New mixed-use buildings on Capitol Hill continue to grow like weeds. The 115-unit and retail project that has taken shape over the past year at 1519 Minor recently bloomed — in full, somewhat shocking color.

It’s so… red.

“[A] range of colored panels is composed to create a blended range of color that provides a softer and more variegated appearance than a monochromatic scheme,” the architects from Perkins Will wrote of the project that replaced a very large, very white office building at the site just below Melrose Market.

“The combined effect of horizontal grouping, vertical modulation, window composition, sun shades and shadows, and color blending will work in tandem to create a unique and distinctive façade that implies and exhibits a colorful dynamism appropriate to its place.”

The “combined effect” also produces a lot of color at the base of Pine at this entry to Capitol Hill.

The only note about the color we can find in the public feedback recorded during the building’s design review process was positive — “Generally complimentary regarding massing, crisp detail, vivid color palate.” Vivid, indeed.

First planned back in 2005, put on the backburner thanks to the economic downturn and finally revived, the Gerding Edlen developed project will open later this summer with 111 apartment units and 3,2000 square-feet of new retail space. Expect a restaurant:

At the northernmost point of the site the proposed design presents a two-story space ideally suited to a retail/café use. Generous glazing provides for daylight and views and converts into a visible lantern after dark. A chamfered edge above the double-high ground floor would allow the residential cladding panels to visually float above the glass base and give accent to the edge that fronts onto Pine Street. The overall façade is overlaid with sets of sunshades and layers of colorful compositional grids, shifted floor to floor to create a sense of dynamic movement to the overall composition.

The red panels on the project will remind many of another colorful addition to the Capitol Hill skyline. The Kundig-designed 1111 E Pike project opened in summer 2009.

In addition to the 3,200 square-feet of retail and restaurant space, the new building will have nine live/work lofts that will be part of a transformation of Minor Ave into a connective space with the Melrose Market across the street. The city agreed to work with developers to reduce Minor to a 20-foot roadway behind the Market, “allowing for a 5.5-foot planting strip and street trees along the west side of the street.” The new 1519 Minor building is set back farther than usual along Minor, allowing for a six-foot sidewalk.

Meanwhile, on the north side of Melrose Market, another big project — this one eight stories and not red — prepares to dig in later this summer.

You can view more images of the construction of the building over the months here via the Plymouth Pillars Park Facebook page.