Don’t judge the design just yet — this is just the massing concep
A new seven-story development planned for Harvard Ave just off E Denny will include “small efficiency units” for around 42 residents interested in a place to live on Capitol Hill at a reasonable price and near one of the neighborhood’s greatest new assets — Capitol Hill Station. They’ll have some interesting, though transient neighbors. The first four floors of the planned building at 1818 Harvard Ave, if developers get signoff on the plan, will be a hotel:
The proposed project consists of a 7 story building with 42 small efficiency dwelling units above, four floors of hotel with 70 rooms. Parking for 19 vehicles will be located on one level of below grade parking with access off of Harvard Ave. The existing three story apartment building will be demolished.
The developers behind 12th Ave’s Sola 24 building are now moving forward with plans to develop the Harvard parcel they acquired in 2012 for just under $2 million, according to county records. The project is being planned for a site where a 1950s-built, three-story apartment building stands today, just around the corner from the sprawling Capitol Hill Station campus where development is on track for a 2019 opening of new affordable housing and commercial space around the transit hub.
CHS has reported in the past on the challenges anybody planning a hotel on Capitol Hill might face as zoning gives preferential treatment to housing developments by allowing developers a higher “floor to area ratio” for apartment buildings than commercial buildings.
While there hasn’t been a new hotel built on Capitol Hill since Broadway’s Silver Cloud, a project to create a boutique hotel on E Jefferson is moving forward.
The developers Jon Courter, Rod McClaskey, and Terry Boyle are planning a seven-story building with a 3,500-square-foot hotel lobby, 24,000 square feet of hotel rooms, 22,000 square feet of “residential uses,” and underground parking for 19. Though, hopefully most hotel guests take light rail. The project will have its first design review in November.
Great location for a hotel! It’d be nice to have a few around the Hill and Pike/Pine. The only one I can think anywhere close is the Silver Cloud.
That rendering is depressing. Soon Capitol Hill streets will be dark canyons of 6 story buildings block to block.
Widely spaced mid-rise buildings with setbacks would provide a much more interesting skyline and variation in architecture. We’d have places with views and more capacity.
So NYC is depressing? Paris? Chicago?
Yes, we must have tourism. Only natural that we should share the bus stop in front of the Rite Aid, walking on used syringes in Cal Anderson park, red light running cyclists, heroin dealers, and the general disruption of non stop construction with visitors. The developers know best.