Tag Archives: development

There are still single family-style homes across from Capitol Hill Station

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A rendering of the planned affordable Alnus building as viewed from 11th Ave E (Image: Hybrid Architecture)

A long-running effort to replace a set of old single family-style homes and duplexes north of Cal Anderson and across the street from the mixed-use development above Capitol Hill Station with a new eight-story apartment building is moving forward this summer.

There is still a long path ahead including the public process around a proposed rezone to allow the project to rise to 85 feet even as the city is going through the final months of settling out a compromised overhaul of its zoning hoped to more equitably distribute growth across Seattle as part of its new 20-year plan.

Developers behind the Alnus project in the 100 block of 10th Ave E have filed paperwork for land use and construction permits for the planned affordable, eight-story, multi-family building with 221 residential units above an underground 30-stall parking garage.

Affordable housing developer Great Expectations says the 10th Ave E project’s design will require a contract rezone with the city. Continue reading →

$2M loan proposed for early boost to Seattle Social Housing Developer

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Seattle’s Social Housing Developer has held up Maryland’s The Laureate, a 268-unit mixed-income, mixed use, new construction project from Montgomery County’s Housing Opportunities Commission, as a model development.

Mayor Bruce Harrell is proposing a $2 million loan from the city to help the Seattle Social Housing Developer start on its mission to provide a wider variety of public affordable housing in the city.

“Increasing housing supply and diversity have been top priorities for my administration, creating more safe, affordable places for people to call home,” Harrell said in a statement. “While there were different strategies for how to fund the social housing developer, we share a vision for this model to be successful and add more housing options across our city. This loan will provide critical support during this interim period for planning and capacity-building so that the developer is set up for success and can achieve its goal of operating publicly owned, mixed-income housing.”

The Harrell administration says the loan would allow the developer “to sustain core operations and potentially pursue near term property acquisition opportunities” until revenue from a voter-approved tax on city employers is available. Continue reading →

With daunting list of open issues, Seattle City Council comprehensive growth plan committee meets Friday

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The Seattle City Council’s Select Committee on the Comprehensive Plan helmed by District 3 representative Joy Hollingsworth will meet again Friday morning as it works this summer to finalize the update of the city’s 20-year growth plan including new “Middle Housing” laws that will expand zoning to allow a greater range of housing types in more parts of the city.

Friday’s session will include a discussion of issues that have emerged on growth strategy, land use elements, and the state’s new Middle Housing requirements as the committee works through compromises shaped after massive pushback from some of the wealthiest neighborhoods in the city.

Planners have revised and shrunken the borders of 9 out of 30 proposed , more densely-zoned Neighborhood Centers in the proposal. Continue reading →

‘New Proposed Center Boundaries’ — Seattle re-starts process of pounding out new 20-year growth plan with compromises in Montlake, Madison Park, and Madrona

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The Seattle City Council’s comprehensive code update committee led by District 3 representative Joy Hollingsworth can get back to the core of Seattle’s growth debate starting Thursday morning as it digs in on setting the boundaries for Neighborhood Centers, new zoning areas of the city meant to more consistently and equitably distribute growth into more areas of the city.

Thursday morning’s meeting of the committee will mark the first session since the council passed an interim bill designed to meet the state’s minimum requirements under its new “Middle Housing” laws setting the framework for expanded zoning to allow a greater range of housing types in more parts of the city as Seattle finalizes its next 20-year growth plan.

On the table will be compromises shaped after massive pushback from some of the wealthiest neighborhoods in the city. According to a presentation for Thursday’s session, city planners have revised and shrunken the borders of 9 out of 30 proposed Neighborhood Centers. Continue reading →

Ten years of Chophouse Row, ‘a nice little critical mass of stuff for people who live on Capitol Hill’

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(Image: Chophouse Row)

Dunn (Image: Downtown Seattle Association)

By Matt Dowell

It’s ten years for Capitol Hill’s Chophouse Row on 11th Ave, but Liz Dunn of Dunn & Hobbes is quick to say that she and her team have been on the block longer than that.

“We’ve actually been here for 25 years,” she reminded us. “So it’s the ten year anniversary of just this last building that we added — but this whole complex I’ve owned for 25 years.”

Dunn purchased a cluster of buildings inside the 11th/Pike/12th horseshoe in 1999, then the beautiful brick building on the northwest corner of the block in 2014. They were redeveloped one by one over the years before the current form’s culmination debuted in 2015.

That’s when the Chophouse building on 11th Ave was added on top of an existing auto row-era structure. Office space was built inside that is now dedicated to coworking, the alleyway and courtyard inside the horseshoe opened, and multiple food and drink and retail spaces joined in. Chophouse Row was born. It followed Melrose Market’s footsteps — another successful Dunn & Hobbes redevelopment project that brought many small businesses into a single, shared, and life-filled space.

Dunn says that the cliche is true. In these developments, “the total is greater than the sum of the parts.” Continue reading →

Seattle makes deadline for state Middle Housing law but still has big 20-year growth plan questions to solve

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Tuesday’s council vote on the legislation was held in a virtual session as City Hall was closed in anticipation of a planned protest outside the building

By the hair on its chin, the Seattle City Council has met a statewide deadline for implementing new so-called Middle Housing legislation, approving a bill Tuesday setting the framework for expanded zoning to allow a greater range of housing types in more parts of the city.

CHS reported here on the final amendments shaped by the comprehensive code update committee led by District 3 representative Joy Hollingsworth that will put many of the development and zoning changes proposed over months of debate back on the table now that the May 30th deadline for the interim legislation has been met.

The city turned to the interim legislation intended to form the structure of the comprehensive plan and Neighborhood Residential updates to implement the HB 1110 state Middle Housing laws after legal challenges to the planning process slowed down an already massively delayed process. Mayor Bruce Harrell’s initial 20-year plan proposal the council started with itself had landed around a year later than planned. Continue reading →

While Seattle debates ‘Middle Housing,’ this 8-story project will fill in another Capitol Hill block

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The old duplex is a goner

As the city debates a new growth plan and “Middle Housing” zoning changes that might someday allow a fourplex to rise in Madrona, the site of a 123-year-old, barely 2,000-square-foot house is being prepared to hold 25 new homes on one of the most densely populated blocks of the most densely populated neighborhoods on the West Coast.

Capitol Hill is not complaining — but it is carrying a great deal of the load that has pushed Seattle back into the top 5 for growth in the country’s major cities.

The Bejelit Capitol Hill Cohousing project slated for E Olive St. between Harvard and Boylston is being planned to rise eight stories on 3,312 square feet of land nestled between the massive 1940-built Lenawee apartments building and the smaller but still impressive 1917-built Porter Apartments.

The infill project not substantial enough to trigger the public design review process is a good representation of the state of multifamily housing development on Capitol Hill in 2025. Continue reading →

Capitol Hill QFC redevelopment plan gets ‘Director’s Decision’ approval

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(Image: Daily Journal of Commerce)

The Seattle Department of Construction & Inspections has issued its Director’s Decision approving the plans for a six-story development to rise on the block currently home to the old 15th Ave E QFC.

Just over a week remains for any possible appeals to be filed against the decision.

The process milestone marks nearly two years of meetings and debate about the development including the East Design Review Board’s approval last fall of a requested zoning departure to allow the building an extra story in exchange for a layout that will preserve a prized European hornbeam tree along E Republican while also transitioning the project to better mesh with the adjacent lower structures to the north.

Any appeals must be filed with the Hearing Examiner by May 29th. Continue reading →

Council committee to debate amendments to Seattle’s Middle Housing bill

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The Seattle City Council’s comprehensive code update committee led by District 3 representative Joy Hollingsworth is ready to vote on amendments to the legislation designed to ensure that Seattle meets the June 30 implementation deadline for the state’s Middle Housing bill and expanded zoning to allow a greater range of housing types in more parts of the city.

Wednesday afternoon at 2 PM, Hollingsworth and the select committee are scheduled to take up the amendments for a vote.

CHS reported last week on the proposed amendments that would put many of the development and zoning changes proposed over months of debate back on the table.

The interim proposal up for consideration is intended to form the structure of the comprehensive plan and Neighborhood Residential updates to implement HB 1110.

The specifics on the borders of the city’s new Neighborhood Centers will be a larger fight. Continue reading →

New plaza and support for Town Hall: City finalizing public benefits deal for alley vacated to make way for First Hill 32-story apartment towers

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Ovation Apartments

The vacation of public right of way for a major new double tower apartment development next to First Hill’s Town Hall Seattle is bringing neighborhood improvements including a new public plaza plus new financial support for the Seneca St. cultural center.

Legislation finalizing the way for the city to hand over the alley space between Seneca and Spring in exchange for a $5.3 million roster of public benefits was approved earlier this week by the Seattle City Council’s transportation committee including D3 rep Joy Hollingsworth. The bill will now move on to the full council for final approval. Continue reading →