Seattle's bar for shockingly strong drinks and extremely large, jovial bears—a bar which has been around since shortly before the Big Bang—has numbered days. Developers plan to demolish the old C.C. Slaughters (currently called CC Attle's or the Men's Room or something) at 15th Avenue and East Madison Street. Reports the DJC:
[Developer Denis] Hayes said he envisions the building as being five stories with retail, commercial and residential space. He said Bullitt would probably occupy half of a floor, and would likely own the ground level retail and a few housing units. “We have to sell big chunks of this building to make it work,” he said. “(We) are absolutely confident that we will be able to do that.”
C.C.'s will be missed, especially its patio and oversized plasticine lumberjack statue. Developers expect to produce initial drawings for the new project by the end of the summer (but it's unclear when they plan to build). The new building won't be your typical box; they plan to create a "living building" that will stand for 250 years.
The team was looking for experience in meeting cutting edge green design, a strong local presence and an understanding of the Pacific Northwest. The architect also needed to understand that Bullitt was looking “not just for a piece of sculpture” but for a building that performed a series of technically rigorous functions in geology, hydrology and solar applications.
This sort of demolition and rebuilding tugs the urban devlopment enthusiast in at least two different ways. On one hand, popular and affordable bars like CC's make a dense neighborhood hospitable. The mixed-use building that replaces it won't be suitable as a disco-blasting, late-night hollering, ass-grabbing dive. Where is C.C.'s to go, and what happens when development pushes bars like this out of the neighborhood? On the other hand, it's a low-density lot—a one-story building with a parking lot—in the middle of an area that is begging to include dozens of homes, small businesses, and quieter bars. So does high-density always deserve to displace low-density high-use? Discuss.
From Slog tipper Sara, via the CD News.
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