The developer of the Avtech property will present its plans for an apartment project at 34th and Wallingford to the Wallingford Community Council on Wednesday, March 6th, 7:00 PM at the Good Shepherd Center (4649 Sunnyside Avenue N. Rm. 202). Also on the agenda will be updates on other neighborhood land use issues and community events.
Everyone is welcome.
Editor’s Note: On Monday night, we received the following timely comment about the development planned for the Avtech property and the one planned for the Stoneway Roofing site:
Please consider commenting: on both Wallingford projects below.
Several of your concerned Burke Ave neighbors here have sent off comments to [email protected] and “Rips, Bruce” the city employee regarding this quite large apt project on 34th and Wallingford which is in the first stage of city review.
And moving to 2nd stage following end of comments deadline this Wednesday. The project is for building a 4 story 160 apartment building at the corner of 34th and Wallingford. It replaces the Avtech land use and several additional parcels currently there.
Any site design comments to be considered must be submitted by Wed Mar 6.
One of the more challenging pieces of the project is the current plan that calls for egress and ingress into it’s proposed structure from Burke ave between 34th and 35th. What do you think?
There are several other issues that may invite you to comment. If so please do so, not later than 4:00 pm Wednesday!
The city of Seattle project # 3014232
You can review more about the project here:
http://web1.seattle.gov/DPD/permitstatus/Project.aspx?id=3014232At the bottom of this page is a link to the
Preliminary Assessment Report
And here is a link to 1/2 dozen neighborhood comments received to date:http://web1.seattle.gov/dpd/edms/This 2nd Stoneway project will update Margaret’s partial information above. The project is much larger than outlined there and tonite had it’s 2nd community comment meeting. Both are over building for the neighborhoods in my opinion.
City info here: http://web1.seattle.gov/DPD/permitstatus/Project.aspx?id=3014111
permit project # 3014111this is it’s scope: Design Review Early Design Guidance application proposing a 280 unit residential structure with ground level commerical, live-work and parking for 274 cars.
It appears that developers are paying the small fee of $2500 for an Early Design Guidance app. to get around handling the more difficult aspects of their big plans and the city is going along and in fact paving the way for smoother faster cram.
Come on people – wake up….
I’m really loving the energy that’s developing in the lower Wallingford area. 34th and Stone, with the keystone being the Brooks building, is becoming a real center of activity for those of us that live just a bit below 45th.
Looking forward to this project and also hope that the old metro site gets off the ground sometime soon.
Also what is the deal with the metro parking lot north of the dump? Wasted space.
Future scene caught on film generated by the likes of the proposed Avtech project.
we have already lost our waterfront, llakeside, and the variance issues and easy penalties to pay for easier meetings and approvals fortell the future.
I’d love to hear a report about the presentation if anyone was able to go. I’m sorry that I missed the comment period.
Between the Burke-Gilman, the 26 route, Zipcar, and Car2go, I would have requested that fewer parking spaces be designed into this project. I also think lower Wallingford could support a Tangletown-sized retail zone as well; it’s a mile from this location to the retail core in Fremont or at 45th St. So if the developer happens to see this comment, I’d love to know whether there was any attempt to pencil out the return on first floor retail at this location. (I recognize that the live-work units could serve a retail role.)
As a homeowner in Wallingford, I’m a little confused by the extreme anti-development sentiment in this neighborhood (especially in regards to Stoneway, split lots). I share the same liberal sentiments as most of my neighbors, which is why I’m surprised that people aren’t focusing on the benefits of urban density that apartment and multi use buildings bring. It seems a little elitist to want this neighborhood to stay a patch of cute 100 year old homes full of yuppie families, when there ARE (and have historically been) a number of large business lots and apartment buildings already. I have lived in this neighborhood for several decades and it has never been in better shape (business-wise, safety-wise, economically) than it is now. It has always been multi-use, with some apartment buildings, students, older folks, families and it seems that more apartment buildings will only increase the diversity and accessibility of our neighborhood.
I think a lot of this anti-development sentiment comes from the WCC. It seems that group opposes every project in the area that will bring more people or jobs to our neighborhood.
Transit – 26, did you say? Not for long, that route is going to be diverted away from this area. Other local routes also doomed, if I heard correctly. Neighbors are concerned about a couple hundred more cars flooding Burke and adjoining streets every morning and evening. Everyone would love to see retail along 34th – everyone but the developer. Live/work seems to be regarded as a colossal mistake that’s used by developers to avoid real retail – here, and probably along Stone.
“More density?” I think that’s the way the city sees it too: a simple factor, the more people per square mile, the better. All good things flow from this – reduced dependence on automobiles in particular. (And “vibrant”, whatever that is.)
For me, it isn’t that simple. You can have density like that, but it depends on a the full support of an urban environment – not just transit, but also stuff like supermarkets, drugstores. If that stuff is kind of a long haul, you fail. You get the big buildings, but the streets won’t hopping with people, you just see cars coming and going. A lot of them. I am one of those people who, when asked to have faith, tend to suspect someone’s planning to screw them. I don’t have faith that supermarkets and the like will automatically spring up to support these apartments, nor in general that a mature urban environment will follow these development opportunities around the neighborhood. I don’t have faith that because they’re young, these new residents will forego the automobiles that would appear to be necessary to cope with lack of transit service and nearby supermarkets. Etc.
On a related traffic note, does anyone know or understand the current traffic problem on 45th? Are there any studies going one or have there been to address the parking lot it becomes on afternoons, weekend, and with increased development and discontinuation of bus services? I avoid it like the plague and I’d love to see some sort of change with the timing of lights and traffic.
This is just kind of a random idea that no one would ever take seriously, but … the westbound clog seems to be at Wallingford N, which is signaled like a 5-way, with 2 consecutive pedestrian lights crossing 45th etc.
So close Wallingford N north of N 45th, put a big barrier across it (and close the QFC parking lot entrance.) Then people can run across the street between QFC and its west parking lot without fear of getting run over, you can start developing a pedestrian focus right in the heart of Wallingford. And you can eliminate a signal that N 45th traffic has been waiting through. QFC might have objections though.
Eastbound, you’d have to fix I-5.
Supermarkets ar enot going to spring up to handle the increased population. PCC’s plan to be below Prescott fell through. Do you see any other grocery stores or markets planning to come to the neighborhood?
Re the 45th traffic- it seems much worse in the last year. Weekend afternoons its bad and not feasible to get to UW area without 30-40 minutes.
Getting onto I-5 from 45th in mornings is slowed by bus bulbs, reduction of 2 lanes and the bus bulb companions- concrete stoppers. Thus everyone must be in a single lane for all business. I dont go to the UW or U Mall anymore- I did my part. Your turn.
neighbor – The traffic issue on 45th started after the installation of the bus bulbs. I for one no longer drive along 45th. All it takes is one bus and you’re in a traffic jam.
I KNOW GRR
The traffic issue on 45th is a decades-long problem not a recent development attributable to density or the bus bulbs. East-west driving in Seattle has always sucked.
I have read all the comments on the proposal. I don’t understand any of them. Putting the entrance on either Wallingford or 34th would mean putting the entrance just before a light, which would interfere with traffic patterns far more than on Burke. Even if everyone in the building used all their cars to commute every day (as opposed to say, working at the new Brooks office and walking, or working at Adobe or the UW and biking, all of which would be ideal reasons to live in this spot, let alone taking the 26) it would be far fewer people than drive by my house on 40th in a single hour. They won’t be driving fast because Burke is so narrow so they can’t. As to “the children”, are they playing out in the street? Well, they shouldn’t be. And as to off-street parking, if the current residents park on the street, they do so with no more of a right than the developments’ residents would have. No one else has to have offstreet parking because you don’t.
@Donn, where are you getting your information on the 26 being diverted? Honestly interested, I hadn’t heard that since 2011 when they scuttled that plan.
Chuck, you may have something there – it’s what people were saying, but the 2011 proposal was all I can find on it, and it was supposed to go into effect Sep 2012. So unless someone can get a reference to Metro’s current plans for route 26, I have to retract that – 26 is as safe as any other route.
I’d suggest you follow Seattle Transit Blog, seattletransitblog.com, to keep up on all things transit and particularly what might happen to the 26. The authors of the blog, to put it mildly, are not fans of that route.
I used 45th to get to I5 and over it last year 2012, in mornings between 730-830 and now 3at times this year. Each time this year it is much slower with twice of more longer lanes to get to I5.