Stories

We've got the latest numbers from the Northwest Multiple Listing Service on current home sales activity in the neighborhood, and they show that while price declines are continuing around the neighborhood, there's more sales activity than at this time last year (note that these numbers are for a large area that includes the tony parts of Leschi and Madrona):

Single Family Homes:

• Median sales price is down 0.87% to $482,250
• The number of closed sales is up 53% to 46
• The number of pending sales are up 66% to 58
• Total listings are up 1% at 306

Condos:

• Median sales price is down 13% to $305,000
• Closed sales are down 8% at 33
• Pending sales are up 18% at 59
• Total listings are up 3% at 270

Although prices are still declining, it's a good sign that more deals are closing and that inventory isn't increasing dramatically. That could be a sign that things are stabilizing in the market.

The plan for 18 loft-style apartments at 12th & Fir was one of the more ambitious projects of the real-estate bubble years. Now it's shaping up to be the Central District's poster-child of real-estate and banking woes, and how the resulting ownership confusion can leave us all with an unstable mess.

The property at 151 12th was purchased by PbElemental in late 2007 for $575,000 and the old auto shop that sat on it was demolished the next year. But the mixed-use project never made it past the first set of design reviews, and it was cancelled last year. PbElemental also defaulted on the bank loan that was used to purchase the property, the corner lot was taken over by Evergreen Bank.

But the empty lot was left in a state of disarray. The city cited it last year for an unstable, unretained slope along the back and side with no erosion control, putting neighboring properties at risk of damage. According to the citation (attached above), the city is requiring a geotechnical engineer to evaluate the site and...

CDNews reader SW emailed us and asked:

Can you tell me what the story is with the vacant lot across from Grocery Outlet?Just curious, wondering about gardening there. 

That vacant lot on the southwest corner of the intersection there is owned by Marty Liebowitz of The Madrona Company. He's a neighborhood developer who's work you'll probably recognize in the Bowling Green apartments in Madrona, or the Yesler Mews development in the 100 block of 22nd Ave.

Marty also owns the old green apartment building next door, and has plans to build a new mixed-use development on the property. Like many large projects, it's currently on hold pending an improvement in the credit markets. We ran into Mr. Liebowitz at a meeting a couple of weeks ago, and he said that while there's no certain start date, but he's hopeful that things will improve in the second half of this year.

Anyone with ideas for the property in the meantime can contact Marty at his website:

http://www.madronacompany.com/millermews1.htm

Boy, time really flies when winter hits and you don't walk through Madrona for a while.

The new Epiphany school building is quickly coming together at 36th & Denny Way, on the former home of several homes that were controversially moved down to Madison Valley back in the summer.

The Epiphany headmaster had previously told us that they planned of holding classes in the new building in the fall of 2010, and it looks like they're on track to make it. The project is adding 30,000 square feet of classrooms, offices, and an underground parking garage to the private school.

Environmental cleanup crews are already working on the site of the old medical building at Broadway & Columbia, preparing it for full-scale demolition to start next Monday. The building was the scene of an arson and drug activity late last year.

Workers at the scene told us that they've got to clean up hazardous biological material and pollution from the building's former live in the medical industry, and from a dry cleaner that once occupied a spot inside it.

We're also told that demolition will take 4-5 days to complete.

You know how it is with townhouses: the structure is usually nearly complete before the city requires the land-use notice about the subdivision of the property they sit on.  Here's two that have popped up this month:

165 16th Ave - The developer has applied to divide the property there into 4 individual lots to allow the new units to be sold or leased. There's one building in front and one in back, each three stories, and each with two units of about 1200 square feet per unit.

1841 S. King - This one is a bit more interesting, as a single-family home is sprouting a skinny three story townhouse in its backyard. Want one to take root in your garden? Permits list the construction cost of this one as $234,557.

There's a team of excavators going to work on the former parking lot of the Catholic Community Services building today, beginning construction for their new housing project that we first covered last spring.

Accoding to project manager Evelyn Allen, they gave contractors a notice to proceed last week, and crews are now working to clear the site to make room for the new building. Construction is scheduled to take 12 to 14 months, and will result in 51 new affordable housing units for families at 30%-50% of the median income.

One concern raised during the permitting process was parking impacts with the loss of that big lot. But Evelyn tells me that CCS was able to secure off-street parking in the lots of other institutions around the building, replacing every spot that was lost with the new construction.

The abandoned medical building at Broadway & Columbia that was the scene of an arson and drug-related death in 2009 is now approved for demolition.

The 3-story, 20,000 square foot office building has been vacant for several years, and is owned by a Texas-based real-estate investment firm.

Eleven parking spaces will be eliminated after the demolition, and the 1954-era building includes asbestos "and other hazardous materials" that will require special handling.

We called and left a message for the owner's representative to get more details on the precise schedule for demolition, but so far haven't heard back.

Back in October we told you about the old red house that stands in the way of Swedish hospital's eastward expansion across 18th Avenue. We got in touch with Sarah Sodt at in the city's historic preservation program, who told us that the landmark designation process is moving forward.

The Sabey Corporation (Swedish's real-estate development partner) has submitted the nomination paperwork to the city, kicking off a four-step process that could result in the naming of the structure as a landmark, with a corresponding agreement that defines what can and can not be done to it:

1. Public meeting on nomination (ETA: About 1-2 months)
2. Public meeting on designation as landmark
3. Negotiation on controls and incentives for the property
4. Designation forwarded to city council for approval

The house could fail out of the process at any of those four steps, opening the way for approval of Swedish's permits on the large and controversial medical complex they have planned for that block.

The development could proceed even if the...

The big project to expand the Seattle Central Community College woodworking school at 23rd & Lane has received all of its land-use approvals and is now set to begin construction. Last month the old wooden buildings on the property were torn down, clearing the way to add 57,000 square feet of new administrative and instructional space to the campus.

The project is fully funded by the state and is now out for construction bids, which are expected back in early February, allowing a construction start date of late March or early April.

One thing that is still up in the air is the fate of the large mural on the southernmost building on the campus. That building is destined to be replaced by a parking lot in the new layout, and a school administrator tells me that the only way for it to be saved is if someone was interested enough to cut out the heavy concrete walls and move them away to a new location. We're tracking down the state official who will have the final decision on that, and will update you in a new...

Only a few years ago, Jackson Street between 23rd & 12th Avenues was largely a post-industrial dead zone. A closed, crumbling bread bakery, vacant lots, and many more vacant buildings.

But starting in 2007, a wave of apartment projects started to make their way through the planning process, resulting in two finished buildings with hundreds of new apartment units and thousands of square feet of new street-level retail space.

As we reported last week, the retail space is starting to fill up. In addition to the new corner restaurant, George Staggers of CADA (which developed the building at 17th & Jackson), tells me that a medical lab service will be taking up one of the vacant spots next to Immortal Dog (a CDNews sponsor). That leaves one large ground-floor space on the east end of their building, and 1500 square feet of office space on the second floor that is still vacant.

As for residential space, the CADA project is 72% leased after being open for just over a year. They have about a dozen units left,...

A commenter made a good point last week: while big development projects have screeched to a halt, smaller residential projects are still getting built, though at a pace much slower than during the townhouse heydays of 2007.

Here's a good example, where a developer has applied to split a lot into four pieces to support eventual sale of townhouses that are already under construction.

The plans are to keep the existing single-family home, and build a 3-unit 3-story townhouse structure in what used to be the backyard. The new building will have just shy of 3,000 square feet of new space, split evenly among the 3 units.

In 2008 we wrote more than 150 articles on real estate and development. This year, with prices falling and lending much tighter, there was much less news to cover in that category, resulting in only 45 stories.

As for what's not happening:

• In April we mapped all of the big projects that were put on hold. None of those have changed since then, and earlier this month we learned that Jim Mueller's big projects are on hold "for the forseeable future".
• April '09 was also the end for the big Goodwill project on Dearborn due to lack of financing and lack of committment from big-box retailers

Projects to keep an eye on in 2010:

• The Broadway & Jefferson project is moving through the permitting phases, so it will be interesting to see if they can get financing to start construction.
• King County is moving forward with a redevelopment of the Youth Services Center, and it will be interesting to see if they can find a private development partner.
• Seattle U is still moving forward with their projects, and the...

The vacant medical building that's been the scene of drug activity, a death, and an arson may soon be torn down and replaced with a vacant lot.

The out-of-state owners have made an application to demolish the three-story, 18,000 square foot building, and no other applications are in place to build anything new in that spot.

Those with strong feelings about the application have until December 23rd to submit comments.

A committee of the King County Council has made a selection from the menu of options to rebuild and expand the courtroom and office facilities at the Youth Services Center at 12th & Alder, choosing "scenario 5.5" which would build 15 new courtrooms inside a new 230,000 square foot structure.

At a meeting of the 12th Avenue neighborhood group last night, county councilmember Larry Gossett said that the project will end up costing $120-$140 million to complete, and will likely require a public vote next fall to approve bonds to finance it. The 2010 county budget includes $3 million to fund detailed design and planning for the project.

One piece that is not decided yet is how parking will be accommodated, as the current suface parking lot has long been eyed by community leaders as a prime opportunity for new residential and retail development. The site master plan calls for 240-632 parking stalls to support the 5.5 option, and Councilmember Gossett says that court administrators favor putting that in an underground...

Reader BMC emailed us and asked:

I live a block from the two proposed projects (where Deano’s grocery was and the building that was Oscar’s II Nightclub).  Nothing has happened at either location for almost two years now and I wondered if there is any indication when the construction of either building may begin.  I realize that the credit crunch has held up many projects around Seattle.  Just curious…sure getting tired of looking at that big, ugly, empty lot across from Safeway!

We called up Jim Mueller, developer of those two projects and the similarly delayed one at 23rd & Union, to get an update on their status. 

The bottom line: everything is still in a holding pattern due to the economy and financial crisis, and likely will be "for the foreseeable future" according to the developer. 

Although the improving stock market gives Jim hope for a better situation in 2010, bank lending is still too tight to fund big projects like this. He says that "more flexible bank lending requirements is probably the big...

On Wednesday, December 2, (6:30 P.M.) the community will get its second chance to review and comment on a plan for a significant new building at the west edge of the 12th Avenue "urban village".  The site is a prominent one, at the southwest corner of Jefferson and Broadway.  The project would have ninety-nine apartments above 6,700 square feet of retail space.

The site slopes steeply on the north along Jefferson.   The treatment of the street-level portion of the building on Jefferson will be important to existing and future development along Jefferson and to the fostering of human activity along that street --- one of the key design review guidelines.  The existing buildings on Jefferson is relatively small and connected to the street.  Most of the existing buildings on Broadway in this block presents long stretches of blank walls at street level.

For a link to the project's  Design Review proposal and report see http://www.seattle.gov/...

The corner of 12th & Cherry has been vacant for years, and has recently been turned into a hole in the ground after tons of soil had to be dug up and hauled away to clean up the toxic remains of an old dry-cleaners. But Seattle U has much bigger plans for it: by the fall of 2011 it will be occupied by a 5-story building with ground-floor retail and 250 new beds for students.

Construction is scheduled to begin next spring. Here's some preliminary renderings of what's coming:

Looking at the main corner at 12th & Cherry

The corner of 13th & Cherry

12th & James Court, Looking east

The south side of the building, which will border a small city park

It's like the desert mirage of Central District development. For years there's been talk of redeveloping the county's Youth Services Center property at 12th & Alder, replacing its huge surface parking lot with development that would include a mix of housing and neighborhood retail space.

The project is driven by the state of the 1970s era courtrooms on the property, which the county says is "rapidly deteriorating". Mechanical systems are old and costly to maintain, and the building was flooded in the big storms of 2006, launching a multi-year battle against mold and costing $2 million in emergency repairs.

The county has developed a new master plan for the 8.5 acre site that includes six different options for replacing current courtroom capacity and adding additional capacity to handle growth over the next 20 years. Two things remain the same in all six options:

• The newer detention facility building that runs the length of Spruce street would be kept, as it's in good shape
• The 1950's era "Alder Wing"...

We got a note from tipster "B" that the Low Income Housing Institute is planning a new low-income apartment facility that would occupy the vacant lot at 2010 S. Jackson, between Hidmo to the west and the kids playground to the east.

Composed of 55 studios and 1-bedroom apartments, it would be available to seniors 62 years of age or older, targeting incomes at 50% of the regional median.

The tip also says that federal financing of the project requires that at least 40% of the units be set aside for homeless and mentally ill residents, and that a counselor will be on hand to assist tenants with social services.

Room would be left on the lot for a future 10,000 square foot retail development.

We've placed an email to the development manager at LIHI with additional questions such as the timeline for the project, but haven't yet heard back.

If completed, this would add to the growing list of large apartment complexes that have sprouted up on Jackson in the last several years.

Once upon a time we could count on multiple "Development Update" stories a week, following the sprouting of townhouses, apartment buildings, and tear-downs. Now we're reduced to a slow trickle of applications. Here's the latest one:

It's at 1829 27th Ave, and the builder has applied to subdivide the lot into three pieces to make room for the already-under-construction townhomes. One 3-story stand-alone unit will be placed closest to the street and will be 1,563 square feet. A 3,330 square foot 3-story duplex will go on the back half of the lot. Three surface parking spaces will be provided off of the rear alley.

Townhouses in 4-packs and 6-packs, oh my!

The Congress of Residential Architects (CORA) says that when it comes to townhouses, we've gotten what we asked for.

They have released a big report that looks at what's wrong with the building codes for multi-family zones, and in addition to a lot of great recommendations for changes, they say the key problems have about about because we've tried to drive multi-family structures to look like single-family houses.

Here's the key issues:

• Residential setbacks force all of the structures to be grouped in the middle of the property
• 25ft height limits don't allow a full third story
• A 10ft height bonus for sloped roofs encourages fake-craftsman rooflines, and allows them to squeeze some third-floor space into the gables
• Restrictions on maximum building width and depth encourage developers to put each unit in its own structure
• Each unit has to have its own, separate open space at ground level, hence the tiny fenced yards (roof decks don't count, and are discouraged...

Backyard cottage housing is a benefit, not a threat, to single family neighborhoods, and in keeping with the values that shaped Seattle. Let's have more.

says Knute Berger in a recent Crosscut article.

Councilmember Sally Clark's Planning, Land Use & Neighborhoods Committee takes up these issues on Wednesday morning and Thursday afternoon. Her website has lots of links to resources, (and unfortunately uses the neologism "landmarking").

On Wednesday they discuss (among assorted land use votes) and possibly vote on:

Backyard Cottages—Relating to land use and housing; amending (various) Sections of the Seattle Municipal Code to permit detached accessory dwelling units (backyard cottages) in all single-family zones and to make other changes concerning authorization and use of accessory dwelling units.  

 10 mins public comment at the start of Wednesday's meeting.

On Thursday we get this interesting exercise:

A presentation of renderings, designs,...

It's been almost a year since a contentious meeting of the Swedish Cherry Hill Citizen's Advisory Committee resulted in a recommendation for a more lengthy approval process for the proposed expansion of the hospital campus to the east side of 18th. Neighbors on the other half of that block along 19th objected to having institutional buildings along their backyards, and citizen members of the committee said that medical offices were not compatible with the plan that guides development on the campus.

As a hospital, development there is governed by a Major Institution Master Plan, which is a multi-year agreement that provides parameters on how, where, and what type of construction can take place. Swedish and Sabey Corporation, who would build and lease the new buildings, wanted to build the project via a "minor amendment" to that plan. However, the current plan, which dates back to the 90s, specifies that the east side of 18th Avenue would be used for light applications like a day-care center, a gym, or an inn...

You may have seen the land use notices that have gone up around Washington Hall, announcing an application to convert the building from a private club and offices to community center space. The 101 year old building was purchased by Historic Seattle back in June for $1.5 million.

I spoke to Andrew Phillips, the architect on the project, who told me that renovations will come in two phases. The first is minor - only enough to fix things up enough so that Historic Seattle can start to use the building. It will include interior projects like upgrading toilets and getting mechanical systems in working order, plus some minor exterior work to patch up the leaky roof.

The major renovation won't take place for several years, once the private fundraising market is in better shape to support a multi-million dollar project. That will provide enough funding to perform seismic upgrades on the structure, which hasn't seen any major structural work since it was built in 1908.

Phillips says that the minor work should be complete...