A massive 2019 real estate deal along E Olive Way is getting ready to bear mixed-use fruit some three years and a pandemic-shifted Capitol Hill development and rental environment later.

Plans filed this spring show what will come next for the 1600 block of E Olive Way: a new seven-story mixed use building that will spread across three parcels off the curving street to make space for around 160 new apartment units above street level commercial spaces for shops or restaurants and a two-level underground parking garage.

The project is the second major development to begin public planning this spring to rise along the curves of E Olive Way. CHS reported here on the plans for a new eight-story mixed use project being readied for the All Season Cleaners property just below Broadway.

Lower on E Olive Way, CHS reported here in April, 2019 on the $21 million deal for Vancouver, Canada-based real estate investment and management company Low Tide Properties to purchase the collection of commercial buildings including the Fred Wildlife events space.

Images from the early permitting documents

The plans filed in March and presented last week to neighborhood development group the Pike Pine Urban Neighborhood Council call for demolition of the buildings including the multi-story Coldwell Banker Bain real estate office structure currently fronting E Olive Way and the shuttered events space.

Coldwell Banker Bain Capitol Hill is moving its offices to the top of Pike/Pine where is turning a former auto row-era grocery into a new neighborhood headquarters where 14th Ave meets Pike and Madison.

CHS reported here, meanwhile, on the decision for Fred Wildlife ownership to shut down the business in early 2020 in the wake of the land deal. Owner Chris Pink told CHS at the time that Fred and other neighboring businesses “had a panic attack when [the sale] happened. Everybody had these horrible expectations, but [Low Tide] came in and were the most generous, sweet, non-pushy.” But after being in the space for ten years, efforts to negotiate a sustainable rent for the venue fell apart and Fred cleared out.

Now the buildings are being prepared for demolition to make way for the new mixed-use project. The old Fred space was previously home to the longtime studio of legendary Seattle photographer Fred Milkie, the official photographer of the Seattle World’s Fair. The Milkie benefitted from the sale of the longtime holdings in 2019.

Low Tide Properties bills itself as a developer that invests in “emerging neighbourhoods” for the “long-term.” It is the real estate arm of Lululemon founder Chip Wilson’s ventures with major holdings across Vancouver and a growing portfolio here in Seattle.

At the time of the deal, the E Olive Way sales material boasted that the property represented “a rare opportunity to invest in Seattle’s iconic development cycle and to take advantage of nation leading demographics, population and job growth.”

“Seattle has an overabundance of renters seeking high-end living options that continues to bring employees to the downtown core at unprecedented rates,” it read. “New apartment construction rents in the city’s core average $3.50 per foot for mid-rise and $4.00 per foot for high-rise buildings and the vacancy rate is 3.8 percent in Capitol Hill.”

Recent months have shown the neighborhood’s rental economy remains in high gear including new deals like this planned initial public offering for a portion of the Solis building that will value the Pike/Pine development at $33 million or more old fashioned trades like the most recent deal announced on the Hill — the $14.25 million acquisition of the Velo Apartments, a 1966 building at the corner of Melrose and Roy. Meanwhile, there are pockets where large-scale, major midrise development has begun again including north of Cal Anderson near Capitol Hill Station where this eight-story, nearly 300-unit apartment complex is being planned to jigsaw into the block of E Denny between 10th and 11th Ave.

Despite what an incredibly long three years it has been since the spring of 2019, Capitol Hill’s rental market remains robust — and coveted. On E Olive Way, two major projects are now underway with hopes of cashing in and helping to meet the area’s so far insatiable demand for housing.

HELP KEEP CHS PAYWALL-FREE
Subscribe to CHS to help us 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 as little as $5 a month.