Tag Archives: development

In the Central District, groundbreaking set for one side of 23rd Ave with new project planned for the other — Plus, an unofficial tally of Capitol Hill’s big mixed-use buildings waiting for improved ‘market conditions’

Posted on by
14

Plans for The Bascomb on the west side of the street

Groundbreaking for The Sarah Queen on the east side of 23rd Ave will come this summer

Central District developer Jaebadiah Gardner is well in front of plans for a “taller and denser” — and more equitable and affordable — Seattle.

Gardner Global has announced The Sarah Queen, a new Black-owned development set to rise at 23rd and Union, will break ground in June.

Across the street, plans for The Bascomb are also now taking shape.

On the west side of 23rd Ave, things are still in the paperwork phase.

According to permits filed this month with the city, The Bascomb is planned to rise seven stories on the west side of 23rd Ave, creating 54 units and a small, five-car parking garage. The planned unit mix will include two and three-bedroom units. Every unit is being planned as affordable housing.

Across 23rd Ave, they are getting ready to dig in for a year and a half of construction on The Sarah Queen.

CHS reported last August as the Mount Calvary Christian Center on the east side of 23rd Ave was demolished to make way for The Sarah Queen. That development will create 112 new apartment homes above street level commercial or live-work space and underground parking for about 20 vehicles.

The Bascomb will rise eight stories thanks in part to the Mandatory Housing Affordability program A portion of The Sarah Queen’s units will be reserved as affordable housing for residents earning 80% or below of the Area Median Income. Continue reading →

Wilson announces plan to speed up Seattle ‘taller and denser’ zoning changes

Posted on by
25

From the Centers & Corridors Legislation director’s report

View the interactive map showing “Centers and Corridors” rezoning proposals here

In one of the clearest statements of her urbanist bonafides yet, Mayor Katie Wilson has announced an “accelerated approach” to pounding out Seattle’s new growth plan that could move timing on zoning and development changes up by years.

“Taller, denser, faster,” the mayor said Thursday. “To address our housing shortage, we’re planning for a city where everyone has the opportunity to live in a safe, welcoming neighborhood with access to jobs, services, and community,” Wilson said in her statement on the acceleration of the next phases of Seattle’s Comprehensive Plan to address the city’s housing crisis.

Under the acceleration, Wilson is asking City Hall and the Seattle City Council to combine and speed up the final, meatiest phases of the comprehensive plan process including arriving at a Draft Environmental Impact Statement, finalizing rules for “middle housing” like fourplexes and townhomes in what have been historically single-family zones, implementing state mandates around transit oriented development, and finalizing the “taller and denser” expansion of existing cores like Capitol Hill and the U-District.

Her new timeline would see rezoning legislation in motion by 2027 that was originally not expected until 2028 — or later. Continue reading →

Capitol Hill’s Roy Vue, once ‘saved’ from microhousing fate, sells for $11.5M

Posted on by
22

(Image: Haley Blavka Photography/Save the Royvue)

A Capitol Hill apartment building once at the center of a community effort to save the 1924-era structure from being converted to microhousing has been sold.

The Bellevue Ave Roy Vue Apartments building was acquired by Seattle-based real estate investment firm Kite Partners earlier this month for $11.5 million, according to county records.

Nearly a decade ago, the previous owners of the 34-unit building, Alliance Multifamily Investments, and developers Anew Apartments had an agreement and plan in place to build over the Roy Vue’s garden and overhaul the three-story building to create 147 small efficiency dwelling units in the structure.

The Save the Roy Vue effort was formed to stop the project. Historic Seattle and neighborhood group the Capitol Hill Historical Society joined forces to nominate the property for landmarks protections.

The landmarks board granted the Roy Vue protection status late in 2018.

The designation cited the Roy Vue’s embodiment of  “the distinctive visible characteristics of an architectural style, or period, or a method of construction, its presence as “an outstanding work of a designer or builder” and because “of its prominence of spatial location, contrasts” of siting, age, and scale as “an easily identifiable visual feature of its neighborhood or the city.”

But the designation did not protect the building’s interior — only its exterior and garden. Continue reading →

Seattle City Council begins ‘Centers and Corridors’ debate, kicking off next phase of 20-year growth plan

Posted on by
Reply

From the committee’s Thursday presentation (PDF) kicking of the Phase II process

The Seattle City Council’s Select Committee on the Comprehensive Plan will hold its first meeting of the year Thursday as it kicks off what officials are calling “Phase II” of the process to set a new 20-year development plan for the city.

Now chaired by District 2’s Eddie Lin after D3 rep Joy Hollingsworth guided the committee through the update’s first phase and legislation last year, the committee will face a complicated year of debate as it digs into the nitty gritty over state-mandated laws hoped to allow a greater range of housing types in more parts of the city.

CHS reported here on Phase II’s core elements of the new growth plan and the debate that will likely burn hottest for those opposed to change in the city: future growth in areas like Montlake, Madison Valley, Madison Park, and Madrona. Continue reading →

Happy 10th birthday, Capitol Hill Station

Posted on by
19

Gov. Inslee on an early VIP ride (Image: Alex Garland for CHS)

Close to 10,000 riders a day now board Sound Transit light rail trains at Capitol Hill Station. That’s not too far off predictions from when the city subway station deep below the corner of Broadway and John carried its first riders ten years ago Thursday on March 19th, 2016.

Will the next four years bring the growth of another 4,000 riders a day needed to hit forecasts? Who knows — but Capitol Hill Station has grown into much of what the neighborhood, city, state, regional, and federal leaders hoped when the ribbon was cut and the confetti fell on that March Saturday as officials and transit lovers celebrated the opening of the colossal $1.9 billion expansion of light rail to Capitol Hill and the University District.

(Image: Sound Transit)

Ten years later as Seattle’s light rail prepares for, perhaps, its greatest expansion with the 2 Line connecting the city to the Eastside across the I-90 bridge through the Central District’s Judkins Park Station, the Capitol Hill subway station is a center of transit activity below hundreds of new apartments, a grocery store, cafes and diners, and a plaza and festival street that makes a weekly home for the neighborhood’s farmers market.

Happy 10th birthday, Capitol Hill Station. Continue reading →

Punk Rock Flea Market springs back with 20th anniversary season and another year on Capitol Hill

Posted on by
4

In 2006, the Seattle music scene may have been more about Band of Horses, Minus the Bear, and the Blue Scholars but some things were still pretty punk rock. Two decades after its 2006 debut, the Punk Rock Flea Market is beginning its twentieth year with another season in the converted Capitol Hill QFC turned Quality Flea Center.

This weekend will bring the first PRFM session of the year to 15th Ave E: Continue reading →

‘Five to twelve months’ — Mayor signs legislation to shave time off creation of housing and emergency shelter

Posted on by
8

Mayor Katie Wilson signed legislation Wednesday her office says could shave “five to twelve months” off the creation of shelter and housing in the city.

CHS reported here on the bills from the City Council’s South Seattle representative Eddie Lin that revise environmental review thresholds and relax requirements for transportation impact analyses, transportation management plans, and construction management plans.

“Today, we’re eliminating out-of-date regulatory barriers and speeding the permitting process so we can accelerate the production of the housing and shelter we need,” Wilson said in a statement.

CHS reported here on the mayor’s first State of the City address delivered this week including her pledge to create 1,000 units of shelter space this year and identify city land for new tiny house villages.

 
🐦‍⬛ $5 A MONTH TO HELP KEEP CHS PAYWALL-FREE

Subscribe to CHS to help hire writers and photographers to cover the neighborhood. CHS is a pay what you can community news site with no required sign-in or paywall. To stay that way, we need you. Become a subscriber to help us cover the neighborhood for $5 a month -- or choose your level of support 🐦‍⬛
 

Change on Millionaire’s Row as Capitol Hill’s Shafer Baillie Mansion is sold

Posted on by
16

(Image: Shafer Baillie Mansion)

(Image: Shafer Baillie Mansion)

By Matt Dowell

Up on Capitol Hill’s Millionaire’s Row, a half-century old B&B in the 1910s-era Shafer Baillie Mansion has been put to rest.

Ana Lena Melka and Mark Mayhle, who’ve owned and operated the business for the last two decades, decided last year that they were ready to retire.

“I was just tired,” Melka told CHS. “We’ve been open year round for twenty years except when we took two weeks off to refinish all the wood floors and do all the carpets.”

They put the house at 14th and Aloha just down from Volunteer Park up for sale and stopped taking bookings after New Year’s Eve. A buyer materialized and the sale — for somewhere near its $5 million asking price — is pending. Continue reading →

Seattle continues to chisel away at streamlining State Environmental Policy Act review

Posted on by
Reply

Seattle’s ongoing efforts to rein in costly and time consuming environmental review to help ease the creation of new housing in the city is continuing Wednesday morning as a city council committee considers legislation that would change how transportation planning impacts the review process.

The Land Use and Sustainability Committee chaired by South Seattle representative Eddie Lin is considering two ordinances (PDF) that would revise environmental review thresholds and relax requirements for transportation impact analyses, transportation management plans, and construction management plans. Continue reading →

These are the Neighborhood Centers and Corridors around Capitol Hill as Seattle begins new debate on upzoning

Posted on by
22

View the interactive map showing “Centers and Corridors” rezoning proposals here

An example Lowrise 3 development from the city

Seattle is getting into the nitty gritty over state-mandated laws hoped to allow a greater range of housing types in more parts of the city. For the neighborhoods around Capitol Hill, the first steps of 2026 will focus on a core element of the new growth plan and the debate that will likely burn hottest for those opposed to change in the city: future growth in areas like Montlake, Madison Valley, Madison Park, and Madrona.

The city’s “Centers and Corridors” proposal (PDF) released Friday is the second in what officials say has grown into a four-phase process to increase building heights and density in more areas of the city and coordinate growth with investments in transit.

“This legislation builds on important zoning reform, updating the rules on what can be built and where, so we can create abundant and affordable housing,” Mayor Katie Wilson said in the announcement. “Seattle is a great city, and more and more people want to make it their home. We’ll keep advancing zoning changes and developing social housing, as we expand our housing and affordability options. And we are just getting started.”

The Wilson administration now finds itself carrying forward a comprehensive growth plan overhaul for the city started and shaped by Mayor Bruce Harrell’s office. Continue reading →