Wednesday will bring the first public design review of a proposed new project to build a new six-story mixed-use development on the Broadway block home to Bait Shop.
In this first “early design guidance” round of review, the East Design Board will focus on the general concept and massing of the proposal while important details around materials and the final look and feel of the project will be hammered out in the second “recommendation” phase of the review. Continue reading →
A new project planned for the 600 block of 13th Ave E will continue the area’s transition away from most of its remaining single family-style housing. This week, the project takes its first bow in front of the East Design Review Board.
Under the project, three adjacent 120(ish)-year-old houses and a detached garage on 13th between E Mercer and E Roy will be torn down. In their place will rise a four-story, 50-foot tall building with about 36 apartments, a trade officials in the housing squeezed city say is necessary for Seattle to address ongoing affordability and homelessness crises.
The developer, Leschi Lakeside Property Management, working with Kirkland-based Milbrandt architects, are proposing the usual three options for how the building might be shaped. As this meeting is the early design guidance phase, most details are focused on the basic massing and layout of the planned development.
All three proposals call for parking access roughly in the middle of the building, and therefore, mid-block, which is less than ideal, but really the only option. All three are roughly rectangular in shape. There are plans to plant new trees along western edge of the property – the back of the building – to give the existing neighbors more privacy. Continue reading →
“Buildings of Similar Height, Size of Site, or Unit Density”
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Starbucks bailed on the street because they claimed the area has too much crime but that is not stopping plans for another major redevelopment along E Olive Way.
A group of two and three story buildings will make way for a seven-story mixed use project at 1661 E Olive Way under a development proposal set to come before the East Design Review Board this week.
CHS reported earlier this year as rumblings restarted after a massive 2019 real estate deal with Vancouver, Canada-based real estate investment and management company Low Tide Properties paying $21 million for the collection of commercial buildings including the former Fred Wildlife events space.
The four existing buildings span the block between Boylston and Belmont on the south side of Olive. The project area is currently occupied by the former Coldwell Banker building which fronts on Olive. It stretches along Boylston/Belmont to include the low-slung office/warehouse buildings and also includes the existing parking lot.
1661 E Olive Way
Design Review Early Design Guidance for a 7-story, 160-unit apartment building, with retail. Parking for 110 vehicles proposed. View Design Proposal(7 MB)
In its place will rise a seven-story building with about 160 apartments and 2,400 square feet of ground level commercial space. The plan also calls for about 110 underground parking spots, an unusually high number for the neighborhood, doubly unusual for a building two blocks from the light rail station. The number of parking stalls has already drawn a public comment saying as much, and suggesting removing some of the stalls. Continue reading →
The public design process to create a new home for arts nonprofit Photographic Center Northwest in a new seven-story mixed-use development on the site of the center’s 100-year-old 12th Ave building begins this week.
The Central Area Design Review Board is set to take up the first design proposals for the Focus on 12th Apartments development Thursday night. Plans call for 171 apartment units above the new photography center and underground parking for around 42 vehicles.
Design review: 900 12th Ave Design Review Early Design Guidance for a 7-story, 171-unit apartment building with institution (Photographic Center Northwest) and retail. Parking for 42 vehicles proposed. View Design Proposal(26 MB)
Developer Vibrant Cities told CHS earlier this year it expects the new building to offer market rate housing along with Seattle Mandatory Housing Affordability and Multifamily Tax Exemption factors that could add a few affordable units to the mix. There is also a possibility of working with nearby Seattle University to offer school-affiliated housing. Continue reading →
The first in a series of meetings of a stakeholders group convened to produce recommendations for speeding up the process and addressing economic and equity issues in Seattle design review will take place Wednesday.
Organized by the Seattle Department of Construction & Inspections, the sessions will not be open to the public but will be recorded and made available by the city. You can also add your comments and feedback to the sessions planned to include architects, designers, and developers from across Seattle’s spectrum of market rate and affordable development as well as representatives from SDCI and the Office of Planning and Community Development.
The city says the stakeholders group with SDCI, and OPCD will “conduct a Racial Equity Toolkit (RET) analysis of the city’s Design Review Program.
SDCI and OPCD have been tasked with providing a report to the Seattle City Council including the outcome of that analysis later this year. Continue reading →
The eight-story, mass timber redevelopment of City Market will make a new home for the stalwart neighborhood grocer. It continues on its path through Seattle process this week with what could be the final design for the planned mixed-use project and new home for the longtime Capitol Hill grocery. The plan is slated to come before the East Design Review Board on Wednesday, February 23rd.
San Francisco-based property owner Juno has hired New York-based Ennead Architects to design the new building at the corner of E Olive Way and Bellevue. The existing City Market building, which dates to 1919 according to property tax records, will be demolished, along with its adjacent parking lot.
The new building will feature ground floor retail, topped with 98-residential units, including 58 studios, 21 “deep” one-bedrooms, 13 one-bedrooms and 5 two-bedrooms. The building will have the typical complement of amenities, including a rooftop deck. Continue reading →
From affordable housing at Cal Anderson-adjacent Station House to a Union Street pedestrian bridge on the Central Waterfront, designs from architecture studio Schemata Workshops are fixtures on the Hill and far beyond. Co-founder Grace Kim shared some favorite volumes with us for Bookkeeping, our occasional series on the books local businesses love so much they keep them in easy reach.
How does a book make it onto this shelf? Most of the books in the office are reference books. So books we’re using for precedents or looking at typologies — other built examples with similar characteristics — to see kind of what else people are thinking about. And sometimes it’s not even the same type, like we might be looking at a compact home, but we might look at libraries, and how they might use condensed storage. Sometimes we’re trying to capture look and feel. A lot of that we can do on the internet. So a lot of the books that are here are actually much, much older, just because they’re from a time when we couldn’t search those things on the internet. . . . I guess a big way these books show up is when we’re looking for more information than what you would find on the web. So we might be searching for high density housing in Europe and find one or two projects with just a picture or two. And so then trying to dive in a little deeper and understand the project, we might see if it’s published in a book somewhere. And that will lead to other similar projects. Then we can look at what’s happening outside our area. Continue reading →
Yes, cars are evil. Cars are wicked. But they are designed, and some (too few) are well-designed. And regardless of its conveyor, design matters, and some of the best talent over the last 100 years and more have designed cars (the poor souls). So, at the risk of offending many by lionizing automotive design, here is the second (occasional) installment of Capitol Hill’s Classic Rides.
There is something about the late 1960’s and 1970’s design that is both troubling and inspiring. Beginning to free itself of the constraints of Modernism, it was an era where doctrinaire design loosened, and a more personal expression was emerging. At the threshold of 1980’s post-Modernism, the 70’s have just a bit of that later era’s personal flair here and a little naughtiness there. But unlike the disaster that followed, design was still properly constrained. This awkward juxtaposition of opiating the masses with high-design ideals is well-captured in many of that era’s automobiles (think of the AMC Pacer) and coincided with the emergence of Japanese automotive design in the US. Still a relatively minor player at the beginning of the 70’s, the Japanese sought their own aesthetic, and the 70’s design free-for-all provided the perfect canvas to differentiate themselves in a market dominated by the Big Three.
This Toyota Corona is as good an example as one may find of this aesthetic. Continue reading →
Runberg Architecture Group’s design is a “go” on 12th Ave
The land is currently occupied by the former Car Tender auto shop, Bergman’s Lock and Key, and the old Scratch Deli building
Capitol Hill’s “most debated” new development can move forward to construction.
Wednesday night, facing a wave of support from pro-housing advocates and residents providing public comment, and despite concerns from representatives for neighborhood groups, the East Design Review Board gave its support to the plan for a new eight-story, 130+ unit mixed-use apartment building with an 83-car underground parking lot set to rise on the properties now home to a former auto garage and set of small businesses on 12th Ave at E Olive St. Continue reading →
Inform Interiors is located on Bellevue Avenue between Pike and Pine Street, in the Colman Building. The building dates from 1916 and was originally a showroom for the Stanley Auto Agency. It retains, thanks to a thoughtful restoration, the large display windows that characterized the Capitol Hill auto showrooms from that era. Collectively, they are known as ‘auto row’ buildings.
As one would expect in a home furniture and furnishings showroom that features contemporary design, there are many shiny, geometrically pure housewares of mostly European design. Contrasting nicely with that aesthetic are the hand-woven baskets from Africa, which are the product of local artisans.
The showroom is as conducive to displaying furniture as it was automobiles. The open floor plan, afforded by heavy-timber construction, continues to offer flexibility in layout to the current tenants, allowing them almost endless ways to arrange lighting, chairs, couches, and rugs. And unlike current construction, the columns and beams were milled from single old growth logs, not laminated together from smaller pieces as is today’s practice.
Home furnishings are a type of fashion with trends coming and going, making familiar pieces, such as this Aalto Vase, pleasant reminders of the enduing power of classic design. The vase was first exhibited in the famed Finnish Pavilion at the 1937 World’s Fair in Paris. The oak cheese boards were also designed by Alvar Aalto (1898 - 1976) who many consider to be among the finest architects of the 20th Century.
Inform is on two floors in the Colman Building. While only occupying one half of the first floor, the second floor is all theirs and is flooded in daylight. The building was recently completed renovated, with new building services and a seismic upgrade. Note the large steel wide flange columns and beam that ensure the building is robust enough to survive the next earthquake. The steel structure is unpainted and left in its ‘mill finish’.
A thing rarely seen in today’s buildings is when the structure and the finish are the same: the beams and columns are Douglas Fir, as its the tongue and groove floor. The materials deployed for the furniture include ever-so-thin plywood, wrought iron, and textiles covering varying amounts of sculpted foam.
Inform Interiors is located at 1526 Bellevue Ave. You can learn more at informinteriors.design.
The Street Critic is an occasional CHS special featuring architectural and design observations from the built environments on and around Capitol Hill. This special neighborhood series has been created to highlight features of some of the area’s most important gathering places as restaurants, bars, cafes, and shops face unprecedented challenges during the ongoing pandemic. Is there a space you would like us to feature? Let us know in the comments.
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