(Image: Weinstein A+U)
Not a landmark: The Conover House (Image: City of Seattle)
For a 131-year-old house on Capitol Hill, a week here, a week there makes little difference.
But the 1893-built Conover House gained a few more days Tuesday when a small slip-up among the fresh faces of the newly seated Seattle City Council pushed back a key vote on the 16th Ave property that is destined to become home to a mixed-use building with dozens of new apartments above a new restaurant in a project from Jewish Family Service and its headquarters just down the street.
During Tuesday’s public comment in front of the first full meeting of the council in 2024, a diali-in speaker was mistakenly allowed to briefly speak against the proposed contract rezone of the Conover House property that would allow a proposed development that will include demolition of the historic but not landmarked house to move forward.
“Sadly, I’m here to testify in vain, a bit, to save a part of Seattle that is pretty much condemned to be destroyed and forgotten,” the speaker began.
Their impassioned plea for the Conover House was cut-off but the procedural damage was done.
Because the council’s role in the decision is to approve or disapprove of the city Hearing Examiner’s decision to approve the rezone, that short testimony against the change was a procedural no-no. President Sara Nelson and the council were left with no choice but to delay the vote for a week “to clear the ex parte communications” in the “quasi judicial matter.”
The decision to wait a week on the vote is likely delaying the inevitable.
CHS reported here in the summer of 2019 as the landmarks board split a 3-3 vote, denying the house built by Charles Conover, a city editor at the Seattle Post-Intelligencer, that proponents said had survived just down 16th Ave from the Central Co-Op as a “highly refined” example of the Colonial Revival style in Seattle.
The landmarks denial cleared the way for Jewish Family Service and the architects at Weinstein A+U to move forward with its plans for the property — a new seven-story, 88-unit apartment building with space for a ground-level restaurant, and underground parking for 105 cars.
JFS says the new development is intended to raise money to further the organization’s services, including its food bank as well as providing emergency services and assistance to refugees and the homeless.
“Any revenue generated from the project will be put towards our mission of serving the vulnerable people in our community,” CEO Will Berkovitz said at the time of the landmarks decision.
Adjacent to a lot it already owned, the house was purchased by the organization for $1,699,500 in 2016.
To achieve the planned design and its inclusion of mixed-use elements to create the restaurant and commercial spaces in the project, the developers have needed a surgical contract rezone with the city. It’s not legal for the council to rezone a specific parcel but the city’s laws and ordinances allow for the contract process that requires evidence and testimony through the city’s hearing examiner. Typically, the contract rezones come up on properties like Conover House where smaller scale apartments and single family style homes meet large-scale, multifamily buildings and commercial structures in areas like 16th Ave.
In November, the examiner approved a change that would rezone the Conover property from its designated lowrise requirements to “neighborhood commercial” that allows a 65-foot height limit and the restaurant use. As part of the decision, the developers said they would agree to a “Property Use and Development Agreement” that included agreeing on how the commercial/restaurant space would be used as a condition of rezone approval.
After Tuesday’s procedural misstep, the council will now take up its vote on the Conover House rezone next week — as long as there are no more ex parte communications.
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The land use sign has been up in front of this house for so long that someone is going ask that it be declared it a landmark. Tear it down already. We need more housing. There are tons of lovely little old houses just like this all over Seattle and all over North America. We can spare this one. We need housing, it’s next door to a grocery store, right on a bus line, etc. TEAR IT DOWN ALREADY AND BUILD MORE HOUSING.
OR, convert it to 8 small apartments with lower rent and make it an affordable place to live. I guess it’s better to tear it down and build apartments priced at over 2k?
When supply increases, rents and price fall. Newer buildings draw people out of older buildings, and rents fall at older buildings. Also, I would say that this old house — in this spot — no longer aligns with the character of the neighborhood, seeing as it’s surrounded by larger apartments now, many of them new.
Which version houses more people?
I’m all for density, but when will Seattle wake up to developers destroying the architectural fabric of the neighborhood? Surely we can do better than building structures that aren’t just giant glass, metal, and hardie board boxes that are certainly unlikely to last 130+ years.
Short answer: never. Devs reign supreme under King Harrell and Queen Hollingsworth
Queen Kshama Sawant was our rep during this process if you actually read the article. The current vote is procedural.
I’d argue the “architectural fabric” of that tract is multifamily already. Plenty of condos and apartments, old and new, along 16th Ave south of E Thomas.
That house is a 100% undistinguished copy cat architectural nothing burger.
100% agree. I live around the corner from it. No one will miss it. And we want to welcome more neighbors.
I agree with you, but unfortunately we are tilting at windmills. The unfettered development train is roaring down the tracks in Seattle.
As well it should! Development being fettered for the past several decades has left us with a crippling housing crisis, and it’s well past time to catch up.
I bought an equally old home here in town and yes it’s architecturally interesting and has a great history and I love it but it takes a lot of resources (not just money) to keep these homes up. At some point the cost to keep them going is too much and that’s one reason why you see these homes being demoed. Unless the city is willing to subsidize homeowners to maintain these homes (feels like we’ve got bigger problems in this city if we have money to throw around), more and more will go by the wayside. I’d rather see a new home that can house many than an old home that’s falling apart and can barely house one (prime example is the place on Columbia and MLK).
BS… I have a 100+ year old house. The upkeep on it is likely far less than one of the newer, crappily constructed buildings I’ve seen… The less than a decade old condos down the street have already needed to be totally refaced because hardboard isn’t really that great for this climate.. it gets water behind it and falls apart – the brand new construction behind us already has water damage and it’s not even finished…. The century old cedar siding on my home has barely needed a new coat of paint in the last 25 years.. the wide eaves protect the house from water damage. The pitched roof means no water/ice build up and leakage. A basement means no crawl space for pipes to freeze in.. Never had one happen here.
I’d much rather see well kept old homes than junky new construction that will be in shambles in one 10th the time..
Yeah I lived next to this place 6 or 7 years ago and I feel like redevelopment was on the table even then? JFS does a lot to serve the community and this building is not remarkable. This rezone – in a densely populated neighborhood with apartments all around, situated close to transit, grocery, and other services – is all upside. I hope the new council will not stand in the way of a win-win situation.