It’s a potentially busy night of civic activity around the Capitol Hill area Wednesday night with three major projects on the calendar — the First Hill streetcar, the Volunteer Park Conservatory and a 300-foot residential tower proposed for the base of First Hill.
Volunteer Park Conservatory: The 100-year-old steel and glass garden facility needs a plan to support its $450,000 annual operating budget or risk being shuttered in 2013. On the table: admission fees, donations and more. The Friends of the Conservatory have their work cut out for them. The structure also needs some $3.5 million in restoration. But first things first. You can learn more about tonight’s meeting here.
Public meeting on the Volunteer Park Conservatory Business Plan
Wednesday – March 7, 2012
Montlake Community Center
1618 E Calhoun St, Seattle, WA 98112
7:00-8:30 pm
First Hill Streetcar: With construction of the new streetcar line connecting Pioneer Square to Capitol Hill via First Hill slated to begin next month, the Seattle Department of Transportation brings its planners to Broadway tonight for an “open house.” You can stop by to ask questions about the construction process, lobby for the northern extension and meet the people making the new transit option happen. Service, if all goes well, is planned to begin in 2014.
First Hill Streetcar Open House
4:00 to 7:00 PM
Wednesday, March 7
Silver Cloud Hotel
The Broadway Room
1100 Broadway
- 802 Seneca Project: Our report prior to the project’s pass through its Early Design Guidance session in February brought on a robust discussion. Yes, the Laconia-developed project is a prime example of urban density in an area zoned to reach for the sky. But there are also humans who will live in its shadow and are doing what they can to hold developers accountable for creating a project that helps the surrounding environment even as high-rises hopscotch I-5 and climb First Hill. A link to the latest design packet for the “recommendation” phase session on the project is below.
From the 802 Seneca proposal (link below)
Project: 802 Seneca St map
Review Meeting: 6:30pm Seattle University Student Center map 824 12th Ave Multipurppose Room Review Phase: Recommendation past reviews Project Number: 3012797 permit status | notice Planner: Shelley Bolser
That picture seems to illustrate quite well how actually unassuming 801 Seneca will be. The skyscrapers of downtown will tower over this thing and the steep slope of First Hill mean that from a few streets up this thing will pretty much just blend in with all the other multistory projects. It will fit in well with the rest of the neighborhood, from the pre-war to the dot-com boom buildings.
First Hill is currently zoned for 160 feet (16 stories), so if they are allowed to build to 300 feet (30 stories) there is really no difference in blocking views of creating shadows from the existing height limit to the increase height limit proposed. We should be encouraging this type of increase density. First Hill is designated as an Urban Village that is supposed to accept higher density for living and working buildings. However, being a resident of First Hill we have been SCREWED by Sound Transit when they pulled the light rail station out from 1996 ST1 voter approved light rail alignment and now ST is trying to pacify our community by giving us a street car as part of ST2.
It wasn’t Sound Transit that “screwed” First Hill. The federal government refused to fund a line that included First Hill because of the perceived risk of siting a station there (problematic soil type and the extreme depth that such a station would have to be sited). The ST1 vote in 1996 always depended on a federal component for completion, so when the feds refused to provide funds, Sound Transit had little choice but to drop a First Hill station and proceed directly to Broadway. Without the $600 million provided by the US government for U-link, the current extension to Husky Stadium wouldn’t be under construction.
How then were they able to create a deep bore station on Beacon Hill but no one on First Hill where the ridership would probably be five times greater?
Sound Transit removed the First Hill Station and them applied for Federal funding. The federal government did not tell Sound Transit to remove the station in order to receive the funding. Sound Transit caved into the threats of lawsuits by the wealthy, connected and Influential residents of First Hill Plaza who were adamentaly opposed to the station and were vocal at every station design meeting for the First Hill Station. I should know. Because I attended all of the station design meetings that went on for years.