UPDATE: The developers say the look and feel of planned retail along 15th Ave E could echo this facade from the Hawkins building in Portland (Image: Weber Thompson)
The developer’s preferred massing proposal for the project — UPDATE: Yes, they’ve incorrectly labeled E Thomas as E John (Image: Weber Thompson)
In keeping with Capitol Hill development, an old, single-story building will be torn down and replaced with a five-story building of residential over retail.
This time around, the Safeway at 15th Ave E and E John is up, and early plans for what will replace the store will come before the East Design Review Board this week.
The new project will replace the existing 44,000-square-foot Safeway and its adjacent surface parking lot. The Safeway was built in 1998 and as of 2021, had an appraised value of $39.48 million, according to county tax records.
In its place, developer Greystar and architect Weber Thompson propose a new, 50,000-square-foot Safeway, about market rate 400 apartment units, some new, smaller retail locations and an underground parking lot for about 350 cars, according to the design review proposal.
1410 E John St
Design Review Early Design Guidance for 2, 5-story buildings, with a total of 400 apartment units and retail. Parking for 350 vehicles proposed. View Design Proposal (55 MB)
EDG–Early Design Guidance
Project Number
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The project is coming to a neighborhood suffering a bit of big grocery anxiety. Kroger chose to shut down the nearby 15th Ave E QFC last April in a tiff over the city’s hazard pay requirements and the company continues to hold a lease on that property. With the Ohio-based Kroger apparently uninterested in striking a deal to allow a competitor to use the building, efforts continue to find a Kroger-friendly tenant capable of filling the large space.
By the time the 15th and John Safeway needs to be demolished, hopefully the nearby QFC space will be back in motion with a new grocery store.
The 98,700-square-foot lot is a sort of lopsided square, with a stem sticking up where it touches E Thomas. The existing buildings including the Aquarian Foundation church on the block that are not Safeway will remain as they are.
The design
The developer has proposed three different options, and all three propose activating what is now a long, boring blank wall – that mirrored glass isn’t fooling anybody – along 15th.
All three share a similar ground floor approach. The Safeway will be shifted west, onto what is now the parking lot. This will allow room along 15th for a handful of new retail shops, though the exact number hasn’t yet been decided.
And it won’t just be a wall of shops, either. The developer’s preferred option calls for a courtyard directly opposite where Thomas hits 15th. The courtyard would provide access to the residential portions of the complex. And such a courtyard was the way the block originally had been built, so replacing it would be a bit of a jump back in time.
As an aside, the developer searched through the records to try and figure out why the street grid goes all wonky at that corner. They chalked it up to “a combination of land-ownership patterns, infrastructure and transportation lines.”
The other two options also call for a courtyard, though it’s a bit smaller in those and not directly opposite Thomas. The stretch along 15th will also have wider sidewalks after construction has finished.
The main entrance to Safeway would be moved to mid-block E John. The developer said they acknowledge this would put the entrance very near the existing bus stop. They have plans to recess the entrance a bit in an effort to separate it from the bus stop. Wider sidewalks with curb bulbs to allow the bus to pull out of traffic are hoped to make the area more pleasant for bus riders as well.
Also moved to John would be the large blank wall, though maybe not as large or as blank. The developer notes that Safeway plans for an atypical store design which might allow for more openness along the John frontage.
But to an extent, some blank may be necessary. The plans explain that some long stretches of wall are necessary for grocery stores, because they need to put shelving and other store-related facilities – bakery, butcher, etc. – along those long stretches on the inside. The developer recognizes that long, blank walls are less than ideal, and plans to incorporate art pieces and other “treatments” to help break up the space. The details of this are still a work in progress.
They also expect to include a “concept” space, which they define as a store within a store at the corner of 14th and John, in an effort to activate that corner.
Two of the three options, including the developer’s preferred option, calls for two points along 14th to allow vehicle access to the new underground parking lot. The existing access on Thomas Street would remain, but it would be only for trucks to allow for deliveries to the store, and also for things like garbage removal. The third option calls for both cars and delivery trucks to share a single access point off Thomas.
Of the roughly 350 planned underground parking spots, plans call for setting aside about 150 of them for grocery store customers.
Beyond the ground floor is where the plans really start to separate. Two option call for two towers to rise from the ground floor, while a third option calls for three. Each of the options calls for a mix of studio, 1- and 2-bedroom units. The exact mix, and final number will depend on which of the three options moves forward, though it is projected to be around 400 total units.
The developer may give the different buildings different designs, to break up the overall mass of the project, or keep them similar to present a more cohesive look. Exactly which track the project will take has not been determined.
Amenities may include elevated courtyards, which may or may not allow resident access and a rooftop deck which will certainly allow resident access. Space will be set aside for other resident amenities, though what will go into those spaces in not yet determined.
Sidewalk areas along all three streets – 15th, 14th and John – would see new planter strips, some of which will act as stormwater retention.
An arborist report goes into some detail about the Leland Cypress trees which like the edges of the existing parking lot, screening the buildings to the northwest. The arborist believes these trees were likely planted specifically for that purpose, rather than being the remains of some naturally occurring grove, and they’re not terribly noteworthy. The arborist further notes that construction activity in the area would likely disturb the trees greatly, and the best option would be to remove the existing trees and re-plant new one once the building is done.
The meeting
In an effort to avoid the delay debacle of the development around the Queen Anne Safeway, Greystar and Weber Thompson have been busy meeting with neighborhood and community groups including the influential Pike Pine Urban Neighborhood Council to come up with 15th Ave E-friendly concepts and clear the ground of issues before the formal design review process begins this week.
CHS reported in October on the continuing plans to redevelop the grocery store site and the developer’s meeting with architects and community members with the Pike/Pine Urban Neighborhood Council to discuss priorities for the project. Representatives from the development team of architectural firm Weber Thompson, Pine View Development, and development and construction firm Greystar said they expect at least two years of planning and “entitlement” process will be required for the project to run Seattle’s public gauntlet including multiple rounds of design review and then another two years of construction before the project opens for new residents, new small businesses, and a new Safeway grocery store.
The developers also say they digested work from a series of 15th Ave E neighborhood design workshops organized three years ago by the street’s resident designers at Board and Vellum and Environmental Works. The design guidelines from the process mixed a general wish to preserve the quaint and quirky vibe on 15th with a desire for new and plentiful commerce on the street.
The 15th and John developers, meanwhile, are also working on a similar plan for the U District Safeway. They hope, of course, that both the U District and the Capitol Hill projects move along much faster than Queen Anne’s contentious process.
On 15th Ave E, once the building rises, the process will have still been a near-decade in the making with behind the scenes effort outside of the public design review process underway for years. CHS first broke the news on early paperwork on the project in September 2019.
Meanwhile, the serious start to replacing one Capitol Hill grocery store comes as another is finally about to open. After years of anticipation, an “opening soon” sign has gone up at the new H Mart in the developments above Capitol Hill Station. The 16,000-square-foot store is at the center of the mixed-use projects above the busy transit station with doors just to the right of the station’s main Broadway and John entrance.
As for the Safeway development, you can view early public comments and add your own here.
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Will the houses around 15th ever see the sun again? Geeze this is why I hate high rise development in Seattle. We have so little sun anyways…
Oh no! think of the poor dozen or so homeowners who have to live next to a 7 story building, suffering in their million-plus dollar houses.
Yet you’re all for up zoning and more housing. Can’t have both.
“High rise development” is not five stories.
Word. And, being all for upzones doesn’t mean being all for shitty upzones, such as this one. As with ALL good architectural design, there could have been an option 4 with cascading or staggered rooflines that allow for greater sun penetration, better views from the hundreds of news apartments and a more interesting look in the ‘hood. Of course, such a concept would require the Dockers-loving Seattle P&D department and our Council to create zoning options that allow for such, i.e. raised heights on a certain percentage of the site. Think they could ever pull their heads from their keisters long enough to figure that one out?
Who can forget all those wonderful days spent frolicking in the Safeway parking lot that will be ended by the monstrous shadow of a 5 story building.
I’m literally the owner of the only house this building could conceivably cast a shadow on, the next closest single family home is at least a block away, and I say they should break ground tomorrow.
Yes, the question, “Will the houses around 15th ever see the sun again?” really had me scratching my head about what houses we’re talking about
That second image. titled “The developer’s preferred massing proposal for the project” shows East Thomas Street labeled as “E JOHN ST”.
The design resembles all the crappy “new architecture”, that you can find just about everywhere in the surrounding suburbs. Capitol Hill taking street design ideas from Burien. Pretty sad indeed.
Agreed! Let’s keep Cap Hill a place where people want to live. Instead we are becoming money mining central for developers.
Oh please! Money mining central. Only if you can afford to wait six or more years from conception to completion. Not exactly a get rich quick scheme.
So this is being built/funded from the goodness of the heart of the developers? I get this is capitalism. I get we need density. Developers can make a lot of money and add a lot of housing while producing quality construction that adds to the neighborhood and community. We can do better than multi-block long buildings with unimaginative, empty retails spaces that sit empty for a tax write off.
Do explain the way to make money with a “tax write off”
Yup! But, hey, since it beats the awful surface lot and crap-ugly existing Safeway (and, certainly, it does, but that’s a super-low bar), we are supposed to rejoice that it sucks less and provides Soviet-block-style housing for hundreds.
Folks, raise the friggin’ bar!
I am all for housing density on Cap Hill but we also need green spaces, light, and character. This should be broken into more than one structure with green space between. Two restaurant spaces, at least, should face the courtyard, for a sense of community. More balconies would help as well.
There’s literally a park across the street…
You mean encampment.
Haha. You’re funny.
And, since there’s a tiny strip of land across the street (that has,on rare occasion, functioned as a sort of parkspace), we don’t need more of it? Green spaces shouldn’t be woven into the fabric of every new -especially large-scale- development?)
Clearly, you’ve never visited or studied any of the world’s greatest urban places and know little or nothing about the role of tree canopy and green space in countering the increasing and increasingly dangerous urban heat affect. Sigh.
Indeed. And, lots of big windows.
Even with all of the supposed consultation with community groups, this is so underwhelming, soul-less, short on green space and tree canopy and 100% devoid of green roofs (WTF Seattle City Council? WHEN will you make that mandatory in the city building code, you ignoramuses?!). Ugh.
Our policymakers need to wake up.
I sort of recall the neighbors suggesting housing above the store, during the planning process for the 1998 version of the store. Prior to that it was the classic low, slightly arched roof Safeway, set at the west side of the lot, with a sea of cars in front (and Christmas trees at that time of year).
As with most new buildings, this is ugly and boring AF, but then, so is the building it’s replacing. It’s crazy that a whole new Safeway less than 25 years old was built without any housing above it. And 5 stories isn’t that big of a deal. I do wish the space was a big more broken up, but developers gotta maximize that ROI, so no chance of that. I agree with Glen that interior courtyard businesses and more balconies would be an improvement.
I kind of love that the Aquarian Foundation house is not budging.
With ya.
City is to be faulted for not giving developers more tools/requirements and flexibility to build large stuff like this with varying rooflines, broken up walls, more green space, etc. Give those money-driven developers more height in exchange for stuff people in the community will see value in. One can build taller and actually create better use of sunlight and shade -if our crappy code allowed for it.
And, developers need to be held to higher standards, too. It’s a tit-for-tat trade off game that Seattle policy makers don’t know how to do nearly as well as they seem to think they do.
The Aquarian Foundation house will be kind of like that little house in Ballard, owned by a senior woman whose name I can’t remember at the moment. She refused to sell to a developer of a huge building, and that house is now surrounded on 3 sides by the new building.
Well, the Aquarian Foundation is on the corner, so it won’t be quite so boxed in. In the 30 years I’ve lived here, those windows have been covered, so sunlight doesn’t seem to be their priority.
Um, Group health has been across the street for forty years, is nearly the same height, and casts a similar shadow. So, I think most of those neighbors, homeowners and renters, understand that greater density will result in a few more shadows. But honestly, you Born in the CD, seem to enjoy casting shadows on everything. Count me as the world’s biggest NIMBY when it comes to your comments.
Kind of like a swastika
In more than one way too. (Being Seattle developers and all)
Looks great – build it. I love the idea of having more active uses along 15th Ave. Only wish it was taller.
I’m happy to see that they modified the original plan of having the underground garage entrance right near the corner of 15th and John, at least from what I can see. They even put in an entire page devoted to discussing how busy that corner is.