When the Richard Hugo House building gets demolished next year, the literary heart of Capitol Hill will beat on in a temporary space until the “place for writers” rises like a phoenix in a new writers center in 2017.
But those metaphors won’t be fully mixed until the 11th Ave mixed-use development the new Hugo House will be part of goes through what should be its final design review Wednesday night.
1634 11th Ave
Land Use Application to allow a 6-story, 80 unit apartment building with a 10,300 sq. ft. community center (Hugo House Writer’s Center) and 1,500 sq. ft. of retail located at ground level. Parking for 95 vehicles will be located below grade. Review includes demolition of existing structures (11,000 sq. ft.). / View Design Proposal (9 MB)
Planner: Katy Haima
The intersection of development and Capitol Hill arts organizations rarely ends well. The Hugo House is proving to be an exception as a 90-unit, six story project planned to replace its 11th and E Olive home has put the nonprofit at the center of the development. With apartments above, the new Hugo House will give new meaning to writers in residence.
“The personality and character all centers around Hugo House and the owners desire to create a nicer than typical project on the Hill,” said Brian Oseran, a principal with developer Meriwether Partners. “We spent a lot of time understanding what that organization does and what their needs are.”
Activities at the Hugo House run the literary gamut, from writing workshops for adults and teens, to author readings and performances, to book launches. Expanding classrooms and performance spaces were top priorities, said Hugo House executive director Tree Swenson.
The new 10,000-square-foot space will include six classrooms, offices, two performance spaces, and space for writers to do their thing. “We want it to make sure it’s a place that feels warm and welcoming to writers,” Swenson said.
The new building design has been mostly well received. Along with the Hugo House, a small cafe will be the only other ground level commercial activity at the building. The Weinstein A+U designs also calls for a real brick facade (not just the pasted on variety), a mix of “open one-bedroom,” one-bedroom, and two-bedroom apartments, and underground parking for 94 cars. The placement of the Hugo House development’s parking garage on 11th generated significant discussion by the board during the project’s first review.
Meanwhile, demolition of the old Hugo House looms in 2016. Though the old House fell short of qualifying for landmark protection, the one-time mortuary will be remembered fondly.
23 years ago, Frances McCue, Andrea Lewis, and Linda Breneman bought the 1902-built mansion directly across Cal Anderson Park as a home for their budding organization. Through a partnership with Ted Johnson, a former Microsoft executive, Breneman is retaining ownership of the property, likely securing Hugo House’s future for years to come.
“Their desire to help us secure a permanent location is an extraordinary gift to Seattle,” Swenson said.
Next summer, Hugo House will move into a temporary location that has been secured but won’t be announced until January. Swenson said it is within a 15-minute walking distance from the current location.
The rise, fall, and resurrection of the Hugo House will be captured in a documentary by cofounder and former Hugo House resident McCue. Where the House Was will feature Hugo House history, including stories of ghosts and famous poets who passed through, like Sherman Alexie’s bathroom painting and Seamus Heaney’s tea napkin.
Another awful building with zero architectural interest. Another wasted opportunity. I guess there’s no value in beauty anymore.
So, just out of curiosity…What IS it you’d like to see? Because it seems that no one can do anything right in Capitol Hill development. Is it bright crazy colors? Because everyone seems to hate grey around this blog. What is a beautiful building, because I think this is actually a respectful, lasting design, with adequate spaces for residents and neighbors, and tons of light. Beats the hell out of hardi and “efficiency apartments”.
One of the reasons I was happy to move to Seattle was that it didn’t look like the factory towns back east.
It is possible to have fairly severe brick boxes that demonstrate a personal style while being an efficient use of space. Just look around you at the old apartment buildings that have texture and an occasional flourish and something that says “human-made” not “machine-stamped.” I understand that these old buildings are difficult, and certainly not cost-efficient to modernize. I know that many of them must be replaced. But why not capture the same kind of flair that the older buildings had? Something that said, This was built for humans, a species that has a long history of decorative arts.
For me, at the very least, “beauty” in a building means that it looks as if diverse, interesting people live in it, not like a storage box for uniform pieces of inanimate objects. Texture is good (as another poster says, at least this buidling is brick), as is variation in the building’s faces. I look at this kind of building and think, they are building boxes for robots to inhabit. Or, people who have no choice but to give up to the people with money who think that the rest of us are nothing more than faceless proles who simply have to be put somewhere.
If we want a walkable city, which many of us do, we need a visual environment that is interesting to walk within, not a maze of flat walls that make walking seem like a rat’s lab maze.
(I grew up in a city with brick boxes from the mid-century. Even as a kid, I felt bad for people who had no choice but to live in a hulking, impersonal “people package.” We lived in an old building, small and certainly old-fashioned, but at least it had a personality. Maybe the people who design these big boxes grew up in suburban development where every house looked the same as the other — at first; over time, many of those kinds of houses have been personalized {which is not easily done in apartment buildings).
I’m with you Maggie. You would think that developers would consider adding a human element to these buildings so that it would add to our surroundings.
But, the developers don’t give a sh*t.
Most of the developers are not from here. Redmond, Kirkland, etc. In fact, one of them is a publicly traded from the East Coast. They don’t care what was here before, they don’t care to ask what we would like to see either. They have no attachment to our neighborhood. They come here, do their thing, and leave.
When they build a development, they simply go to a warehouse, pick out the cheapest materials for siding and if there isn’t enough of the cheap materials in one color or style, then they pick different colors and styles until they do.
That’s why some of the buildings look like a fabricated quilt. A mix of colors, metal, and wood that don’t really go together and looks a little odd.. They’re not trying to be fancy my doing that. They are trying to be economical so they can make the most money possible.
And then we have to look at it everyday.
I agree. Another unimaginative box. Oh, except real bricks is certainly a huge asset, instead of the fake kind.
Seriously? The design is a box? The only thing this plan has going for it is that they intend to use brick rather than hardiboard.
I recommend you go to the design review, or email the contact on the land use action board that should/will be in front of the site at some point. I’m going to it to add my piece- I walked by and attend Hugo House events all the time, so this project is somewhat important to me.
Weinstein is a very trustworthy and reliable architect, however, it’s the developer that really has the claws.
I was looking at a one bedroom condo in the Onyx, they kept touting the view of the park and downtown and said that justified the cost of $350k.
Once this goes up, the view will pretty much be a wall. Dodged that bullet!