Boom BMW Building on Pike/Pine: Surround Sound
[NOTE: It was late Wed night by the time I posted this Boom column on a recently announced major mixed-use development in Capitol Hill . I hope to update it today. In the meantime, I thought I’d move it up for some morning discussion.]
I’m recently returned from the first design review meeting for the sprawling 6-story mixed-use building proposed for the BMW property in Capitol Hill. I wrote a brief about it in this week’s issue, which I somehow forgot to mention on Slog. Sorry to those who wanted to attend the meeting but didn’t know it was happening. Still, the Seattle Central Community College lecture hall was so packed with neighborhood activists and adjacent property owners that the review board barely had time to finish public comment.
I’ll try to atone by posting a short summary. We have to start with a picture of the site, which architect Clayton O’Brien-Smith aptly described as “somewhat irregular.” Take a gander.
Now let me describe the adjacent properties. We’ll go around the diagram clockwise. Starting in the upper left corner, that’s the mini-mart, Pine Food. To the right of that is Linda’s Tavern. Next to that is one arm of this development.
I should probably mention, by the way of context, that the developer Pryde + Johnson can build to 100 percent of the lot, according to code. And the company’s preferred design calls for 208 condos. The condo-owners’ windows would be right next to the Linda’s patio. Linda herself was there to remind the architect that her patio can hold 100 and it’s open till 2 a.m. every night of the week.
Back to the diagram. On the project’s other side, at Harvard and Pine, is Bill’s Off Broadway. Another popular bar with outdoor seating. Continuing down Harvard, you see another arm of the development poking out, and next to that is the War Room, at the corner of Pike. The War Room has that popular rooftop bar, and a partner from the bar attended the meeting to suggest that the architect and/or developers visit the site from the hours of 12-3 a.m. if they want to appreciate some of the challenges, noise-wise. Continuing down Pike, that’s Maharaja Indian Cuisine, which has a liquor license, too. The owner of that property (and, I believe, the War Room) attended the meeting and at its conclusion expressed his support of the project, mainly because he was glad to have more residential development near Broadway.
You can see the project’s Pike extension. And that’s a parking lot, I believe, at Pike’s corner with Boylson. It would also be part of the development. The project would build around both sides of the Starbird Apartments on Boylston. A resident of that apartment building attended the meeting simply to ask by what method he could access his building during the roughly 18-month construction. The DPD planner, Michael Dorcy, suggested parachute, but I think he was joking.
Another nightclub, R Place is just across Boylston, and management from that club attended the meeting, too.
The project calls for 50,000 square feet of retail space at the ground floor and below-grade parking for 190 cars. And if there weren’t enough concerns already about how prospective condo-owners would cope with noise, one resident close to the project also warned the architect about the semi-trucks that make loud deliveries at the QFC (diagonally across the intersection from War Room) during the wee hours of the morning.
The architect, O’Brien-Smith, didn’t have renderings yet, but he said the finished product would look a lot like other recent Pryde + Johnson developments, like this one, The Hjarta, in Ballard.
Bad idea. A woman who owns a 4-plex on Harvard Avenue told the architect that there’s a “proliferation” of buildings like that one in Seattle and that “they’ll all look awful in 10 years.” Judging by the nodding heads, most everyone in the room seemed to agree with this sentiment. Also, there’s no rooftop culture with this project, which puzzled some.
Generally speaking, it seemed that neighborhood activists liked to see the aggressive residential development, but they were having a hard time liking this project. Personally, I’m having a hard time picturing something that doesn’t look like a college dorm. And while I’d love to believe that the real estate agents can find 208 buyers capable of coexisting happily with all five neighborhood nightclubs, that seems unrealistic. Maybe in Chicago or Manhattan or San Francisco, but there isn’t that much of a premium on space in Capitol Hill, is there?
I had a call into O’Brien-Smith in advance of the meeting, but didn’t hear back. I’ll give him another try tomorrow. I would like to post the graphics that he presented today and give him a chance to tell us how his design can deal with the surround sound.
Post your questions in the Comments thread and I can put them to the architect and developer when I talk to them.
And while I’d love to believe that the real estate agents can find 208 buyers capable of coexisting happily with all five neighborhood nightclubs, that seems unrealistic.
I believe the mayor has a team working on the paperwork to fix that as we speak.