(Image: PUBLIC47)
There will be at least one project for the East Design Review Board to help shape this year. Wednesday, the board is slated for its first meeting of the year CHS is aware of, reviewing a planned eight-story apartment building along Boylston Ave E and I-5 in Eastlake.
The review session seems to be more wrapping up unfinished business than opening the gateway to more reviews. The board’s schedule after Wednesday remains empty through September.
You can’t thank the city’s recently passed interim “middle housing” legislation for jumpstarting new development. The Eastlake project has been in the works for years.
2727 Boylston Ave E
Land Use Application to allow an 8-story, 83-unit apartment building. Parking for 16 vehicles proposed. Existing building to be demolished. Early Design Guidance conducted under 3039736-EG.
View Design Proposal (26 MB)
Review Phase
REC–RecommendationProject Number3039625 View Related RecordsPlanner
David Landry
Under the proposal from developer Eastlake Real Estate Partners and PUBLIC47 Architects, a 1909-era duplex will be demolished to make way for an eight-story, 83-unit market rate apartment building above underground parking for 16 vehicles. The early design guidance for the project was wrapped up in the summer of 2022 after the Eastlake firm acquired the property for $1.6 million.
Now, the design for the project is going through what has become a rare public process in the city.
(Image: PUBLIC47)
“The project site is located on the eastern edge of the Eastlake Neighborhood and the proposed project aspires to be sensitive to the changing scale and evolving context of this stretch of Boylston Ave, while providing an inviting neighborhood experience to residents and neighbors,” the developers write. “Thanks to the site’s position on the primary arterial separating Eastlake from I-5, the building will serve as a buffer to the eastern edge of the neighborhood and will provide dramatic views of lake union and Seattle’s skyline.”
For this final recommendation phase, the board will assess the proposal for how the developers have incorporate previous feedback regarding the “contemporary” massing concept of the building, and some deep discussion about the orientation of the project’s entryway plaza to best provide landscape opportunities and shield residents from the noise of I-5. The developers say they have also incorporated feedback to reoriented the design — “Angles of the façade have been adjusted to face Lake Union, providing additional views while maintaining the shape of the preferred massing. Balconies have also been added on the West façade to allow inhabitants to enjoy west light and views,” the design packet reads.
CHS reported here on the ongoing efforts to streamline and eliminate design review as critics have said the process is too slow, too unpredictable, and too expensive.
Even with the bump forward in the design review process this week for this project, it could be a long time before construction begins on Boylston Ave E. CHS reported earlier in 2025 on the nexus of high interest rates and construction costs mixed with stagnating rents that has left the Capitol Hill area mostly construction crane-free.
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Sigh. That 1909 duplex is CUTE. But more and denser housing is a good thing, and this is a location that won’t piss people off in re: their losing views of the city, I suppose.
Just…would it kill developers to add ANYTHING but big boring old rectangles these days? I get that we aren’t going to go back to the beautiful brick work and/or exposed timber of a classic Anhalt building or whatever, but these barcode towers are so….boring. They’re easy to design and build since they can just copy/paste CAD assets between projects, I guess.
You realize your preference for out-of-period nostalgic architecture is pretty misguided and shows a lack of taste on your part, right?
This is a truly excellent design; and, no, we should not be building things to look like they were constructed 100+ years ago.
You viewpoint there is just wrong, and the city of Seattle really, really need to not be acceding to your lack of taste/bizarre preference for nostalgic, throwback architecture.
You realize your preference for crappy modern architecture is pretty misguided and shows a lack of taste on your part, right?
This is a truly crappy design; and, yes, we should be building things to look like they were constructed 100+ years ago.
You viewpoint there is just wrong, and the city of Seattle really, really need to not be acceding to your lack of taste/bizarre preference for modern, bland architecture.
Thank you. Saved me quite a bit of typing.
A thousand times yes. Thank you.
Agree! It would be nice to include at least some brick in the design.
Care to elaborate why? Does the use of brick magically make a building “good”?
“They’re easy to design and build since they can just copy/paste CAD assets between projects, I guess.”
Unfortunately, you have no idea how much thought and effort goes into a project like this one and it is depressing that people like you just lump them together with the typical run-of-the-mill and admittedly uninspiring 5-over-1’s. People can’t seem to be able to tell the difference between good and bad design anymore and that’s part of the reason why our cities look the way they do….
I promise you, I have a pretty good idea of how much thought and effort are required for a project of this scale. Which is why I know it’s a lot easier now to replicate one design over and over and over again than it ever was before, and it can show over time. No one is saying that things should look like they did when built new 100+ years ago–in quite, I quite literally said I DIDN’T expect that! But it still is a bummer to see a cute building go, and will be interesting to see how the project goes as it moves forward.
Architects don’t have to think when they just re-apply the same tired barcode window design that every other uncreative architect has used for every building of the last 15 years. They even all recycle the same tired BS design concepts to justify the pattern of the random windows and what the design is a response to (the views). Software architects are way more creative than architects today.
Haha, software “architects”….go get a license and then we can talk. Same inflated ego impostering as “software engineer”…
People like you really deserve to live and work in the absolute worst buildings imaginable but you probably wouldn’t be able to tell the difference anyway.
Oh man, just saw the part where the building will have 83 units and 15 parking spots. The current residents of that area of Eastlake are NOT going to like that…
These apartments aren’t designed for large families with SUVs. Its location is a reasonable walk/bike to UW and an easy bus ride downtown. As a current resident of this neighborhood I’m not concerned about the parking here.
In the permits they are saying that this is “middle housing”, but it most obviously not. There is not enough parking, the units are too small.
Amazon engineers who have just moved here from college who don’t have families, don’t have time to care about their homes, and who can pay “market rate”. They will ok with parking their cars around the neighborhood.
They will stay for a year or two.
The building is obviously not designed for children, no families will be living here.
Single bedroom, small office, and a living room. This perfect for new Amazon/tech employees, though the parking will be a nightmare, but doable.
I hope each unit has a mini-split for ACs and triple pane windows to keep the noise of I-5 out.
Really? Why? You’ll never live there.
is that some kinda code?
Probably a good thing to care about others generally speaking, and most people want to live in comfortable places without road noise.
Perhaps the “code” you’re missing is empathy?
Really? I live on Pine and Broadway. I live it sunshine.
You are the one who’s suddenly snooty about noise in a place you’ll never be. And yes. It’s obviously well sound insulated.
I’d say it’s not me. I am living it. You? Naw, just complain about things senselessly for the sake of nit picking. It’s prolly loney during the holidays at your house.
You don’t need to comment on every viewpoint man, let people express their harmless opinions without jumping on their back
Why do some people have to end a dissenting comment with a personal insult?
Oh thank goodness, it’s the other Boylston Ave E.
I live on Boylston Ave E on Capitol hill and every time they put up a new apartment building here they give units to the drug addicted which results in their still homeless friends smoking drugs under my kitchen window and having sex in the parking lot. After over 30 years living here the last seven or so have gotten progressively more unbearable. Thank you city hall for your terrible anti-effective policies.
Making everything progressively unbearable by concentrating drug addicts from across the country in Seattle by enabling anti-social behavior that is not tolerated elsewhere seems to be the goal of progressives running west coast cities these days. It is bizarre. I miss the progressives of the Obama years.
It’s an apartment building!
How do you imagine even 1/2 of that? You MAGA denigrate as a habit. You can’t hate and other without it.
Also? The west coast GDP supports all the red taker states run by MAGA cults. Why can’t Red states get their shit together and why do you ignore nred states crime rates? The most crime ridden are mostly Red states. That’s fact. Look it up.
you won’t. Much easier and more comfort to think like you do.
pretty sure these folks are talking “stuff” happening that is not considered a crime here – like smoking fen on the sidewalk. that would be a crime in other places, driving up their rates