An apartment building, with retail on the street level!
Okay, so no surprise there. What is somewhat of a surprise is that, after all this time, something is actually going to emerge in the space once occupied by Kitaro Sushi at 1624 N. 45th.
Kitaro burned down December 7, 2011 as we wrote about here. I’m not sure an exact cause was ever determined, but reports at the time said the fire was electrical in nature. A dentist’s office was also damaged in the blaze.
And then time passed.
In 2015, the building was emptied and boarded up.
And then more time passed.
Which brings us up to the present. The proposed project will consist of three floors of one-bedroom apartments (4 units per floor for a total of 12) and retail on the ground floor bringing the total number of floors to four — the maximum allowed in that area under current zoning. The dentist’s office on the corner, east of the new building, will remain. So this new construction will be a long and narrow box sandwiched between the dentist and Molly Moon’s.
Amenities will include a rooftop deck, covered bicycle parking and a green space in the back. No parking is required for residents or for businesses that may move in to the ground floor, and none will be constructed.
The project is currently in the design review phase. Two community meetings have already been held, and an online survey (now closed) was available a few months back. However, it’s not too late to file a public comment. These and other project documents can be found here by searching on the street address.
Thus far, a single public comment has been filed. Susan Chang writes:
I am the owner of the building located at 1616 N 45th Street, two doors west of the proposed building site. While we’re excited about the changes in our neighborhood, we are concerned about the traffic and parking situation on N 45th street and the surrounding streets, and only request that any high-density apartment/condo structures have enough parking for their residents.
It’s beautiful!
Yes, a regular Frank Lloyd Wright. Looks like it was designed by Atari.
Glad to see something is ginally happening there…but the building has not been demolished.
I tried to file a comment, but cosaccela.seattle.gov keeps giving me a 404 error. I also had trouble with cosaccela when I was trying to apply for a parking permit. Does anybody else have trouble? Seems like a broken link in the public feedback process (no wonder there aren’t more comments).
No, I have not had trouble
Oh thank heavens. What about Iron Bull? What about Orange Theory?
I think iron bull is being remodeled… its just slow. there was another post about it recently.
They should provide parking for the tenants. This will hurt the small businesses up and down the street, especially the restaurants. Since no business on that street provides parking, I think all of them might suffer.
We could call the ‘City meanchine”.
Somehow Ballard small businesses keep getting more and more business with a lot of apartments without parking units. Same as University District. Wallingford is easier and cheaper to park in the street than either of those places, but the small businesses aren’t doing as well?
“Somehow Ballard small businesses keep getting more and more business” – I’m gonna need to see some receipts. I think we can all make a list of “new craft cocktails farm to table” spots (and a longer list of restuarants that have closed or changed ownership or management or cuisine), but what has actually happened to the small businesses and restuarants that inhabited Ballard ten years ago? Are they succeeding in the way you claim? Or are you only refering to the preponderance of new businesses? And what’s the actual success rate of those?
Why does it matter what businesses are there ten years ago? Seattle Times and Strangers are both having way smaller operations than ten years ago, and are you going to advocate regulation changes to revive them back to where they were? How about ban all cars so people can go back to buy horses? Don’t use measurements that aren’t meaningful.
Many systems in the US are lagging behind other countries, mostly because existing businesses abuse the kind of thinking you have and convince the governments to put up barriers for changes so their legacy services can survive. It only means life overall is worse for everybody at the expense of a few businessmen.
If you wanted to say that “new buildings mean new business opportunties” then I’d say go nuts. But you didn’t say that – you, in plain english, suggested that upzoning in Ballard was good for “small businesses” which you might be aware is one of the most intellectually dishonest semantics in US politics and EXTREMELY disingenuous and intellectually disohnest when talking about neighborhood viabililty. If you want me to argue that granularity, then don’t bother responding. You’re completely transparent. Of course new buildings mean new businesses. That says nothing about their viability or health, which is the entire crux of the debate.
Also, “ban all cars and go back to horses” would get my ten year old a timeout for strawman bullshit. The screech of your goalpost moving isn’t blocking out the stench of your BS.
And what, pray tell is “the kind of thinking” I have? Based on the simple question I asked you? Which is again, for evidence to support even your adjusted claims.
Bravo!
Up-zoning in general is good for small businesses. Look around the US, you’ll see there are two type of places that small businesses can thrive: either very low density so the corporate stores don’t bother go to, or high density that there are room for specialized businesses to serve the specialized local market. Ballard being high density is good for small businesses that can offer variety, as opposed to your typical medium density areas where it’s rule by chains. What I said is a generic fact. It’s the same all around the world really. In the US, outside of dense cities it’s all ruled by Walmart. In Japan, outside of dense cities it’s all ruled by AEON.
Your mistake is to assume I am stating that it’d be good for every small business. That’s never what I meant. And you can just look at my statement as is: are there more small businesses in Ballard than it was ten or twenty years ago? The answer is a very obvious yes. Wallingford on the other hand, with the zoning up much slower, the answer is not as obvious since we are now a land of local chain takeout food and national chain drug stores.
And in case you still have doubt, what I advocate is most likely going to be bad for many existing small businesses. Typically the higher the density, the more business, but also the more competition. Competition means businesses are operating more on an edge and simple mistakes would lead to a turnover. In rural areas a diner can survive forever serving bad food. In high density cities, a restaurant needs to have the right value proposition to customers to survive month to month.
For the most part, I’d want to be against the interest of existing businesses that prefer status quo. I want to introduce more competition for a healthier market and better service for the general public.
“Why does it matter what businesses are there ten years ago?”
I thought you were against displacement?
I am not against displacement at all. Do you not remember some of the ideas I had? Like tearing down all the single-family houses to make Wallingford half condos and half forest?
Thank you for the update. how interesting.Sad re no concers for parking for residents– the city can hope all it wants that people stop having or using cars but that may not happen as the machine thinks. ( Bet the Mayor drives places.)( comment re comments still )High bet that uncle matt is Marie of Rue-mania.
I like it, and I’m glad to see that more developers are taking advantage of the relaxing of parking requirements adjacent to frequent transit. With one very frequent (44) and another frequent (62) transit route directly in front of the building, a grocery store and library branch a block away, and numerous schools within easy walking distance, there’s no need to build car housing when we have a lack of people housing.
+1
And I got rid of my car, happy to rent or lend a space 4 blocks away if any new neighbors need one!
Great for people without kids. Great for people who are not older. Could your grandmother/anyone with limited mobility, walk to the store, get all the groceries needed, walk back to this proposed building? Could she carry two bags of groceries? (I suspect no elevators, but do not know this.) It is a really conundrum, with pros and cons for both sides. Perhaps if the developer provide SOME parking spaces for their tenants, and of course, charged more rent this would make everyone happy, and meet more need of all folks. I do not presume to have an answer, for I moved here a long time ago, because of convenience to work at UWMC, good bus service, and a house with a garage.
These apartments arent’ for grandmas or the handicapped – they are for tech workers. Silicon Valley saw that Seattle had cheaper housing and made a deal with the city government to rezone and raise taxes on existing residents to push them out – so they could live in the city.
And the way to deal with that is to zone up and have more housing. California housing issue, especially in San Francisco, is a result of decades of refusing to zone up. Increasing demand without increasing supply means price going up and the existing residents moving out.
Yes, but should Seattle citizens have to have increase after increase in property ta and utilities to pay for the infrastructure (increased sewer, electricity, traffic controls, schools, and etc.) for all the new people coming? I think the developers should have impact fees for those. That would help protect the people that were here from being pushed out.
Those fees have little to do with people being pushed out. If you don’t have more units, and new people are richer, the existing home-owners will cash out and the existing renters will be pushed out. The way to keep both the new people and the original residents here involves having more units. And having more units doesn’t mean people stay in the same houses, since for the same size and same location, price would go up. People who were already here either need to spend more money staying where they are, or moving to smaller units or worse locations. I am sure there are a lot of small items here and there that can be paid for by developer fees to smooth things over, but really that’s not gonna be the main item for affordability issues.
Paying for things new people need are not added to what incumbent residents pay–rather, the new people are added to the pool of payors for those things.
And developers get all the infrastructure improvements for free. That doesn’t seem right.
“Developers” don’t get the infrastructure improvements – “people who use them” get the infrastructure improvements. “Developers” only get them insofar as they are also humans who poop and use electricity etc , but they don’t get them for free because they pay taxes just like the rest of us.
I think they pay one time fees – when they sell to a property owner – they get the profits and the property owner – yes – will pay taxes. But the developer’s fees don’t cover the enlargement of sewer lines, increasing the electric grid, enlarging the water supply line grid, improving the sewer treatment plant, installing more traffic controls, building new parks and increasing the size of our schools to accomodate all the new residents in a huge building. This is what I mean by the developers benefitting from the infrastructure improvements that are needed for them and that we are paying for. Developers should shoulder some of that cost in the form of impact fees just like they do in every other municipality around Seattle.
You do realize these are just pass-through items for developers. If you charge them more, they’ll just pass it through to the buyers. So effectively you are asking for new comers to subsidize the benefits that incumbent would also enjoy. That’s what impact fees are: tax on newcomers. You know why people love that? Because that achieves several different goals: first of all the incumbents enjoys more things free. Secondly that creates more burden for newcomers to come in, meaning blocking poorer people from entering the community.
And people wonder why all new buildings in Seattle are for the rich. It’s exactly because of all these burdens advocated by existing home-owners to enrich themselves at the cost of poorer newcomers.
“If you charge them more, they’ll just pass it through to the buyers.”
So what? Why should I and everyone else here be forced to pay for it instead? It’s their housing, not ours. Let them pay for the infrastructure upgrades their new development will require.
“So effectively you are asking for new comers to subsidize the benefits that incumbent would also enjoy.”
Things like upgraded sewer systems are being built specifically to handle all the new development. These are not “benefits” those of us living here will “enjoy.” We shouldn’t be forced to subsidize what many of us feel will be the destruction of our neighborhood.
Of course you don’t care. As I said, this type of policy serves you in many ways: the cost is on others, and you get to ensure the price is high enough that fewer of them are built and those who move in to be new neighbors would be mostly rich guys.
The upgrades to sewer systems are used by everybody. Of course you enjoy the benefits. It’s not like there is a way for you to use it.
What you mean by “destruction of the neighborhood” really just means a personal preference. The use of the word “destruction” is self-centered and not at all close to the typical meaning of the word. I obviously already know that so you softened the message with “what many of us feel”. This neighborhood obviously would prosper more with more higher density buildings. You already know that’s happening, and you already know the “many of us” is a shrinking percentage.
We already subsidize other people’s housing. For example, the recent doubling of the housing levy. And we pay in other ways with the upzones that we don’t want, the loss of parking, etc. By making others pay upgrades to otherwise unneeded infrastructure, you are forcing all of us, rich poor, retiree, etc, to subsidize market rate construction and developer profits to further your agenda.
And I wouldn’t be so sure about your shrinking percentage claim if I were you. Why do you think they backed off of the original plan to upzone the whole city and go for just 6% of the single family zoning? If they had gone for the whole enchilada, the whole city would rise up to kill it, and you know it.
Of course it’s about forcing everybody. We are in a society together. Not sure why you think you don’t have to shoulder burdens on things you don’t want. The “loss of parking” really is a hilarious idea, since that’s never yours.
And the “market rate” idea is misleading. The current high price is not a result of free market mechanism. It’s mostly because of the complicated building and zoning regulations intentionally suppressing the supply. If we get rid of the regulations that’s designed to protect the special interest of existing homeowners, the price would not have been this high. That’s something proven by comparing cities across the US and across the world. The affordability crisis in California and Seattle are man-made crisis created by people who think like you.
“Not sure why you think you don’t have to shoulder burdens on things you don’t want.”
Alrighty then, I don’t want to hear a peep out of you about highways, jails, our military, etc…..
What did I say about highways, jails, and military? Obviously I think we need them. There are more obvious public services I don’t need, like language support for languages I don’t speak. Handicap parking spaces since I am not handicapped, at least not right now. Bus services to places I’ll never visit.
“It’s their housing, not ours. Let them pay for the infrastructure upgrades their new development will require.”
They are – ’cause soon as they take up residence they are paying the same taxes as you and me, which is the cost of the level of services we need for a city of X residents divided by X residents.
“We shouldn’t be forced to subsidize what many of us feel will be the destruction of our neighborhood.”
You aren’t.
Nice try, but no. Those upgrades are necessary *before* they move into the building and start paying taxes, not after.
We need to add more teachers before new residents send more kids to school? What do the teachers do in the interim?
Ditto electricity, sewer capacity – no people, no needed power, no poop.
Of course we need to continuously repair or upgrade and we amortize the cost over time – but none of us ever “trued up” when we moved here (or were born here) for the delta between what those before us paid and what those who survive us will pay after we’re gone.
Because (a) it would probably all come out in the wash and (b) also be a demented society, IMO.
You can’t put in something like sewer upgrades after the fact, or you are going to have a very messy problem on your hands.
Exactly! That’s why any kind of sane society does its best to continuosly maintain X level of service divided by X residents based on best estimates, and, for example, none of us had to go through a period of being unable to get a sewer hookup or being banned from pooping when we moved (or were born here), and it would be bonkers to try and true up who pays for what (e.g., ok, so the population unexpectedly shrunk during the Boeing Bust, so eveyerbody who moved here in the 70s owes people who paid taxes in the 60s money because they “overbuilt”, while today we’ve in fact been underinvesting in sewage management for the poulation we had in the 90s for decades, so all us here since then have make a huge catch up payment…*)
*Or maybe we should call failing to build stormwater and sewer capacity separately the original sin, and really put the screws to all the old timers who got off on the cheap and saddle future generations with the current make up costs
Projects such as these serve a very narrow segment of the rental market. They are very high-profit for developers, which is why so many continue to be built. Understand that ten percent of rental housing is reportedly vacant in Seattle (according to the Times), twenty percent of rental housing is vacant downtown.
It is certainly “on the developer” for making the choice if the project has difficulty renting at the prices anticipated. However, these projects (which are heavily incentivized under the HALA and MHA proposals) will likely do little to create affordable “ownership opportunity” in Seattle, which is actually what would help folks and families remain in the City AND get our young people off being saddled with the infinite burden of paying rent to corporate landlords ad infinitum.
By the way, these are the same types of projects that will be allowed throughout the neighborhood urban village if HALA and MHA proceed without fine-tuning the policies to the unique characteristics of each neighborhood.