(Image: Knit Studios)
The Bait Shop block isn’t the only stretch of Broadway being readied for redevelopment to add new housing to the core of Capitol Hill. Demolition permit filings this month show the project to create a new seven-story affordable apartment building in the 200 block of Broadway E is rounding into shape after years of planning.
CHS reported here in November 2022 on the Seattle Landmarks Board rejection of Broadway’s Wilshire Building for historical protections, clearing the way for the now more than 120-year-old structure to be demolished to make way for a new seven-story, mixed-use building with 95 apartments, five ground floor live/work units, and new street-level retail space.
The project has been developed by Cannon Commercial, TAP Collaborative, and $3 million in affordable housing funding from the 2021 round of Office of Housing grants. A company registered to Joe Cannon and TAP’s Rebecca Ralston purchased the property for $6.25 million in 2018, according to King County records.
The new building has been designed by Seattle’s Knit Studios.
The new filings come after more than a year of planning following the landmarks rejection of the building currently home to the shuttered Jai Thai restaurant, a collection of businesses including a Mud Bay pet supply store location, and 14 upper floor apartment units.
Old timers will remember the structure as the Broadway Rexall but the building had a larger place in the history of women’s health in the city. After years as a “sanitarium,” historical research showed Planned Parenthood Center of Seattle was running a maternal health clinic in the 1950s on the building’s second floor.
The property’s new owners were required to pursue the review as part of the city’s development process.
The development will renew the ongoing wave of housing development along Broadway coinciding with the 2016 opening of Capitol Hill Station. New development above the light rail facility included hundreds of new market rate and affordable apartment units.
Like with the old building, there will be no motor vehicle parking below the new development — the project is rising only a block away from busy Capitol Hill Station and the area is served by several bus lines and the nearby First Hill Streetcar.
The new demolition paperwork for the 200 block of Broadway E project will mark some of the final steps in the Seattle affordable development process for the project. Under emergency rules passed in spring of 2020 to help keep design and landmark reviews on track during the pandemic restrictions, the publicly financed affordable housing development qualified for a fast track path to construction and did not need to pass through public design review.
Still, that fast track has played out slowly. The new filings that will help rectify the old building’s place in the historical land records — it has two addresses, one on Broadway and one on Thomas and, thus, requires two demolition permits, look like a final step. They include the required “rat abatement” plan requisite for every Seattle demolition as well as a report on salvage — in this case, a six-panel door, nine “side light” windows,” a front door, and a set of newel posts, railings, a brass chandelier, five schoolhouse lights, and a pedestal sink worth, in total, around $300 cash or $500 “store credit” by Earthwise Architectural Salvage.
The Seattle development process does not require developers to publicly provide demolition or construction schedule information so stay tuned to CHS for updates on when the construction work begins.
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Seattle needs to revise its historic preservation and affordable housing incentives and policies if this is the outcome.
100 years from now nobody will want to preserve all these ugly cookie cutter multi dwellings
These buildings won’t last close to 100 years
Yeah, wouldn’t worry about that too much – particleboard junk construction.
Seriously?
Do you actually live in one or just spitballing’?
Just like the old ones are lasting that long either, which is why they are being torn down. And the future yous will complain that these buildigns will be torn down.
it’ll make it easier to tear them down and build taller buildings then…seems fine
If after “resistance is futile”, what requires this to look cheap and generic? I’m personally a fan of modern architecture with all sorts of choice variants but this? This is just dead. Broadway’s well on it’s way to a wall of glass.
I know they are maximizing space to create as many units as they can in that footprint and 7 stories, but the facade looks like stacked shipping containers.
LOL 95 apartments with ZERO parking?! I get the city wants less cars but people still need to drive at times and sharing a zipcar isn’t always the answer.
The city gov’t believes we can become NYC if we believe hard enough. We’ve already got a ton of people driving up the cost of everything who make 6- and 7- figures. No need to have a comparable public infrastructure (like subways) to actually make these non-parking buildings make any sense.
This proposed building will be located literally one single block from a subway station.
Anyone who needs to own a car is free to live in the 90%+ of housing in the Seattle area that provides parking.
IKR…None of these people have any idea how we get from point A to B w/o owning a car. They don’t understand at all. Or worse? Preconceived outdated tropes. Many have roots of racist and bigoted overtones. It’s a means to “other” w/o saying the words.
People who need a car sometimes shouldn’t have to own a car at all times and park a car they rarely use in a spot that drove up their rent. Some people don’t have cars or want cars and never use them. This is a block from light rail and major bus routes. Perfect spot for an apartment with no street parking.
Yeah this is not NYC, DC or Chicago with train lines in every hood. Transit here alone is rough. Not that they need a spot for every resident either.
Well we are trying to expand transit as we speak. Rome wasn’t built in a day.
You’re absolutely right! Fortunately for folks who do need cars, there is an entire city full of other buildings which offer parking, while this building happens to be located a block away from light rail in one of the most walkable neighborhoods we have to offer. For the minority of the population who have no need for a car, this will be a great place to live.
It is a great place to live. They don’t comprehend it and never even seen it in person.
It costs a lot’of $$ to dig down for parking, so developer is more than happy to not provide :’
The land is not suited for a garage.
Here on E. Pine and Broadway we have a garage.
Yes it’s an affordable housing complex.
People waste so much time hand-wringing about parking. The issue is that one of the best remaining buildings on Broadway is being razed and replaced with an aggressively basic hardboard box.
“best remaining buildings on Broadway” – the interiors of this building are quite gross.
Just because you don’t want to live there? Or is it not good enough to get people off the streets?
Parking for what? There’s a train right there.
the crazy thing is that people that need to use a car all the time and don’t want to deal with walking places will not choose to live here…
95 apartments equals 95 places one can park their bike.
There’s no real reason to own a car around here. I have an E-scooter that gets me everywhere. I take it on transit. Changing from train to bus and back. Plus the distance to the place I am going as well saves a ton of time.
Going to the ballgame or Kraken is a breeze. I can’t imagine what I’d do w/o an e bike or scooter and transit. There’s no place for 100 cars around here. So gripping about that is kinda silly. Also, it is crystal clear you have no idea how to get around downtown/Capitol Hill.
“Zip car isn’t the only answer”
Okay, that is an actual fact. I’ve lived here a long time and never Zipped. I have Turo’d and Uber’d. I get a ride to and from Dr. appointments. But 99% of the time I am in a bike lane or transit. Or walk. I walk to my softball games. It’s a whole block away. One block. I see it clearly from my 4th story window in an affordable housing building. Community Roots Housing. Maybe you should read up on this before you cast shade?
I live here by choice. Same as you live where you live. Probably by choice.
That said? You clearly have no idea at all about daily life on Capital Hill. So why are you here to just rant about things you are 100% clueless about? I have a brother who does the same. He’s a blast at parties.
“There’s no real reason to own a car around here.”
That is a ridiculous statement. I do volunteer work which requires me to own a car, and plenty of people have valid reasons for car ownership.
We presumably have more apartment buildings without parking than any other neighborhood which kind proves the point of non necessity with any kind of commitment and planning around it.
You were also the person who complained about Broadway turning into a canyon though, so I don’t have high hopes you’ll get much of anything.
This is stupid. Build density in empty parking lots and by single family homes that aren’t old. I am tired of the last remaining pieces of coolness and old buildings being torn down over here
so we should use police power to stop people from building 7 stories in place of 2? should we also use police power to force development on those parking lots or single family homes aka urban renewal of the 50s/60s?
I’m all for more affordable housing but to replace the lovely existing structure with something this butt ugly is a shame. I don’t understand why some of the existing structure can’t be preserved to at least maintain the old Broadway look and feel.
We are…Just not this one
The “architects” of this piece of shit should be ashamed of themselves. Broadway gets uglier every year.
We are solving the housing crisis. You want to beautify them? Then pay for it.
Could have fooled me that it was “designed” by anyone at all. Ugly as hell. And I’d hope they would at least keep the frontage. I don’t like it, but at least they aren’t putting in a hundred parking spots, and there will be some commitment to affordable units, I hope?
It’s all affordable units. The cookie cutter plans are cheap and quick to get through the red tape. They are well built with extra insulation for noise. Also super efficient. The cabs are solid wood. So are the drawers.
It’s cheaper to buy 1000 of the same track lighting. Toilets and so on down the list including appliances, carpet etc.
This notion that not having folks close to transit is bananas. The noise alone would be enough.
Haven’t the Seattle designers tired of this single color band gimmick? It was the ferrous orange five years ago, bright yellow ten years. And now it looks like someone used their old roll of buff trace to provide a bit of color to their grey and white and more grey palette. It is like Seattle designers meet Soviet housing block designers–drained of imagination, presence, life, and color. Maybe this what we get after 3 years of designers only meeting via Zoom.
If they had at least kept the historic facade, the bland upper would not be so objectionable.
You want to pay for the gargoyles on every corner of the roof?
Unparked buildings limit their marketplace adaptability over the decades. Heck — every residential building needs at least a couple of load zone parking places for the repair trades and move-in/move-outs. This is a flop house in the making.
lol saying something is a slum because there is no parking.
Tell me you have never lived in an actual city without telling me that you’ve never lived in an actual city….
The suburban mindset behind comments like yours never ceases to amaze me.
Jules…So far…Over 100 buildings that are rent controlled. Many are 5 over ones. Meaning one story retail. The other 5 apartments.
These are wildly successful. Community Roots Housing is a great place to start your education. I’m all about fact based discussion.
I don’t think the new building is as ugly as other commenters do, because at least it has brick on the first floor. But I agree that having no parking is ridiculously stupid, and that we need to revisit historic preservation and find more ways to preserve existing structures, much like they did with the Bauhaus building at Melrose & Pine.
Nothing people in Seattle hate more than new housing (well except the homeless).
Housing fine. Put it where there’s empty lots are first.
“I like housing, excep this housing, or this, or this, or this”
You really crack me up Jason. You do understand that in order for someone to develop a project it takes land to do it, right!? Are you intending to force owners of “empty” lots to give up their land only so that you can continue to hang out at Bait Shop even though the owner of that property decided to sell? In a somewhat bizarre way you seem to be as much of a NIMBY as the people you like to criticize…
With the excuse that it will provide more housing, yet another irreplaceable Broadway building, with history and character, is being torn down and replaced by a bleak, generic “Box”, instead of being restored and treasured.
Sad!
EXCUSE? Housing is an epidemic and we are woefully behind.
It’s been settled for years and cleared planning. You are a little late to pooh pooh anything.
This is a classic and beautiful old building, and appears to be in good condition. It’s a real pity that it is to be destroyed in favor of yet another ugly, cheap-looking box.
“, the publicly financed affordable housing development qualified for a fast track path to construction and did not need to pass through public design review.”
The ugliness of the proposed building is a result of the “fast-track path” and the absence of any effective design review. What a crock! Shame on City officials who are allowing this to happen.
there is nothing fast about building something in Seattle.
Not only is the city officials allowing this, they mandate it. Take a read through the design coes.
While SDCI’s entitlement process is unnecessarily complex and slow (= costly), city officials are not “mandating” this kind of uninspired design and basic materiality. The ridiculously high cost of land, high interest rates, construction costs and sometimes unreasonable ROI expectations are and lots of projects are being shelved at the moment, simply because they don’t pencil out under these conditions. While this project won’t be winning any design awards, adding 95 affordable units to Capitol Hill, close to the light rail, is a win in my book.
fast track lol – that doesn’t exist in seattle
Ha, I can think of multiple projects on Capitol Hill that did go through full design review and still ended up being a hot mess, both urbanistically and architecturally. I think you might be overestimating the impact the design review process has on the final outcome.
PARKING AND DESIGN – The design reminds me of so many other buildings in the area. We don’t really have a professional design review board which is why it’s so easy to build nondescript structures. The worst part of it is it’s so unfriendly/interesting at the pedestrian level. Building with no parking in a city with less than adequate public transportation is confusing. It used to be the NW was attractive because of the water, mountains and outdoor environment and does everyone live their lives within a five mile radius? Maybe I’m just old?
weirdly enough rental cars do exist – I used one last weekend to go skiing!
Yes, I used to work in that industry and for a compact with insurance it can add up to $500 to $600.00 a month or more. That is if you have friends, family, activities outside of the service radius. If this were NY or London where you can get almost anywhere it would make sense.
Ever heard of Turo?
$500 or $600 a month for what?
You are old and never been here on Capitol Hill. Nevermind live here so…You are 1/2 right I guess,
Great design specifically because of the lack of parking causing fits among those who were never ever going to live there.