There are some big numbers involved with the 230 Broadway project. The redevelopment process that will demolish six buildings along Broadway and replace them with a seven-story structure containing 17,333 square feet of retail and 6,005 square feet of office space at ground-floor, 235 residential units above and underground parking for 354 vehicles is reaching another milestone this month with its official Land Use Application up for public comment and review. Oh, and they’ll also be moving 45,600 cubic yards of dirt.
An early concept of how the project will look from Broadway
The official end date for public comment on the application is next week on March 17 but Department of Planning and Development’s Lisa Rutzick tells CHS that, in this case, the date isn’t so much a deadline but a minimum window planners are required to provide before moving forward with scheduling the project’s next big public meeting — the Design Review Recommendation session. Here’s Rutzick’s e-mail to CHS on the process:
…the required 14-day public comment begins when the application is [posted]. That is a requirement for SEPA (environmental review). Comments are taken after these 14 days as well, but no decision is allowed to be rendered until after the formal 14 days is over, so the 14 days acts more like a minimum as comments are received throughout the entire review. The comments can address environmental issues and design. The Design Review Recommendation meeting occurs after all the initial reviews have occurred and the public comment portion of that meeting is limited to design considerations.
CHS has not heard if any community members or groups are planning to submit comments on possible environmental concerns related to the project before the application approval window opens. We’ll update if something comes up.
For more information on the project, we’ve included the PDF version of the plan submitted by developers SRM for their Early Design Guidance session back in November. At that meeting, the Capitol Hill Design Board was mostly pleased with the direction for the project with one member going so far as to call the design “elegant.” For CHS’s resident expert on the Hill’s urban design issues, check out Josh Mahar’s write-up on the design plan here. Josh, by the way, will be back on the beat next week with a write up on the big project taking shape up Madison way. Stay tuned.
UPDATE 12:15 PM:
Neglected to include some information that will answer one question likely to come up. What happens to Capitol Hill’s farmers’ market that currently makes its home smack in the middle of the planned development? CHS reported in November that the Neighborhood Farmers Market Alliance and SRM reached an agreement to keep the Broadway market in its current home through the 2010 market season. Once the light rail station development is complete in 2016, the current plan is for the market to be part of the transformation of Nagle Place. What happens in between? We’ve heard plans including a Cal Anderson/11th Ave component and a temporary multi-year stay at Seattle Central. We’ll keep you posted.
The planned parking spaces went up by almost 50%? There are 354 parking spaces for 235 units? Next to a new light rail station, new streetcar, and about 6-8 bus lines? WTF?!
Yes parking, so – it is all underground – business and residential use – what is the rub?
Some people, a lot of people have cars. And, will continue to have cars.
Also, it might be something to do with BANKS and getting a big loan from them to build … the mixture they like as criteria … to get a loan, which in this economy is not easy …
I hope the approving bodies move forward with due speed. These are tough times and if developers have capital committed and ready we should do all we can do get shovels in the ground.
The rub is that 354+ more cars in a very dense area means more accidents, more traffic, more pollution, more climate change, less bike- and pedestrian-friendliness, possibly more deaths (people and pets)…
There are new large mixed retail/residential projects on Capitol Hill with parking spaces for 50% of the residential units. This one is planning 150%. None of the other projects have the benefit of light rail, streetcar, and several bus lines literally across the street. If any new project in the entire state should have zero new parking spaces, it’s this one.
Bad bad bad bad bad bad. How do we make a public comment?
Can anyone say McDonald’s? I would love to see some fast food (other than Dicks) return to the Hill. May be a Wendy’s and KFC as well. We could turn the 27000 sq.ft of retail space minus Bank of America into a Fast Food mecca.
Misha,
You acknowledge that this is a private development and therefore have little ability to dictate how many parking spots they choose to make underground, where you can’t even see them.
Are you even concerned about the parking spots? It seems like you’re unhappy with the cars themselves. The government (both city and state) have the ability to curb cars on the road by limiting the number of tabs handed out and how much each one costs. The more they cost, the fewer people will buy them. You can try this route. Remember the monorail tab tax? Aka, the only time Tim Eyman produced a useful document. That didn’t last long with voters.
Or, like London, you can propose to the city that we have an entry/exit toll to Capitol Hill (or Seattle). I don’t think this will be popular either.
Ben
Spoken like a true lard butt. I bet he has a 60″ tv and spends his entire life either watching TV or rolling dice.
More parking spots = more cars in the neighborhood. 354 parking spots is not an small number; it’s about half a Walmart. I live almost next door to this development, so it concerns me greatly.
What could possibly have more negative impact on a neighborhood’s environment and character than a huge, unnecessary parking lot and hundreds of more cars spilling onto the streets?
Sounds like someone was confronted by their landlord while getting out of a morning shower.
Misha,
The City has a webpage that explains how to submit public comments:
http://www.seattle.gov/dpd/Notices/Public_Comment/How_To_Com
You must reference Project #3009249 in your comment letter.
Hammy, you are just so on top of the big issues of the day. Course Dicks is hip cause its french fries are SO SO greasy, and the people who own it are far right wingers … yeah so hip.
Congrats.
Misha – a few hundred cars driven at random is nothing. No need to panic. Many might be used sparingly or only on weekends, Euro style.
You can’t control this one, focus you energy on a problem that you can help solve and something which is really a problem … food banks? Shelter space? A few hundred cars is no big deal.
Where and what you eat is no… SCORN. Does that sentiment go towards one’s political leanings as well? Why do you care if Dicks leans right? Don’t buy their food. I sure don’t.
I’ll enjoy my freshly grilled salmon and rice pilaf I shall make tonight. Tasty and cheap. You can support non local firms such as McDonalds, Wendy’s and KFC. Yum! indeed.
BTW, I say more parking. The way parking spots are dissapearing around the neighborhood, I’d love to see more more more and more!
Please do say something. The best way for you to learn about how you are over-reacting, is to spend 10-20 hours at numerous DD/DRB meetings only to have a couple minutes to talk and have your voice discarded because you aren’t speaking about the design.
There is a massive shortage of parking on Capitol Hill. The traffic study conducted which will be part of the record will indicate on-street parking in that block -already at grade C- or D most likely- will spillover into a 5 block radius given the unit count. No project with the density of these projects can get the rents necessary if potential tenants have to walk 5 block everytime they want to use their car. And until the mass transit can get people to the mountains on the weekends or to Queen Anne / Ballard in under 50m or 2 transfers, people will ALWAYS have vehicles.
You are more than welcome to assemble your own parcels and design your project without parking. I anxiously await the results of such an endeavor with both the financing side and permit side.
More fast food would be great. I don’t care if it is local, chain, corporate, or otherwise. I don’t have a lard butt but I don’t mind trying to make it one.
Salmon and rice pilaf? Oh well. It’s probably farm raised salmon from B.C.
I have many concerns with this project and its timing. I live two blocks away, and before I get into my concerns I want to say I am all for improvements. However this concerns since we are still one of the worst economic situations since the great depression, so who is going be moving into all of these storefronts? We already have two new buildings that are close to being completed. I dont see any signs of the buildings filling up with more businesses. ALL over the hill, you can find for rent signs, as well as for sale signs. Businesses continue to close. Secondly, we now have a two block hole in the ground. So we are now going to add yet another entire city block of nothing? For how long? We all know the Transit center wont be open for 5+ yrs. On top of this, we have a place that is used in this redevelopment area, for the farmers market. An area that is a community area. Do the developers have to provide space for it when its completed? It doesnt look like it. Its so sad, Seattle is NOT progressive AT ALL, the city likes to think it is. If it were truly progressive there would be solutions provided, not holes in the ground. So pretty much for the next couple of yrs after they bulldoze the block for this redevelopment, we will have 3 blocks of holes in the ground. Yea, such a great idea.
When rebuilding a city – common over time – the construction era is the same.
Holes in the ground, displacment, getting things re established.
A new Broadway will emerge in 8-9 years. For sure. And that, like it or not. Why would business rent now when the Light Rail stuff will cost them massive business?
The Farmers market will do fine, they are a large group of events, the city loves them, I would not worry. 11th along Cal Anderson is one idea.
QFC is cheaper anyway, for the same items from the same suppliers. Not as poetic I guess.
vehicles yes, gas guzzlers no,
(and private car fleets in the 2nd densest neighborhood in the city – no).
I’ll totally support the scads of parking if half is for public/retail use (like broadway market) and 50 spots are motorcycle or electric-car only (for residents, hopefully).
As far as chain stores / fast food – yes, capitol hill could use some more affordable anything (eat-out food, groceries, clothes) but McDonald’s isn’t actually more ‘affordable’ in the hundred year plan / 7th generation sense.
Build even more parking spaces. Make them available to people to the public for a price. Remove street parking. No brainer.
You have been bamboozled that the dollar hamburger and dollar coffee are the end of civilization – no – just cheap fast food.
French fries, good food actually, are just potatoes cooked in oil as has been done for centuries. Now, veggie oil for better health.
Mc Donald’s hysteria is weirdly funny. Bad eating starts with the moms/dads of America. Blame them. They feed the kids crap, no longer cook at all, and then fast food gets the blame.
And too many fat people, is cause we in the collective sense eat too many calories, wherever they come from.
And that 50.00 diner loaded with calories, incl. desert and wine – that will kill you too. And it ain’t from Mc Donalds.
Are you kidding?
Fast food = good food?
on Broadway…?
Go to Aurora if you want fast food. Soon the hill will be all new buildings with 0 charm, thousands of people, cars, a strip mall of stores…and you want McDonald’s and Wendy’s and KFC too?
Why not put in a shopping center on the corner of Broadway and John as well?
There are so many small places to eat and get good food on and around Broadway, you might even learn about different cultures while doing it… you should get out more and expand your horizons.
What an idiotic comment…You don’t belong on the Hill.
Fast food attracts the worst elements: look at the Ave, the old Herfy’s when it was on Broadway, or the McDonald’s downtown. How about tax incentives to bring good healthy food like they used to serve at Ranchos Bravos last summer? Or Skillet or other “mobile” food? Or Salumi/Swinery sandwiches?
An earlier property owner where QFC now stands tried to bring in national retailers, and failed miserably. Let’s bring in the home-grown talent, and nurture them with tax cuts, lease deals, and low-interest loans for tenant improvements and creditlines.
Leave the fast food to the strip malls.
Unfortunately, it won’t pan out that way. There will always be too cheap street parking which encourages people to drive in circles seeking one of those spots (and makes folks like those responding to misha, above, in a negative manner believe, incorrectly, there is a shortage of parking on the Hill). Doesn’t matter how much off-street parking is built…which is why I agree with misha. I was shocked to see how much parking is going in here. Further, the office on the groundfloor? That ought to make broadway lively…nothing like closed miniblinds to increase the richness of broadway’s walking environment.
Careful, you might get sued for publishing that photo of the dancing shoes.