Thanks for the questions in the CHS Facebook Group about the changes at the property
An East Capitol Hill apartment development that became a centerpoint in Seattle’s early debates over microhousing has had an interesting decade and what comes next might say a little about the tiny apartment units and the industry that created them.
Neighbors around 17th Ave E and E Olive St. began asking questions about the twin apartment buildings last month as plywood went up and the property was fenced off.
A decade ago, neighbors and anti-growth advocates cited the 1720 E Olive St. congregate housing project as an example that the city wasn’t doing enough to limit microhousing — especially near areas of single family-style housing and complained that the buildings were poorly made and that the tiny living spaces would become undesirable to residents.
The 60 units across the two buildings at 17th and Olive average 138 square feet apiece, according to King County records.
And they’ve been full ever since until this winter when developer and property owner Brad Easton tells CHS he is ending a long contract with Sound Mental Health and is securing the property for a round of much-needed maintenance and repair work.
Easton says the big round of repairs and maintenance isn’t because one of the city’s earliest microhousing developments wasn’t made with high quality materials and skilled contractors.
“My same guys building $2 million houses worked on this building,” Easton told CHS. “Any place that Sound Mental Health is, this is normal wear.”
Easton said he is moving on from the deal with Sound Mental Health and is temporarily shuttering the property for the multi-month overhaul as part of “changing habitation” and reopening the buildings with new tenants.
A Sound Mental Health spokesperson confirmed it has been busy moving residents out this winter after leasing the property for nine years to provide “housing for individuals transitioning back into the community.”
“Sound found alternative housing for all of the legal tenants in these units,” the spokesperson said.
For Easton, he remains proud of the development and his contributions to the city’s housing market though he says he spends these days building “$2 million” homes.
“The city doesn’t make it easy,” he says of being a small developer and landlord in the city.
As for the debate over microhousing, new regulations would eventually limit the housing type but left room for new microhousing in the city’s densest areas of neighborhoods like Capitol Hill and the Central District.
Now, Easton’s property joins a wave of Seattle microhousing coming up on a decade of life in the city and being prepared for new things. Calhoun Properties, mother of the aPodment, has put its Seattle portfolio up for sale including Capitol Hill, First Hill, and Central District buildings among its 23 properties that hit the market.
According to Sound Mental Health, Easton is also planning to sell the 1720 E Olive St. development.
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Lol – $2 million houses can still be poorly built. I watched this getting built, and nothing about it was quality construction. The construction site was constantly a mess, and only the cheapest materials were used.
This was first marketed as micro housing for young urban dwellers called “livinrooms” (big sign on the building, splashy website that still kind of exists livinrooms.com) but I’m guessing it got very little interest because the building is a total mess and horrifically ugly (and looks totally different from the rendering on the website). Then suddenly, it was completely full with transitioning Sound patients. The residents were a big disturbance at first (big crowds smoking on the sidewalk, fire alarms going off at all hours, blasting music) but eventually Sound got things under control, and over time it was good to see the residents had a place to live and recover and transition back into normal life. Though, I’m sure the interior has seen a lot of wear.
If you want someone to blame for the absolutely hideous design, its “designer” was Randall Spaan. If you Google him, there’s a long string of finding loopholes in the zoning code to build hideous buildings, as well as some weird, anti-government stunts. A real gem.
Yeah, agreed.
I am constantly harping on Seattle residents and their poor taste in design: too much nostalgia, too much of a suburban aesthetic.
But this city has come to be defined by what you can’t even call “McModern,” it’s “Particle Board Modern”: that is, the absolute cheapest, ugliest construction possible consisting of poorly slapped-together wood construction, slathered with Hardieboard on the **entire** exterior, painted an institutional gray with some ugly accent color.
This isn’t modernism, this a corrupt city government allowing developers to maximize profits by putting up the cheapest designs imaginable.
And keep in mind: Hardiboard as a material was originally designed to make more expensive finishes elsewhere on a building cost-effective.
But that’s not what’s happened in Seattle; what’s happened here is developers slowly got their way and all of a sudden entire buildings are slathered in cheap Hardieboard painted some bland color.
Portland has **far** better construction practices, requires more expensive materials, and thus has better design as a result.
We can do better.
Agree! Calhoun Properties is cashing out and leaving behind many ugly, cheap-looking buildings. I wonder how easily they will be able to sell, though, because thank goodness microhousing has fallen out of favor.
Yes, they are nothing to like in them. No one wants to live there, that’s why most of microhousing buildings filled with former homeles, where all sorts of things happening, including drugs, alcohol use and violence from time to time. I accidentally got in one of those, since I needed something cheap and it was a new building, but I had no idea they’ll be having homeless and those after jails there. It was not the most pleasant experience. I left as soon as I was able to. Since no one wants those microhousing properties, owners are gladly selling them to the city and to nonprofit companies, who than housing homeless in there, many with questionable behavior, addictions. I am sure it’s affecting the neighborhoods not in a good way. My daughter purchased acondo on capitol hill near a new microhousing building. I specifically asked the owners if they are planning to sell it to the city, which they denied any plans for that. I learned two weeks ago, that they sold the building to nonprofit, with the city help, to have it as a transitional housing for women. They will start to house them in the summer and I am not looking forward to that. I am unhappy that previous owners lied to me, as it was important to know before signing the sale contract. As I said, I lived in one of them and I perfectly know what to expect. Microhousing is not a way to go, even for low-income population. At least not in Capitol Hill, which have many visitors, if they don’t care about those living there. All new constructions I see here are really ugly. Why do we allowing that?
Oh no, Luba! Poor you! Our most vulnerable neighbors and carceral state victims dared to move into your little West Elm brigadoon. You must have been devastated. I hope you got your scuffed old Coach bag and moved out of there as soon as possible! Beter they all be living in tents on Howell, right?
It got plenty interest actually, I was set to move here and they had already filled all the units but like the article notes the neighbors shut it down and no one was able to. Real bummer for us, so much so that I googled them (10 years later) to see what ended up happening to the building and I’m glad the neighbors got karma for screwing over so many would be tenants :) since they failed to realize it left all of us without a place to live :)
The fact that this housing supported many dozens of folks experiencing mental illness, and then this type of housing was effectively banned going forward, is a bad look for a city that has long needed to address a housing crisis. Congregate housing is not for everyone but historically has always been a tool in preventing homelessness. The Sound Mental contract is a perfect example — larger units would have been too expensive.
Everyone is entitled to have their aesthetic preferences, but using process & government to mandate good aesthetics has not and will not succeed, but it will nonetheless slow the process of creating new housing and raise the cost of housing.
Further, we need to legalize “middle” housing across the region so that there are more choices between a single family home and a large, urban-style development.
Really? Do you think it’s so simple? When people buying the house and paying a lot to be able to live in a quiet neighborhoods and suddenly there are couple of microhousing buildings with the ugly design and unruly tenants. Would you be happy to live near them and watching your house value gong down the drain? Do you think everyone paying mortgage are so rich they can afford it? Especially with the high property taxes? I think it’s wrong. There are many empty lands around Northgate line. Why not to build something there? Or around future stations? Why to stick them in capitol hill neighborhoods?
I wouldn’t exactly call Capitol Hill a quiet neighborhood , this is exactly where dense building should be encouraged. Doing it this way where now a building is empty to anyone being able to live in it, even if I wish we could build something more livable, is the issue.
In the street view above, I see many apt buildings on this street, so this wasn’t a sleepy neighborhood. As far as your other leading questions, you are addressing a bunch of things _I did not say_ and clearly I will not be changing your mind.
I live nearby – yes, this actually is generally a very quiet neighborhood… It’s far enough removed from the bar, club and restaurant scene on the front side of the hill to not experience nightlife noise and isn’t a frat row… apartment buildings don’t necessarily make things noisy… in fact several of the closer large buildings are retirement communities, not exactly the rowdy types…
I wanted to edit my posts but I don’t see those options. When I am typing on my phone it’s easy to do some mistakes and I just noticed several. So ignore them )