Tag Archives: construction

600+ new apartments around Capitol Hill this year, even more ready in 2016

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(Image: Kate Clark via Flickr)

(Image: Kate Clark via Flickr)

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Seattle in Progress and more than 90 either planned or permitted (below)

Seattle in Progress shows 23 projects completed around Capitol Hill in the past year (top) and more than 90 either planned or permitted (below)

Greater Capitol Hill will be home to at least 600 new apartment units in 2015 as the most recent wave of ongoing construction projects finally finish up. A recent report from Dupre+Scott Apartment Advisors projects 729 new units will open in 2016 and 707 in 2017.

In all likelihood, the true number will be even higher as the Dupre+Scott report doesn’t count microhousing, subsidized/nonprofit housing, or buildings that have under 20 units.

Last year, the real estate analysts counted 778 new units in the Capitol Hill region, which includes Eastlake and First Hill. Across the Puget Sound, a record total of 12,000 apartments are expected to open this year, Scott said. Some 48,000 apartments are expected to open in the region by 2019.

So can all this new supply keep up with demand and put the brakes on climbing rents? Continue reading →

Sweatbox trying to hang in until Pike/Pine development means new customers, not torn up streets

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(Images: Sweatbox)

10542681_4272840075181_1655506004600303129_oCapitol Hill’s Sweatbox, one of the first purveyors of Bikram Yoga in Seattle, is in a fight for its life to survive years of 10th Ave construction. Thousands of new residents — and potential yoga students — are coming to Pike/Pine. The studio’s Laura Culberg is doing everything she can to hold the pose until they get here.

“We’re just trying to get a breath,” Culberg told CHS.

Culberg said that ongoing construction and torn up streets for infrastructure upgrades to support new Pike/Pine developments have severely damaged Sweatbox’s Capitol Hill business. It’s a similar situation at the other businesses on 10th and 11th just south of E Pike though the likes of Neumos have so far weathered the challenges. There is no public mitigation money for the private projects necessitating the work. Instead, Culberg said she was forced to file a claim with the city asking for more than $11,000 for lost business — one life raft she has been hoping for to help Sweatbox survive the ongoing lean times.

But in the course of reporting this story, CHS had the sorry business of informing Culberg that the city had rejected her claim. Continue reading →

Celebrate Earth Day at the greenest office building in your neighborhood… and the world

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This is how the corner of 15th and Madison looked three Earth Days ago. That roof looks pretty green.8656027714_cdb2af84e3_b

While CC’s won’t be part of the celebration *this* Earth Day (the bar was reportedly offered a space but at one point but opted instead for an E Olive Way move) it should still be a pretty good party at the Bullitt Center…

“The greenest commercial building in the world…”

that used to be a gay bar.

Over the weekend, one of the finishing touches before next Monday’s celebration of the project was completed as students planted the landscaping inside the overhauled McGilvra Place Park that fronts the Bullitt building. A Seattle U study once called the urban greenspace “the loneliest” place on Capitol Hill but CHS liked it fine for sitting for a summer lunch as Madison rushed by. The new Pacific Northwest-lush plantings will make it even nicer.

IMG_1833 Continue reading →