center annex.
of course every one of these world class cities have automobiles, but not everyone owns a car. Also, each city has varying degrees of auto traffic. As someone has mentioned, a lot of city dwellers living in dense or central neighborhoods see having a car as a burden and as you could guess, most auto traffic in a city center does come from outside of the city center – usually from the auto-centric (designed around the use of automobiles, only) suburbs.
Contrary to what you may think, people will still fill this building. Some will have cars, and some won’t. Build a building with less or no parking and who will elect to live there? People that see the benefits of living carless. Also, people that can put two and two together and realize that it’s pretty easy to get around living in the public transportation center of a region. You can catch buses and train to as far away as Tacoma and Everett (if you wanted) within a short walk of this building. If they built this building with more parking, it would only encourage congestion. The current plan encourages people who are seeking a truly urban lifestyle to embrace it.
Metro is also in need of layover space downtown, and CPS is already configured for bus use…
Metro used CPS as bus layover space during the tunnel closure from 2005 – 2007 (See: http://www.flickr.com/photos/viriyincy/2207572527/). With it’s access to the I-5 Express lanes, it will likely continue to be used as a terminus for express busses downtown even after the DSTT closes to busses.
CPS was also designed for rail, oddly enough – the old tracks are still in the concrete along Bay A into the tunnel. Future rail system expansion (For example, to Ballard) could theoretically make use of CPS with the necessary renovations.