By Guest Contributor Carl Goodman
On Jan. 18 and 19, 2008, the South Lake Union Friends and Neighbors Community Council (SLUFAN), held a design charrette — an intense collaborative session among various civic, corporate and community stakeholders — to craft proposals to accommodate at least 16,000 additional employees and 8,000 additional households in the SLU neighborhood.
SLUFAN will incorporate some of the suggestions raised at the charrette in its recommendations to the City, which will then issue an Environmental Impact Statement on the future look of SLU.
Key organizers of the charrette included various corporate members of SLUFAN such as Paul Allen’s real-estate development corporation, Vulcan; the architectural firms NBBJ and Mithun; and the construction-management company, Olympic Associates. Staff from the City’s Department of Planning and Development and the Mayor’s Office of Policy and Management also played central roles in planning the event.
The organizers invited neighborhood representatives from groups in Cascade, Capitol Hill, and Queen Anne to participate. In my capacity as the representative of POWHAT (Pine Olive Way Harvard Area Triangle), I served as one of the 30 charrette participants.
The charrette’s objective was to evaluate what “urban form” makes the most sense for SLU. Current zoning in the area permits six-story buildings (ranging from 65- to 85-feet), which typically take the form of a “bread loaf,” or a long, blocky edifice. The Vulcan development at Westlake and Republican that serves as the HQ for the fashion retailer Tommy Bahama is a typical example.
The proposals that Vulcan and the architectural firms presented included evaluating four major upzones: 125 feet; 160 feet; 240 feet; and 400 feet. These taller buildings could take the form of “wedding cakes,” such as the newly completed Mithun condo development Mosler Lofts, with its slight setbacks at the upper floors. Or, they could be “pencil towers,” such as Vancouver-style tall and thin highrises built on block-long lowrise pedestals.
Another key proposal is to change the industrial/commercial zoning of much of SLU so that more residential construction is permitted.
As part of the sweetener to endorse building taller, the charrette organizers emphasized the city’s program to assess developers a fee of about $22.00 per square foot when they build in excess of a predetermined Floor Area Ratio (the ratio of the total floor area of a building to the size of the land parcel). The monies raised go towards affordable housing and childcare programs.
Charrette participants spent time discussing such existing SLU features as geography; mobility; open space; street character; and heritage buildings — as well as the flight paths of the Kenmore Air seaplanes.
Critique
Given SLU’s location in the middle of such difficult-to-penetrate roads as Denny, Aurora, Mercer and I-5, some of us described the current SLU as an enclave that’s surprisingly peaceful and isolated. Its bowl-like or swale setting and its increasingly abandoned light industrial streetscapes also form what I think of as SLU’s essence. I’d like to see these qualities incorporated into a robust new SLU.
From my perspective, the charrette organizers seemed to be chomping at the bit to build taller. Mere lip service was given to incorporating great design, cultural amenities, or a significant number of affordable housing units in the new SLU. While the few true historic structures in SLU may be protected from overdevelopment pressures, other buildings and businesses that add neighborhood luster, like the classic terracotta Firestone dealership and the Antique Liquidators warehouse, both on Westlake, would seem unlikely candidates to survive a major upzone. Charrette organizers repeatedly referred to the proposed highrise residential structures as luxury dwellings, ignoring the successes of cities such as New York that provide tax incentives to developers to construct integrated affordable and fair-market housing.
Many of the charrette participants seemed to think that the transportation mess along Denny and Mercer would not be exacerbated by the influx of thousands of new residents and workers in the neighborhood, but I’m skeptical that the new streetcar line alone provides the solution.
My preference for the new SLU would be a dense, vibrant lowrise neighborhood, that conserves the existing industrial character even while it changes the use to residential and hightech. If Vulcan really wanted to get innovative with the 60-plus acres of SLU land that it controls, it would help spawn a Greenwich Village-like arts neighborhood and integrate housing units for both the rich and the working class, including families with kids. Now that would be a new SLU worth celebrating.
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13 responses so far ↓
1 vc // Jan 24, 2008 at 1:23 am
Why do you favor lowrise? All else equal, it is less dense.
2 CG // Jan 24, 2008 at 7:56 am
In re VC’s query: It is too easy to equate urbanity with height. I believe the Capitol Hill neighborhood has Washington State’s densest population, and it is decidedly lowrise. We want a dense and tall downtown, including residential, and the city’s evolving well there. Further to the north, the Denny Triangle is the next big development district, especially with the planned sale of the multi-block Clise Properties parcel, which is being advertised as having “Rockefeller Center” potential. That’s great.
But the character of SLU argues for something different. Topographically, it is in a swale, or depression. That’s a feature that I think should be exploited. A fascinating mix of biotech, the new Amazon campus, and the retention of existing SLU businesses like Far Fetched and David Smith, would serve as a great platform for the development of a cultural arts district and lots of housing units – including housing for families. Let’s keep and rehabilitate a good percentage of the existing SLU warehouse space for these purposes. A highrise district would simply tear all of them down. Instead, a close-in gritty neighborhood with kids, dogs, and artists, along with dense — but lowrise – new commercial development, would complement the more traditional highrise neighborhoods just to the south. And, great architectural design is not synonymous with building taller. Seattle has awful design. Regardless of height, we have to demand more innovative design standards in SLU and throughout the city.
Plus, there’s something spectacular about the sweeping cityscape, Sound, lake and mountain views from Capitol Hill and Queen Anne, the central point is the Space Needle and the SLU swale. These views should be preserved, rather than obliterated by a wall of 400-foot SLU developments.
Simply expanding 400-foot buildings north from downtown into SLU would destroy an opportunity to make SLU into a showcase for a vital new neighborhood.
3 Chris // Jan 24, 2008 at 9:54 am
I’m tired of the 80,000 sf ” bread loafs” in SLU. I’d much prefer setbacks above 30-40′ and towers above.
4 teeeeeeeds // Jan 24, 2008 at 12:24 pm
I agree with Chris. “Bread loaf” type buildings are so unimaginative and overdone in Seattle. Even the so-called “wedding cakes” are bulky in my opinion. And as far as character goes, I think there’s a difference between just maintaining old dilapidated warehouses simply for its grittiness than restoring historic buildings for new uses (like Alley 24 across from REI). Most of these warehouse are just plain ugly.
5 SW // Jan 24, 2008 at 3:34 pm
With regards to the mass of warehouses and character preservation, may I suggest looking to Glasgow, Scotland to broaden the imagination of what can be done with old warehouse districts. They have been very effective at transforming their old industrial city center into mixed use (and in many cases mixed price) buildings that preserve the traditional character.
6 richard // Jan 24, 2008 at 4:02 pm
Isn’t the “character” of the neighborhood one of the things the developers are hoping to change? The character is as it is because the neighborhood was an underdeveloped warehouse district. Bringing in a Whole Foods does little to preserve the character, but it certainly makes the place more liveable.
7 SW // Jan 24, 2008 at 4:30 pm
To clarify, by ‘character’ I am referring to the aspects of the built-environment, and with that some socio-economic issues. Facades, set backs from the street, preserving styles of wrought steel or overly large doors; developing the space while preserving the building. The socio-economic character can be helped because the developer does not always have to demolish the old (and paid for) buildings, can work with pre-existing site sizes which are sometimes more affordable, and might be encouraged to not favor the hyper-mobile rich single who wants their house of glass in a skyrise. Not all the buildings in SLU should be preserved, by any means, but there is a good deal of preservation-minded infill that could happen without bringing out the meat ax.
The case with Whole Foods is not really related to this. But if you want to look at them, then it is not about bringing a much needed healthy (yet expensive) food option into the area, as about how they did it. They could have remodeled one of the warehouses, added a floor for extra housing/office, and preserved the aesthetic. Instead they built a new building with lack-luster design that could be anywhere in the whole northwest.
8 Mark W // Jan 25, 2008 at 12:51 am
I agree re the bread loaves. A lot of the new stuff in SLU has the ambience of a suburban office park rather than an exciting urban neighborhood. I’d like to see greater height variation allowed in exchange for street-level setbacks for some visual variety at both levels.
But not 400 feet. The neighborhood should fit the SLU swale CG mentions, and the neighborhood should pull people and views towards Lake Union rather than wall it off.
Unlike downtown where buildings vary in age and style by about 100 years. SLU’s compact revival period isn’t going to get the architectural variety that 100 years can bring. Whether preserving some of the older buildings/facades can address this? I don’t know if that’s the best solution as I don’t know what the cost impacts would be (but please keep the terra cotta bldgs!!!). The (I guess they think it’s) edgy finishes look like the product of some committee, and it will date the neighborhood in a few years. I wish they’d try to be more timeless and less “edgy” in their designs.
That said… Where I think SLU has missed the boat so far has been its preservation of the street grid. I suppose that there’s too much buried under the streets for this to be practical, but I would like to see them take more than a few of the side streets out, and trade some of that land with the developers so SLU doesn’t end up as nothing more than lots of neatly arranged rows and columns of boxes. Some of the freed land would be need for drives into parking garages and mover/delivery access to the buildings, but there’d be more street level land for plazas and squares, play grounds, green patches and pea-patches. I.e., overhaul the neighborhood by multi-block sections, not just by individual parcels.
9 newbuyer // Jan 25, 2008 at 4:55 pm
green space. we need more green space in SLU. Tree-lined streets, power lines underground, maybe a fountain, etc…
10 NYC Urbanist // Jan 27, 2008 at 7:06 pm
Having moved to New York to study urbanism, I am aghast every time I see the latest offering of “bread loaf” condos when I return home. In a city known for innovation, these eyesores are a sad complement to Seattle’s natural beauty. Worse yet, it seems we have turned our backs on the nearby examples of Portland and Vancouver B.C. whose daring, elegant towers have invigorated the downtown core of these two cities.
In South Lake Union we should not be afraid to construct towers as high as 500 feet to accommodate the varied interests of science, commerce and housing that are at stake. Tall, adventurous towers can help redefine the Seattle skyline and demonstrate the ingenuity and creativity our city is known for.
11 SeattleArchitect // Jan 28, 2008 at 8:02 pm
Very nicely articulated, NYC_Urbanist. While Seattle has all the promise of becoming a major megalopolis, our charming little city resists many of the things that make would make us more livable if not more international. We are stuck in our provincial, small town ways. For some reason, we have yet to truly embrace density and veritcality — two things [that IF done well] can do more to bring new vitality, energy, and lifeblood to the urban center than just about anything else. Tall towers [slender ones at least] are easy on the eyes, allow more light to the street and space between building, and they pack people into much less SF of land per body. We need more people living downtown to bring life to the city. Vertical density is good for the planet because it uses land that already has the infrastructure in place. The thing I cannot figure out is why Seattlites are afraid of height?
PS> Not sure where this suddenly omnipotent term BREADLOAF came from, but we can thank our zoning code for that - it practically mandates it for lower density sites. Vancouver has an FAR based code - ours is a WonderBread based code :).
12 Eric K // Jan 30, 2008 at 1:35 am
Europe is so awful with all of those bread loft monolithic blocks. Paris and Stockholm especially.
Zoning doesn’t create good or bad architecture — developers do. Developer who really care about design build great 5 to 12 story buildings. But most developers’ primary concern is money, and zoning prevents them from building an ugly building that is so out of scale from everything around it that everyone has to see it.
Roland Terry, one of the better Seattle residential architects — you should see his house on Lopez in person — still built the 23 story Washington Park Tower in Madison Park, which you can see from 520, I-90, and most anywhere else around Lake Washington.
In 1968, he justified his tall slender tower by saying that Capitol Hill would be the ghetto of the future with its lowrise blocks. (While he was gay, that wasn’t the kind of ghetto he imagined.)
The Washington Park Tower has its merits, as long as you’re standing in it and not looking at it. But it — and the many similar towers built in Vancouver in the 60s, 70s and 80s — show that taller isn’t necessarily better. It’s just a lot more visible.
There are plenty of ugly condo towers in Vancouver from the 70s and 80s that can only be described as trailer parks in the sky, with awkward greenspace around the base. (At least they fixed that in the newer condos by wrapping the base with townhomes.)
Does anyone really think that Vulcan would build a beautiful 20 or 40 story building if there was an upzone north of Denny Way?
I’m all for tall slender towers, but I see the benefit in Seattle’s downtown zoning’s stair-step zoning along the waterfront and along Denny way. Really tall buildings benefit from context, especially when they’re ugly.
13 NYC Urbanist // Jan 30, 2008 at 12:52 pm
I agree with Eric K to the extent that is developers and not zoning regulations which create bad architecture. With that said, however, architectural decisions are influenced by zoning guidelines.
In her book ‘Form Follows Finance: Skyscrapers and Skylines in New York and Chicago,’author Carol Willis discusses the concept of a building’s economic height. Willis, who is the founding director of the Skyscraper Museum and a professor at the Columbia University Graduate School of Architecture, Planning and Preservation says engineers could feasibly allow architects to design buildings of staggering heights, but this almost never the case. Zoning is one mitigating factor, but economics is the chief culprit. If it takes too long to build and no one wants to lease then all the effort of constructing a highrise is for naught. However, if there is demand for 70-story residential towers, it’s in everyone’s interest to build them.
Seattle has been hamstrung by building codes that inhibit imaginative architectural solutions. The crucial first step is to ease height restrictions, allowing the architects and planners to envision the future of urban Seattle. Lingering on the mistakes of the late 1960s doesn’t address the need for progressive solutions. Context and aesthetics are debatable; Seattle’s need for housing is not.
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