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Wednesday, February 4, 2009

Boom Town House Demise

Posted by Dominic Holden on Wed, Feb 4, 2009 at 5:20 PM

Driven by a spiraling housing market, a developer in Magnolia is abandoning plans for town houses at the corner of Thorndyke Avenue West and West Newton Street and starting an entirely new project. “We actually have permits for five town homes on the site,” says Michael Frank, owner of Atwater Development. Last summer, Frank received a permits from the city but, he says, the banks gave him “zero financing.”

Instead, Frank is pursuing a permit to build a three-story, 12-unit apartment building, which banks actually will finance. Goodwin Architects will present the design tonight. Apartments have been one of the only form of new projects still chugging forward. (Calls to the Department of Planning and Development to ask if there's a trend of town-houses-to-apartments conversions haven’t been returned.) Frank hopes to break ground this summer and begin renting by summer 2010. Here’s a very simple massing of the building’s preferred option:

afa9/1233796238-atwater_on_thorndyke.jpg

“They will be for sure on the luxury side. I just call them high end because they’ve got such good views of the city and Mount Rainier,” Frank says. But the change to an apartment building might piss off a few neighbors. “We are trying to keep the heights as low as we can. That will be hot-button issue because of [blocking] views.”

Comments (9) RSS

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is there any new construction anyone likes?

Posted by frequent on February 4, 2009 at 5:30 PM

"Apratments," huh? :)

Posted by Miss L. on February 4, 2009 at 5:37 PM

Dey, i gots a permits!

Posted by AJ on February 4, 2009 at 6:31 PM

@1 - nope. we missed our chance to do 100-story tall inexpensive mixed-income apartment buildings with greenspace around them, and we'll have to wait for everyone to get all NIMBY during the downturn again so they can whine about Seattle growing too fast.

Posted by Will in Seattle on February 4, 2009 at 7:06 PM

...but by the time they're built, "luxury" will be for anyone making more than $40,000 a year thanks to the Great Compression.

Posted by Civil Conservation Core on February 4, 2009 at 7:15 PM

my dog could draw that in sketchup. who the hell told goodwin they were architects?

Posted by grumpypants on February 4, 2009 at 10:25 PM

Probably an improvement from those gnarly, generic 6 pack townhomes.

Posted by Keo on February 4, 2009 at 11:43 PM

So... would this be "condo deconversion?"

Posted by K on February 5, 2009 at 7:46 AM

Fine by me. If a glut of high-end apartments comes on the market and sits empty, prices will drop and maybe I'll be able to afford living closer to downtown again. If things go really well, I might even be able to get a place with granite countertops.

Posted by Greg on February 5, 2009 at 8:12 AM