Here’s another Ballard monstrosity just being completed on 24th, right next to the huge hole where the QFC used to be. It’s silly name, NO-MA, is supposed to mean “North of Market.” Ask yourself this. How plainly stupid would you feel telling people you lived in a building called NO-MA in the first place? But at least it lends itself to a little humor.
That is some sweet etched glass creeping up the side of the Olive 8 Hyatt Hotel/condo project at 8th and Olive downtown. The fade of the etch makes it look like the building is framed with massive white tubes — I like it.
When completed, the 39-story tower’s relatively high floor-to-floor spacing will push it to 455 feet, which will make it the tallest residential tower in Seattle, edging out 2nd and Pine by a mere 15 feet.
Like the 1 Hotel and Residences (which has been put on hold), this project is all about luxury. But unlike the 1, it makes no claims about being green — I couldn’t find a single mention of the word on the web site. Apparently the Olive 8 developers do not believe that green is a worthwhile marketing tool for luxury housing. That’s unfortunate, but perhaps more honest than pretending that tacking on a few green features can make up for the massive environmental footprint of the lifestyles upon which such a building depends.
But will they go down in flames?
Based on their web portfolio, the design/build firm has yet to produce a building more than three stories tall. Yet within the past month they have unveiled plans for a 440-foot residential tower, as well as the 24-story hotel/condo project shown in the rendering above.
As for midrise, this 20-unit mixed use project at 151 12th Ave in the Central District will be the firm’s first (early design guidance was in January). A second midrise is also on the boards, rendering below:
Meanwhile, the firm continues to crank out smaller-scale projects — there are 18 listed on their web site that are either in the design phase or under construction. Six of these are “live-work,” which is still a relatively unproven building type in Seattle — the City’s live-work ordinance was passed just five years ago. The live-work typology has great potential for improving neighborhood vitality and sustainability, and it’s commendable that Pb Elemental is willing to take the risk. Their “9th Avenue” live-work project is rendered below.
Nearly all of Pb Elemental’s projects have striking form, and as such stand out from most other new architecture in Seattle. And this is creating a distinct marketing identity.
So who is Pb Elemental? Their two founders are in their early thirties. The firm has grown from 2 to 50 employees in just four years. They have brought on a new President and CFO who was formerly the CFO of Lorig Associates. They are currently building a new company headquarters. They won an AIA honor award in 2007. Both the Seattle PI and The Stranger have praised them.
It all sounds so dot-com.
Clearly the latest development cycle has peaked. Has Pb Elemental overextended itself? It wouldn’t be the first or the last development and/or architecture firm to do so.
Or, will their burn just keep getting hotter? For the sake of Seattle architecture, here’s to hoping it’s the latter.
[ A lunch I had in Bellevue last weekend to celebrate a rare visit to the Eastside. After I ordered one Big Mac, the guy working behind the counter asked if I wanted two for the price of one, and I said, “are you offering me a free Big Mac?” and he said yes, so I couldn’t say no. And then I ordered an apple pie and he said, “do you want two for a dollar?” and I thought, man that’s pretty cheap, so I said “sure” even though I didn’t, and still don’t know how much one pie costs — 50 cents perhaps? How mindlessly easy it was to end up with an absurd amount of bad food on my tray. “I’m Lovin’ It!” ]
For your analytical indulgence, some Bellevue data to contemplate in perspective with the number of new housing units in the Denny Way corridor noted here (2680), and the number of new apartment units in downtown Seattle noted here (3217):
Downtown Bellevue has 3200 housing units currently under construction, and another 2000 in the planning stages. By 2020 the downtown Bellevue population is projected to almost triple, growing from today’s 5000, to 14000. Go edge-city!
But of course not all Bellevue downtowners are pleased about all that growth. One neighbor had this to say: “Don’t let people move downtown. I don’t want it to turn bad.” I wish I was funny enough to have made that up.
[ Interbay; North is to the right ]
As reported in the Seattle PI today, and in the Seattle Times back in January, pretty much everyone* agrees that upzoning the Interbay district is a good idea. Interbay, which is not an official neighborhood, is a chunk of neglected land just south of the Ballard Bridge, centered around W. Dravis St. to the west of 15th Ave. W.
The Interbay Neighborhood Association has been advocating for an upzone since 2005, and the Department of Planning and Development (DPD) began conducting zoning studies in 2006. And here we are in 2008, still waiting for a decision.
Currently, progress is being held up by DPD, which must produce the environmental impact statement before any further steps can be taken. In other words, red tape. If DPD needs to hire more people to preclude delays such as this, they should be given the budget immediately. Seattle is growing up fast and we can’t afford to miss out on opportunities for dense redevelopment in areas that are perfect for it.
*Everyone except the Magnolia Neighborhood Planning Council, which, echoing the rallying cry of suburbanites across the nation, is objecting to density and building heights. Pardon my rant, but this attitude just gets more appallingly pathetic by the day. Is it possible, living in a city like Seattle, that these people still do not understand the connection between density and sustainability? Would it be unfair to insinuate that in truth, the primary concern of most of these folks is traffic congestion on Dravus?
Well here’s the deal Magnolia Neighborhood Planning Council people: Seattle is densifying as a strategy to help mitigate environmental crisis (perhaps you’ve heard about this on NPR?). Magnolia is not exempt. Yes, it will be harder to get around by car, you can count on that, everywhere in the City. Slowly but surely transit will be improved. Maybe you’ll find yourself taking the bus, or riding a bike, or perhaps even walking to the thriving new neighborhood center in Interbay. You’ll be OK. Better off, even. And so will the City, the region, and the planet.
[ Preferred option for the proposed new Safeway building in Pinehurst ]
As is clear in the site plan above, the proposed (big pdf) new Safeway in Seattle’s Pinehurst neighborhood is the standard suburban model — a single-use, single-story big box grocery store next to a sea of surface parking. An urban community that possessed a proper understanding and appreciation of sustainability would not let development like this happen.
And get this: as reported previously, the proposed Pinehurst Safeway is being touted as the first “green” Safeway in WA State. Green lipstick on a pig, that is.
But it’s not just Safeway, and it’s not just grocery stores. Any retail store that is so big and so car-oriented has no place in the sustainable urban community of the future. There are so many reasons it’s hard to know where to begin, like when you’re asked to explain what’s wrong with the Bush administration.
The root problem with big box stores is well, their bigness. They are simply way beyond the human scale that makes places comfortable and pleasant to be in. Their size is totally out of proportion with the ideal of the urban village.
Shown below is the streetscape along the 15th Ave Safeway on Capitol Hill (designed by Dykeman, the same firm that is designing the Pinehurst Safeway). When Safeway rebuilt this store, their concession to the neighborhood was to move the store east to front on 15th Ave, and put the surface parking behind. But that was a nearly empty gesture, because beyond the entrance at the south end of the building, the remaining length of the building along 15th Ave — roughly 300 feet — is dead facade. They tried hard to fake a real streetscape, but the lack of vitality and interest on this long stretch of sidewalk is felt by anyone who walks it.
[ The Safeway building’s 300 foot dead facade along 15th Ave on Capitol Hill ]
Another drawback of bigness is that smaller retailers can’t compete. Yet it’s small retail that everyone likes to have in urban villages, and for good reason. Small retail provides the personal connection, visual variety, and unpredictability that make neighborhood centers worth visiting, especially on foot.
Big stores also must draw customers from a relatively large area, which means more — and longer — trips by car. That in itself is bad enough, but this regional draw also sucks customers away from their own neighborhoods, where they could have been supporting their own local small retail. In short, big box is poison to urban villages.
Obviously, big box stores are designed primarily for access by car. In the case of the Pinehurst Safeway, they have gone so far as to propose 200 parking stalls, which is double the amount required by City of Seattle code. Surface parking eats up land that could be used for more human purposes, increases stormwater runoff, and is just plain ugly.
And this emphasis on car access comes at the expense of the pedestrian. All those hundreds of cars have to cross the sidewalk somewhere, creating a safety hazard and annoyance for pedestrians. No one wants to walk across a giant parking lot, and even the sidewalks that run along the edges of parking lots are relatively boring and unpleasant places to walk.
The solution to the big box problem is simple: Ban them. Now just hold on to your “it will never happen” and mark this: Seattle has already done it. Last December, the City passed an ordinance limiting the size of retail uses in industrial zones to 25,000 square feet. Expand that to all zones in Seattle, and you’re done.
There is no denying that big box stores have their merits. But these merits come at social and environmental costs that are not widely recognized, and these costs are rising. And the reason big box businesses thrive is because these costs do not show up on the price tags of their merchandise — the costs are “externalized.”
Under a mandated retail floor area limitation, neither Safeway nor Costco, nor any other retail business would be prohibited from operating in Seattle. They just couldn’t build stores that are too big. And if they couldn’t adjust their business model successfully, so be it. Someone else would apply some American ingenuity and fill the gap.
Ban Big Box!
[ Seneca St. and Minor Ave. on First Hill ]
I like this building because it’s purple. Our City lacks purple.
I can think of only one other large building in Seattle that has a lot of purple on it, and that’s Site 17 condos at 2440 Western Ave. in Belltown. The Epicenter in Fremont is lavender, but that doesn’t count. I know there must be more big purple buildings out there, so let’s hear from you if you know of one.
Purple is my favorite color. It’s deep and thick and juicy. I’m baffled over why isn’t it used more often on buildings.
And Seattle has a curious aversion to bold colors in general, given our gray and dreary climate. The Scandinavians, who have a similar monotone climate, love to put bold colors on their buildings (think Ikea blue and yellow).
Might I suggest that this aversion to bold color is related to our aversion to bold building forms? Might I further suggest that both are a manifestation of the Pacific Northwest personality, which seems always to be searching for the middle ground in the hope of not displeasing anyone? I didn’t say that.
Governor Gregoire is going to beat King County Executive Ron Sims to it: the State legislature just passed House Bill 2815, which establishes reduction targets for C02 emissions as well as strategies for achieving these reductions.
Meanwhile the City of Seattle, whose Mayor is noted for spearheading the US Mayors Climate Protection Agreement, has not yet adopted any binding legislation that regulates CO2 emissions, and is starting to fall behind in the race between big US cities to require green building in the private sector.
One of the most surprising components of the State legislation is the establishment of goals for the reduction of vehicle miles traveled: 18% by 2020, 30% by 2030, and 50% by 2050. Surprising first of all because we are still living in a highly car-centric culture that for the most part doesn’t take kindly to being told not to drive. And surprising also because the targets are so aggressive, especially considering that the State’s population is expected to grow from 6 million to 10 million by 2050. Update: the targets are based on per capita emissions, so population growth is irrelevant.
Because we get much of our electricity from carbon-free hydro-power, the transportation sector accounts for an atypically high 47% of statewide CO2 emissions. So it makes sense to focus on reducing vehicle miles traveled. But there’s an unfortunate twist. The State legislation was crafted to mesh with the Western Climate Initiative (WCI), a coalition of seven US States and two Canadian Provinces working to establish a common cap and trade system. However, as reported over at Sightline, WCI’s current recommendation is to not include transportation fuels in the cap and trade system.
In any case, now that it’s about to go on the books that we need to reduce vehicle miles traveled by a full 50% by 2050, how can the State possibly justify spending billions on rebuilding the Viaduct, or spending billions on the 520 bridge, or spending even another penny on increasing car capacity anywhere? And how can the State possibly justify not spending billions on transit, and not spending billions on compact development that reduces reliance on cars?
[ Rendering of Kinects Apartments at 1823 Minor Ave. ]
If you’ve been wondering how much the Seattle market has shifted from condos to apartments, check out this mountainous list of new and proposed downtown apartment projects recently posted by the ever-industrious Seattle Condo Blog.
As with the Denny Way projects, I can’t resist doing the math:
Olivian; 8th and Olive; 224 units
Aspira; Stewart and Terry; 326 units
Kinects; Minor and Stewart; 366 units
1200 Stewart; Stewart and Denny; 400 units (est.)
2000 3rd Ave; 3rd and Virginia; 431 units
2105 6th Ave; 6th and Lenora; 644 units
3rd and Cedar; 185 units
3031 Western Ave; 78 units
Landes; 8th and Marion; 81 units
Taylor 28; Taylor and Denny; 197 units
6th and Denny Apartments; 56 units
Expo 62; 2nd and John; 114 units
The Bernard; Warren off Denny; 62 units
Borealis; Denny and Dexter; 53 units
Grand total: 3217 units. And that’s only downtown — there are many more going up in the neighborhoods.
But is that a lot? For reference, as of 2002, downtown Seattle had 15,695 housing units (that includes apartments, condos, and everything else). So yes, 3217 new apartment units is a motherload to be coming online over a relatively short time period.
Many of these new projects are similar in design and amenity to typical luxury condos.  Does this mean apartments will start to receive some of the derision so fashionably dished out to condos? Unlikely.  Apartments are for the honest, hardworking, middle class backbone of America. And condos are for yuppie scum. Right?
[ 14th Ave. and E. Yesler Way ]
(Apologies in advance. So sorry. Not news. Nothing original here. You’ve heard it all before.)
Just a friendly reminder: We used to be better at making good buildings. The building on the left is probably 80 or 90 years old. The building on the right went up 2 or 3 years ago.
We can’t blame it all on rising costs of materials and labor. Our culture has changed.
[ Diagram of a “road diet,” which will be necessary to fit bike lanes on 23rd Ave ]
As previously reported, the City of Seattle’s new Bike Master Plan shows bike lanes on 23rd Ave, south of Madison St. Since 23rd Ave is so narrow, the only way this could happen is if the road loses two motor vehicle travel lanes. But because 23rd Ave is such an important north-south arterial, I have always thought it highly unlikely that the City would follow through on the plan and sacrifice car capacity for bike lanes. There has already been one case in which the plan was watered down, on Stone Way in Fremont.
[ Stone Way bike lane protest ride, August 2007. Photo: Seattle Times ]
My suspicions were aroused upon reading a statement from SDOT posted here that said more analysis would be necessary before a decision would be made on 23rd Ave. In contrast, the bike master plan web site implies that thorough analysis has already been done:
“Relevant city arterial streets, determined by the existing data review and public input were further analyzed for potential addition of bike facilities using GIS (Geographic Information Systems) analysis and field evaluation. This study arterial network was further refined to develop a comprehensive and continuous bicycle network appropriately distributed throughout the City.”
So I fired off an email to SDOT asking for an explanation of why the Bike Master Plan is subject to further analysis, and what the process will be for coming to a final decision. Today, exactly one month later, I got a reply.
The short version is that in some cases SDOT decided to show recommendations that were not yet entirely backed up by traffic analysis, instead of showing nothing at all. Detailed evaluation of 23rd Ave will begin next Fall, and by March 2009, a final decision will be made. SDOT invites community involvement in the process.
In one way, the year-long delay may be a good thing. Because as time passes, public awareness of global warming, peak oil, and the importance of modifying our cities for less reliance on cars will only continue to grow. Ultimately, the decision on 23rd Ave will reveal that either we are coming to grips with future reality, or we are still stubbornly clinging to our car addition.
For the hardcore: full text of SDOT’s response after the break.
Now we’re talking tall and skinny. The building in the rendering above, known as the Trophy Building, is Pb Elemental’s proposed design for a 440′ residential tower with a footprint of a mere ~2000 square feet. There will be only 19 residential units in the building, each unit occupying two full floors.
This tower — like much of Pb Elemental’s work — exudes a quality that is sorely lacking in most Seattle architecture: audacity. Seattle architecture tends to be safe and conservative, adjectives that simply do not apply to a 440′ tower on a 2900 sf lot.
Based on the renderings, the tower form looks to be simple yet memorable: the mark of talented form-givers. And this you tend to see in most of Pb’s design: forms are simple, clear, and bold. There are no compromises, no pretending to be what it’s not, no apologies for what it is. The end result may or may not clash with the context; some love it, some hate it. But at least it’s architecture that says something.
In contrast, much of new architecture in Seattle gives me the feeling of design by committee — design that tries to satisfy everyone, but ends up satisfying no one. There seems to be an overriding desire to not to make waves, and the result is architecture that is essentially invisible. Forms are overly complicated yet unmemorable.
Pb Elemental is also adept at doing more with less, as the Trophy Building project demonstrates. They have a knack for finding overlooked parcels and turning oddities into opportunities, as in this project on a steeply sloping site just off the south edge of I-90. And they are taking risks with innovative projects in challenging areas, such as this live-work development or these townhouses, both on 23rd Ave in the Central District, an area has had ongoing troubles with street crime and gang activity.
In the case of the Trophy Building, Pb Elemental has gone so far outside the Seattle box that the project will slip through a loophole in the City’s design review process because it only has 19 units, even though it will probably be a $50+ million building. Brilliant.
The comments on SLOG’s post (h/t Dominic) on this project are worth a look. Revealing typical Seattle timidity, concerns were raised over how the tower won’t fit in with its context, that it will “stick out like a sore thumb.” Uh-huh. Well, obviously, that building form is unlike anything else in the neighborhood, or in all of Seattle for that matter. Furthermore, the reality is that the site has nothing coherent in the way of context. It’s up against I-5 and the Denny Way overpass, and surrounded by a random jumble of buildings.
More Un-Seattle architecture, please.
(Note: SLOG reported that there was some uncertainty over the land deal for this project, but Pb Elemental has said that the project is moving forward but that they have requested more time from the seller for the air rights to be wrapped up.)
This is huge (hat tip: Sightline):
“King County Executive Ron Sims plans to introduce legislation that would allow the county to reject or modify development projects because of their effect on global warming.”
If passed, it will be a first for the entire country. And it will have a profound impact on future development.
No doubt we will be seeing more legislation like this all across the U.S., as mitigation of global warming becomes central to everything we do.
The management is pleased to announce that the hugeasscity RSS syndication functions have been repaired and are ready for your mainlining enjoyment. All apologies for any inconvenience.
(That will teach me to use some random hack’s recent comments code… )
Way up north in Seattle’s Pinehurst neighborhood, in a process that stretches back to 2006, Safeway has been working to get a rezone for the construction of an expanded store at NE 125th St. and 15th Ave. NE. In December, the City Council passed an ordinance allowing Safeway to apply for the rezone, and today SLOG reported that the rezone appeal deadline has passed.
As a carrot for the neighborhood, Safeway has committed to building WA State’s first “Green Safeway.” What does that mean? According to all that I’ve seen published, it means these three things: local construction materials, heat reclamation from refrigerators, and pervious pavement for the parking lot and adjacent sidewalks. Let’s take a closer look at these strategies.
Use of local construction materials is a proven sustainable development practice. Let’s hope that Safeway commits to a quantifiable goal that is on par with established green building standards such as LEED.
Grocery stores are notorious energy hogs, mainly because of all the refrigerators, so reclaiming their waste heat to provide space heating for the building is a smart strategy. Although perhaps not so much, when you consider that most of the refrigerators (and even freezers in some cases — hello Trader Joe’s) in modern grocery stores are open units without doors. If a grocer was serious about saving energy, the first step would be to use refrigerators that don’t wastefully blow all their cold air out into the store.
So why no doors? Because apparently people buy more if there is no barrier whatsoever (i.e. even a glass door) between them and the food products. Believe it. To me the logic seems flawed, since you’d think that a person would eat the same amount regardless of whether or not they have to open a refrigerator door to buy it. But all the same, I’m sure the marketing research has been done and shows that open refrigerators move more product. So then, not only are they wasting energy, but they are compelling people to eat more than they need.
But hey, that’s OK, they’ll reclaim the waste heat from the refrigerators to heat the building that’s being cooled by those same open refrigerators. Next.
Pervious pavement allows stormwater to percolate directly back into the soil, which decreases the load on municipal stormwater systems, and also helps restore natural hydrology. But Seattle’s thick clay soils often preclude their use, and in March 2007 Dykeman Architects noted that a soil study would be required at the Pinehurst site.
Large parking lots are the perfect application for pervious pavement. But let’s consider why there’s a need for such a large parking lot in the first place. In the case of modern grocery stores, it’s simply because the stores are so big. The proposed Pinehurst Safeway store is 50,000 square feet — a little more than one acre — for which Seattle’s code requires 100 parking stalls that would eat up about 35,000 additional square feet of space.
Big stores need to have lots of people in them at any given time, and they have to put their cars somewhere. But furthermore, the bigger the store, the larger the geographical area from which it must draw customers. And since trips to the store are then longer on average, this means a higher fraction of trips by car, and in turn, the need for a larger parking lot. From the perspective of the urban system as a whole, grocery stores should be smaller and more finely dispersed.
And what about that expansive building roof, which is also impervious surface? A green roof is the solution for mitigating runoff, but is likely not being considered due to perceptions about added cost.
[ Safeway in Queen Ann with two floors of housing above. Photo: Dan Bertolet ]
The proposed Pinehurst store is a single-story, single-use building. The project would be much greener overall if it put housing above the first floor. Safeway has done this with stores elsewhere in Seattle.
And let’s not forget that the big grocery store chains are integral to our highly unsustainable corporate food system.
Anyway, all that said, it’s a good thing that Safeway will be taking some green steps with the Pinehurst store. Change is incremental and all that. But let’s recognize that these steps are a lot like band aids for cancer.
And let’s also recognize that it’s not fair to place all the responsibility for sustainability on the grocery store chains, or any other corporate retailer or producer, for that matter. They are all operating within, and responding to a system that is driven by us, the consumers. If we want a more sustainable world, then we need to take responsibility and not give our money to inherently unsustainable businesses (hint: stick with Madison Market or PCC). And no, I don’t always practice what I preach.
You know land is expensive when it pencils to do what you see in the photo above. That looks to be about 60 vertical feet of shoring.
Soon to grow out of this hole in a very steep slope at 300 5th Ave will be a 24-story building with 460k sf of office, 20k sf of retail, and 279 parking stalls, developed by Martin Selig, project cost: $60 million.
This is one upside of a tight land supply: it catalyzes infill in inconvenient sites, thereby bringing development density to where it makes sense, i.e. near the downtown core.
[ Rendering of the 300 5th Ave project looking SEÂ ]
