Joe Hurley dropped us a line to let us know that there’s a design review meeting on Monday, August 19 for a new apartment complex at 3801 Stone Way N.
Plans call for a “5-story structure containing 281 residential units above 9,956 sq. ft. of commercial and 4 live-work units in an environmentally critical area. Parking for 268 vehicles to be provided below grade. Project includes 27,778 cu. yds. of grading. Existing structures to be demolished.”
You can view the entire design proposal here. Click on the photo to the right to see a full sized image.
The design review meeting will be held at 6:30PM at the University Heights Community Center (5031 University Way NE.)
Afterwards, there will be an early design guidance meeting for another new building just a few streets over to the southeast, at 3651 Interlake Avenue N. The proposal calls for a four story, 18 unit residential building with one, live-work unit at ground level. Parking for 4 vehicles will be located within the structure at grade. The design proposal for this project will be available at the meeting.
281 units? 268 parking spots? It’s a nice neighborhood, so a significant number of the apartment dwellers are going tobe working couple and have more than one car. I don’t mind the usage, or the design, but I feel bad for the neighbors because parking there is already kind of borked. That stretch is going to look more and more like the “entrance” to Ballard, as another poster noted a few weeks ago.
They should each add extra levels.. and nO PARKING
Given its proximity to 4 bus lines, the Burke-Gilman, and tons of restaurants and other businesses, I’d find it depressing if they even fill the spaces they have planned.
Before we all start going on (again) about parking..
From the 3801 design brief:
“Not only will the design fit into the neighborhood, but also be responsive to the City’s planning goals. Bicycling and transit use will be encouraged and facilitated.”
By design, folks.
They should be able to add as few or as many parking slots as they wish. (Parking rules force those of us who choose to not own cars to may for a chunk of concrete we neither want nor need with our apartments. Why should I be forced to pay for that?) If it’s too few, the market will punish them for it; I’m sure they’ve done their research. Meanwhile, please remember that home ownership or home residence does not entitle anyone to permanent access to street parking (aka not your property) directly in front of your home.
Backwards economics. Street parking is a shared common resource, at SF residential density scale. The city recognizes this and defends it against encroachment from non-residential parking in RPZs. High density development parking requirements are out of scale with street parking, and the market rewards developers who are allowed to dump this problem on the adjoining residential area. Hence the enthusiasm among the big money progressive “leadership” – they can wave their reduced car ownership fantasy and look progressive for the voters, meanwhile squaring away a good deal for the developers. The primary has come and gone, another opportunity lost to get rid of those bloodsuckers.
I bet everyone here who wants the new people to take the bus and ride bikes has one or two cars.
Why should single family home owners have exclusive, reliable access to more than their fair share of what you correctly identify as a “shared, common resource”? They own a chunk of property. They can put their car on it if they want. I don’t care if it’s a good deal for investors or not.
And cars per household has been steadily declining in Seattle for a while now. More people are looking to go carless. You want to make them pay for something they don’t want or need, in order to protect ease of access to a shared resource for private homeowners. Why? What justifies that? Why is it a “problem” for the city is someone who chooses to not park on the land they actually own has to park a block away from their house?
One of these days the new 520 interchange at Montlake will open, and when it does, a monumental increase of traffic between the Eastside and Ballard/Fremont will be dumped onto Pacific. Maybe SDOT has already figured out how this traffic will flow after it gets to the stop sign under the freeway, maybe it hasn’t, we can only hope they’ll deal with the problem before the interchange opens. But whatever they do, lower Wallingford is in for much bigger changes than a dearth of street parking. Those changes have to include roads that actually work and better bus service that will help the parking situation considerably.
In my opinion, we’d be way ahead by encouraging DPD to stick to respect for neighborhood design and refocusing our vehicle concerns from parked cars to moving the rest of them through that part of the neighborhood efficiently. We need to force SDOT and METRO to step up now before Northlake, 35th and 40th Streets start working as well as 45th Street as a crosstown route–not!
Don’t worry, everyone’s going carless! It would be interesting to know where that “steadily declining” car ownership statistic comes from, though. One of the problems with it is that car ownership is positively correlated with affluence, so the first thing you’d look for when you see it going down, is more poor people. You’d find them, too. Numbers from the last 5 years or so would be especially suspect.
I’m unlikely to make the design review presentations, due to time conflicts. One of the design issues that they actually do look at is the streetfront retail, that they’re obliged to provide. Last time, the architect dismissed this area as a kind of backwater where there’s not much of a street scene anyway, clearly not interested in putting any extra effort into quality storefront space. I’ve been saying 2000 units coming nearby, at least. If you doubt it, count up the developments, including nearby stuff north of N 40th and the big pit they’re working on over on Woodland Park N. Design review should be based on the population density then, not population density now. This building is in a fairly central location, considering the developments and arterial connections. The retail space along Stone N should be 1st class, not “live work” and not weird little down stair places like you see across the street at “Prescott”. And it should support the kinds of goods and services everyone’s going to need who’s going without a car, not bank branch offices and exercise salons.
WHAT!!!!??
Thanks Donn, tho if anyone really cares is another issue…
Look at the Skanska development. Its got the firs tfloor blocked now. We used ot see trees and sky from angles on that corner- now concrete block and 3 mor elevels to go.
Does anyone have any tips on how my father can strap his oxygen tank on a bike or a skateboard to get around town since cars are so bad for us? And my mom has had her knee replaced twice how should she get home when she has to park three blocks away from her house and is only able to walk one block? Maybe they should never leave their house, just sit in their rocking chairs waiting to die.
Age is not valued in our society. I have bad news, almost everyone is going to get old sometime, including people who believe you should take public transit, walk or ride a bike everywhere. I hope that everyone stays healthy and nothing ever happens to prevent them from using their preffered method of transportation well into their 80’s and 90’s. I see a time when city planners are having public meetings to deal with the problem of so many old people who can’t get around the city because planners in the 2010’s only took into consideration young healthy people. They planned for bus stops to be 1/2 mile apart and decided it didn’t make economic sense for some neighborhoods to have any bus service. Everyone doesn’t have childern to drive them around and they can’t qualify for Access but the can’t afford a taxi. But hey everyone should dump their cars, no one needs them.
I would be doing less driving if that Prescott space actually got leased to a real grocery store. Maybe when the 2000 new units are built that will happen.
@13: Old people pre-date the automobile by several thousand years. We’ll manage.
Let’s make sure they go way past the minimum for bike storage and maintenance. Some buildings downtown (including Amazon) are OVER compensating for the use of bikes and it would be great to see that happen in this project as well.
Go to both presentations. I believe I heard that the second one – with the 4 parking spaces for 18 units? included an explicit bicycle parking figure.
Urban design cuts several ways on the age & infirmity issue. While it’s ridiculous to expect everyone to walk, for example, a mile uphill from 34th & Wallingford and walk back with an armload of groceries, I think it’s by now common knowledge that people are healthier in neighborhoods with goods and services within reasonable walking distance. Development of a real urban infrastructure means real amenities. Unfortunately, there doesn’t seem to be so much money in it. If anyone’s going tonight, it’s our chance to be assertive about street front retail design.
@13: Walkable communities are indeed healthier communities for all ages. If your folks live in Seattle and really have difficulty getting out to shop and/or you know other older folks who can no longer drive safely, please have them contact Senior Services (seniorservices.org) for help with transportation options as well as their Mobile Market and Meals on Wheels services.
Attended tonight. Lots of positive statements regarding 3801 design. Some sentiment that the Stone facing retail should be “deeper” to promote desired businesses, and voice for more weather shelter along Stone, but not much else.
Initial design for 3651 was then reviewed. The developer is positioning this project as “an extension” of the Stoneway roofing development.
The design is very angular glass mod. They have at least made some effort to create a setback from the house to the North.
I commented that they should consider materials (stone/brick) that respect the architecture (100yr. old craftsman) of the houses surrounding the site. It was interesting that the developer chose to focus on how their design fit with the townhomes/light industrial..and that the mod was an appropriate “transition”. It seemed out of place to me. My house is directly across from this project..so I am quite interested in how this develops.
The whole process of public comment on design seems very odd to me. I felt like I was in an architect/designer clubhouse (both the board and developer side) and given lip service. I am not complaining…but I wonder whether next time I should bother.
I also attended the 3801 Stone Way part of the meeting. However, unlike TRW, I left feeling like attending those meetings is extremely important.
I did not attend the earlier meetings, but it according to members of the public and the board, the design has changed significantly (for the better) over time. During the board deliberations, members took public comment seriously and still had feedback to give to the design.
The public comment was a fascinating experience. There were several members of the Wallingford and Fremont Neighborhood Associations present that have excellent feedback and further recommendations for the project. There were also several people that did give gushing positive feedback about the project. IMHO, it appeared these folks were invited by the developer/designer/interested parties to give such feedback. In light of this, I believe it is important to attend to make sure that the meetings aren’t just stacked with the development’s buddies.
This is a gigantic project, building on Stone, 38th, and Woodland, and I am very glad that fellow community members were involved when I wasn’t.
all of these meetings are stacked.. thats big business for you. Skanska… did it. Npow look at their ugly building eating up sky, air, and blcoking hat once were views to trees and space with concrete.. and theyve got 2 or 3 and the variance levels to go.
Hey yesyes, maybe you can enjoy your coveted views of sky, air and trees somewhere other than a janky Subway in a sunken asphalt parking lot next to the dump. You know, like maybe a park or something. I’ve heard we have a few nearby.
Here’s an interesting recent article from CNN, saying that more and more young people are going carless. Money quote:
“More than a third of young adults who don’t drive say they are too busy to get a driver’s license, and more than a fifth don’t plan to ever learn to drive, according to a new study released Wednesday by the University of Michigan.”
Living without a car is the future.
That’s 1/5 of young adults who don’t drive, based on a sample of 618 of them. They didn’t try to find out how many don’t drive, let’s say 10%; eventually, if all goes according to the plans of that sample of 618, that number would go to %2 as they get older. Really it depends on whether they have money.
If there’s good data that shows an economy-independent move away from car ownership among the affluent upper middle class who are going to be able to afford to live in these shiny edifices, let’s see it. If not, better build for the world we see around us. If the garages empty out, use them for ping pong or something.
“Really it depends on whether they have money.”
Wrong, Donn. I can afford a car, but I choose not to have one. Car ownership is a headache and traffic sucks. As options like Flexcar and Car2Go expand, and as public transportation and bicycle/pedestrian infrastructure get better in urban environments, a carless existence becomes viable option.
And unlike the kids in this article, I’m a guy who couldn’t wait to get his driver’s license the day I turned 16. These kids who are indifferent to driving…they’re going to stay that way.
That’s the future.
All 2% of them. Remind you, I’m like you – I did without one myself until late 30s, and not because I was penniless. Totally unrepresentative of anything statistically significant. It’s a good thing if it ever happens – a viable carless option – but it isn’t a sure thing that you can design apartments around for people to live in next year.
Here’s another article on the trend of young people away from automobiles. Two key quotes:
“The percentage of 18-years-olds with a driver’s license plunged from 80 percent in 1983 to 61 percent by 2010.”
“One of those big, long-term shifts was the movement of large groups of young, college-educated adults back to major urban centers. The likelihood in general of individuals owning cars in urban areas is small.”
These are the people these new apartments are being designed for. Why wait until tomorrow when they’re already here?
Also quoting from the same article: “But perhaps one of the biggest reasons young people are not buying or driving cars at the historical rate is the high costs. Many millennials have graduated into poor labor markets bearing heavy debt loads. As a result for many, car ownership is a financial bridge too far.” Likewise ritzy digs in Wallingford.
I want to see the urban environment that makes a carless life work for the masses (i.e., not just you and some other hardy enthusiasts.) Or even some sense that anyone downtown cares at all about that, as opposed to getting the developers what they need so they can build big apts in far flung former light industry plots. That’s what it will take to make this believable. The way I heard it, the new apt on Meridian north of N 45th has little or no parking, but you could imagine those people happily managing without a car at least on a daily basis, right there in downtown Wallingford. (And rents may be a little lower in that building.) The buildings that people are cranked up about here are not sited like that. What’s the plan? Plan, did someone say? The plan is, uh, “more density”. Please make out a check to the campaign for __ for City Council, thanks!
By forgoing a car, a 25-year-old can easily save $700 a month on insurance, fuel, car payments and repairs, making a close-in $1500 apartment much more affordable.
Many of not most 18 year olds today are still living with their parents who gladly help them by giving them rides places or letting them borrow the family car. Eighteen year olds usually don’t have well paying jobs. Cars, insurance, and gas are expensive and they can’t afford them. They also feel invincible and probably don’t consider grocery shopping by bus with a couple kids in tow. They tend not to look very far into the future and can’t imagine ever having a physical challenge or not being able to have or do whatever they want.