Here is a Pike/Pine history lesson. In 2013, CHS reported on a mixed-use apartment, office, and commercial development being planned to incorporate the 11th Ave block home to the REI-rooted, auto row-era buildings housing The Stranger and Value Village. Nearly four years later, the developers behind the project are ready with what could be the final design for a reduced, apartment-less version of that original plan.
With final design approval Wednesday, the new project will mean an overhaul and new life for Value Village’s old mid-block Kelly-Springfield Motor Truck Company building and its landmark-protected exterior. But thanks to landmark status both inside and out, the lucky old one-time home to White Motor Company next door — where The Stranger still does its thing — at 11th and Pine will live on untouched by the new Kelly Springfield project and its planned 65,000 square feet of office space, 12,000 square feet of restaurant and retail space, and parking for around 30 vehicles — none of them probably “motor trucks.”
The project faces what should be its final design review after years of meetings with everything from the design review board, to the landmarks board, to community groups, Wednesday night:
Developers Legacy Commercial, the project’s architects Ankrom Moisan, and its landscape designer Place list three priorities for the new building and preservation project:
- Preserve the character defining aspects of the landmark Kelly-Springfield Building
- Restore the primary 11th Avenue facade.
- Preserve elements of the interior and side walls in order to convey the character of the original building as a whole.
- Strengthen the character of the Pike/Pine neighborhood
- Incorporate materials and architectural elements that strengthen the area’s auto-row vernacular.
- Enhance the block’s sidewalk experience.
- Bolster the daytime vitality of the area
- Introduce a mix of daytime uses that support existing neighborhood businesses
- Create retail and office spaces that are adaptable to various tenant types, including businesses already in the area.
Legacy, the longtime owner of the block’s buildings, abandoned plans for the larger project in 2015 after The Stranger’s White Motor Company building attained full landmark protection, and has had its hands full with previous design reviews and six meetings with the Landmarks Board’s architectural review committee, not to mention ongoing community meetings to garner neighborhood support for the project. This fall, Legacy discussed its final plans for the new Kelly Springfield with the Pike/Pine Urban Neighborhood Council way back in October.
After all of that, Wednesday’s meeting could be a bit of an anticlimax. The developers must convince the board that the final design proposal meets their suggestion of making sure the new office structure to be built above the preserved facade and some of the timber beams of the old Kelly Springfield building has a distinct look and feel from the character structure below. They also have a new design for the 30 or so car parking garage that will open and close around 400 times a day on 11th Ave.
The neighbors at the adjacent Monique Lofts condo building have written a few letters about that, by the way, sharing concerns about audible warnings to pedestrians every time the garage door opens. The lofters also object to the proposed building’s slim southern setback on grounds it will make for a tight fit with their building and block light.
Architects, meanwhile, initially planned to keep 11th Ave’s angle parking while creating small green spaces in between a few of the parking spots. While the review board liked the idea, City of Seattle planners strongly suggested architects build-in parallel parking. And a plan for a mural on the big blank wall on the project’s western face has been nixed at the design board’s request and probably won’t have mattered much in ten years when another building rises where Rancho Bravo stands today.
One critical decision about the new Kelly Springfield has already been made. The review board gave its blessing last summer during the project’s first review to its proposal to utilize the Pike/Pine Conservation District’s 10-foot height bonus incentive to build office space — not housing as the incentive was originally intended. “Note that neighborhood groups such as the Pike Pine Urban Neighborhood Council have expressed support for additional office space in the neighborhood, counterbalancing the strong trend towards residential development in recent years,” the developers write.
With that settled and the project nearing the end of its long history of meetings and approval, you can, instead, start to think about how that preservation-backed expansive open floor plan in the building’s street level commercial space can eventually be used.
I’m surprised that no one has complained (yet) that this should be a high-rise apartment building, in order to increase further our almighty “density.” (he says, sarcastically).
This seems to be a great project and a worthy effort to preserve some of the past. I’m glad it will be an office building, with some retail at the base.
They would have to gut the existing structure in order to make this a mid or high rise.
This project is more about preservation and infill. I’d rather see preservation of historic buildings than destruction. Wouldn’t you?
Of course!