The future 12th at E Olive St? (Image: Runberg Architecture Group)
The largest development taking shape on Capitol Hill has, perhaps unsurprisingly, also generated the most pushback from neighbors and the biggest challenges for the city’s design review process.
The Mack Real Estate group has plans for an eight-story building at 1710 12th Ave, just north of the affordable 12th Ave Arts development. The land is currently occupied by the former Car Tender auto shop, Bergman’s Lock and Key, and the old Scratch Deli building. The market rate, mixed-use project set to reshape the block started the design review process in late 2019 and returns, now, for the final step still facing stacks of questions and following iterations that have seen at least six different design concepts presented for review.
In its most recent pass in front of the East Design Review Board in November, frustration about the project and concerns about its relationship to the lower heights and smaller scale housing off of 12th bled through. The board split in its opinion that the project could move forward with two of the board members siding with public comment and voting to make the project return for yet another early design guidance session “to consider additional massing alternatives and response to context.” The proposed building related too much to the larger scale of the 12th Ave Arts development and not enough to the small apartment buildings and houses nearby.
“The Board recognized the large volume of public comment with concerns regarding the height, bulk, and scale of this project relative to recent up-zoning changes, the existing context and the adjacent lower intensity zone and agreed that these issues were of critical importance in developing the design of the project,” the report on the most review session for the project reads.
1710 12th Ave
Land Use application to allow an 8-story, 134-unit apartment building with retail. Parking for 83 vehicles proposed. Existing buildings to be demolished. Design Review Early Design Guidance done under 3035745-EG. View Design Proposal (32 MB)
REC–Recommendation
Project Number
Joseph Hurley — email comments: [email protected]
But there is light at the end of the long process tunnel. Wednesday, the project team enters what could be the final review for the project believing its has found solutions for the problems of scale and relationship to the neighborhood.
“Massing and modulation have been adjusted to reflect/reference this smaller scale and create an appropriate transition,” the design review packet reads. “The preferred scheme does draw inspiration from the neighboring 12th Ave Arts building, but now also incorporates inspiration from the neighborhood to the north, west and east as well.”
Plans, developed by Runberg Architecture Group, call for a bit more than 183,000 square feet, made up of 134 housing units, with a mix of mostly one-bedroom units, plus two studios and 24 two-bedroom units. There are plans for 4,379 square feet of commercial space, broken into three spaces, one of which will be a cafe. There will be underground parking for 84 cars, with access from the alley, and also parking for 115 bikes.
The building sits just within the light rail station area – in zoning terms – and is permitted to be 75 feet tall. So, that’s exactly the height the developers are proposing. This makes the development a bit tricky, since it acts as a transition between zones that allow for taller buildings, and the shorter ones across the street.
For example, the building will tower over the existing buildings to the rear of the site – across an alley, those buildings are on 13th Avenue. In early meetings with the East Design Review Board, board members were concerned about the sharpness of those changes.
The proposal’s documentation of public comment includes those complaints — and many more:
The developer notes that those properties, in particular, are in an area with a 50-foot height limit, and that the area’s natural incline, means that the properties on 13th are already a bit taller. So, if and when they are redeveloped, the height difference with a new building would actually be closer to 10-12 feet, not nearly as jarring a transition.
The developers also tried to decrease the mass by sort of shaving down the corners of the building on the upper floors.
Beyond that, the developers point out that while the change may be a bit abrupt, building taller, denser buildings near the light rail stations should be a goal of city zoning.
The project’s changes over recent years of reviews
Previously, the board also complained about “repetition” in the building’s facade on a project of this scale.
“While some of the Board members appreciated the playfulness of the upper level undulations and noted its appropriateness on this Capital Hill (sic) site, other Board members were concerned by the repetition of a structure of this scale and, echoing public comment, the comparatively inverted organization of static elements in the pedestrian realm and more dynamic elements at the upper levels,” the report on the November review reads.
Along the street level, the façade will be made up of alternating areas of brick and wood panel. Landscaping will also change along the street in an effort to further break up the streetscape. The upper levels will have undulations, similar to the 12th Ave Arts building.
The 12th Ave packet includes this diagram showing zoning heights allowed in neighboring areas
The developers say that a strong commercial presence will also add energy and life. The project will achieve 48% of 12th Ave frontage as commercial — “3 spaces sized appropriately for local businesses – some hopefully returning to the site” — they say, with. more than 60% of E Olive St frontage commercial.
Amenities will include common areas, a fitness room, a roof deck, and, yes, there will be a podcast room.
A view of the view from the ground floor of the 12th Ave project
Bellevue Ave
Another eight-story building will come before the East Design Review Board this week, this one at 123 Bellevue Ave E, where E John hits Bellevue.
The site is currently occupied by a two-story, single family house, and a two-story, 13-unit apartment building, both dating to 1906. In its place, developer, Koz Development proposes an eight-story, 168-unit residential building. Fourteen of the units will be studio apartments.
123 Bellevue Ave E
Land Use application to allow an 8-story apartment building with 154 small efficiency dwelling units and 14 apartment units (168 units total). Parking for 3 vehicles proposed. Existing buildings to be demolished. Early Design Guidance Review conducted under 3035275-EG. View Design Proposal (15 MB)
Project Number
David Sachs — email comments: [email protected]
The remaining 154 will be “small efficiency dwelling units,” basically, very small studio apartments. The building code mandates unit size (230 to 420 square feet), that it has kitchen facilities and a closet, and that there be additional storage space somewhere in the building. In spite of the small size, the units are all self-contained (they are not apodments). In addition to the required kitchen facilities, units in this building will include an in-unit washer and dryer.
The proposed building would have a J-shape, with the hollow part of the J facing Bellevue Ave.
Unlike the 12th Ave building on the edge of a higher-zoned area, this one is surrounded by four- six- and 11-story buildings. Though there were some residents who suggested the building was too tall for the area.
It would have eight parking spaces for cars, though none are required in the area. Also there will be parking for bikes, which is required in the area.
There’s a small grove of trees on the property, that the city had initially asked the developer to find a way to preserve. It seems the grove will not be preserved, though there will be new trees planted. The developer has increased the number and variety of trees in this round of the proposal in an effort to recreate the grove.
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Seattle’s design review process is a joke. We need to stop giving so many concessions to these NIMBYs. This building is right by the light rail, one stop from downtown or the UW. Where else would you build a building lime this? You know how you accommodate for “the sharpness of those changes?” By upzoning everything around it.
Right, because this will all be “affordable” housing? If anything, the concessions are going to the developers as well as the city itself, just drooling over potential tax revenue.
They say, “Market rents.” Not likely affordable
Regardless if it’s “affordable”, increased supply should help with skyrocketing rent costs.
Seattle is not a closed system.
The areas around that building are already upzoned to allow at least four stories of multi family housing. So, these people are arguing the future built environment should be restrained by neighboring structures that do not even conform with the current zoning. Crazy. Build what current zoning allows and stop holding up perfectly good projects based on objections mounted by those who haven’t recognized their homes will all be torn down sooner rather than later. And furthermore, of course new buildings along 12th should relate to and reflect the profile of the Seattle Arts building. The proposed building runs along the same arterial, is even closer to the transit station, and sits on a similarly sized lot. Sorry if it casts a shadow behind it, but come on people, you knew this stuff was coming years ago.
I completely agree. The whole design review process is a cruel joke played at the expense of future residents. Interminable and capricious permitting drives up costs, which in turn drives up the minimum rent for a development to pencil out. DR should just be axed that projects that don’t need a contract rezone or some other special handling.
NIMBYs can go away forever
So, you dont want them in your back yard?
LOL
Here’s what I am going to love about this process:
1.) The No Change At All Nimbys who will come up with the most ridiculous reasons possible to prevent this project from going forward. It’s too bad for their bad faith arguments that there are only two decrepit buildings on the site at present so they can’t (falsely) claim to be “preserving” something.
2.) The inevitable design review process where 50+ percent of the process is fending off the intrusion of terrible Old Lady Taste into the design of the structure. Because Old Ladies have Absolutely Terrible Taste, usually begat of two sources: first, they are ever-nostalgic to the point they will, for example, try to turn this large structure into a fake Particle Board Craftsman monstrosity (oh, they love their fakey fakey craftsmans); second, their design taste is usually a mashup of their ideal doll house + their ideal wedding cake. So imagine if a doll house and a wedding cake mated, and that’s the design these Tasteless Old Ladies will prefer. Add in a pastel yellow color scheme (the color of the lemon buttercream frosting on their ideal wedding cake, natch) and you’ve created an ugly abomination in the faux-craftsman style these Tasteless Old Ladies will be attracted to like flypaper.
3.) The best, tho, is the Boomer Parking Complaints. There is Never Enough Parking for Boomers who view it as their constitutional right to park within 20 feet of any entrance, anywhere, at any time. The Boomer tears associated with Not Enough Parking are something I, personally, love to see.
This will be fun!
pretty sure Old Dude Taste is just as bad as Old Lady Taste. suggest being more equal opportunity in your ageism, lest it come off as sexism!
110% ageist here, tbh. The Boomer generation and those before them are 100% responsible for the sad state of urbanism in this country. The car-centric design, the perpetual underfunding of mass transit, the pedestrian-hostile development you see everywhere.
After all, these generations, especially the Boomers (America’s worst generation!) gave us the suburbs, gave us the shopping mall, gavr us the strip mall, and gave us redlining ffs (!!!).
Just…ugh. All I can say is “enough” when it comes to these cohorts having **any** say whatsoever in design choices with regard to future development.
And, to your point: I would argue that Old Dude Taste is more along the lines of “tastelessness” in its truest sense. What I mean is that Old Dude Taste is the **absense** of any taste whatsoever.
Old Lady Taste, on the other hand, is 1000x worst in that it is not tastelessness as in the absence of taste, but — even worse — a predilection and attraction toward absolutely hideous design. The most common manifestation here in Seattle is the Old Lady love of the Fakey Fakey Craftsman — what a blight these particle board homes are. I mean…remember the last housing expansion, with all the townhomes built in the boxy style with craftsman do-dads glued on here and there? Ugh. And why were they designed this way? Largely because Old Lady Tasteless showed up to design review meetings and politely — but endlessly — complained about the design until she got her way.
Which is to say that we are all now paying for the disgusting tastelessness of Granny Gruesome, and will be doing so until these particle board craftsman monstrosities she shepherded into existence rots into the ground.
“Old Lady Taste, on the other hand, is 1000x worst “
learn words (worse, worst, worsterest lol) then get back to us junior.
Whoa. Someone needs a nap. What’s the matter, hon, did Grandma and Grandpa not buy you a pony so all Boomers are bad? But, just to be clear…
1) Suburbs, strip malls, redlining (and racism) were all a thriving business well before the Boomers came along
2) You might want to check the ages of the people who are responsible for bringing Link light rail (and new transit systems in other cities) to fruition before you label all Boomers as ‘anti-transit’
3) IDK, but every big-a**, dual-axle, fossil-fuel burning pickup truck I see cruising the hill looking for parking is not being driven by 70 year-olds, but someone from your generation, cranky young dude
Perspective is a wonderful thing. Perhaps you will have it someday when your generation is called the ‘worst generation ever’, and, trust, that WILL happen.
The boomers didn’t create suburbs. They were the children of the suburbs. Car-centric urban design (including the old streetcar suburbs) and expansion of suburban developments were well underway before they were even born.
It wasn’t the Grannies who championed particle board, or
EFIS, or OSB.
Today’s rowhouse projects prove that freedom from design review makes no difference.
Just a slightly better use than the junkyard that’s currently there.
Day by day, Seattle looks more and more like a shopping mall in Iowa City.
You mean with all the walkable streets and the density this project creates? Yeah, sounds just like Iowa City!
I mean lacking in soul, grit, humanity, individuality. It’s the continued hoaolefication of anything of value. If you wanted plastic, you should have stayed in plasticland, not brought it here.
Iowa City doesn’t have a mall; the closest mall you can drive to is in Coralville!
Looks good to me