By Tracy Record
West Seattle Blog editor
After learning the 42nd/Oregon project plan had changed, with 50 percent more apartments and about 80 percent less commercial space, Junction Neighborhood Organization president Erica Karlovits asked the new developers for the revised drawings.
According to correspondence she shared with JuNO members, they said they wanted to wait until they could show the drawings at the community meeting they had scheduled for June 15th.
That was a potential problem, as June 15th was also the deadline for public comments when the city sent official notice of the changes last week, but Karlovits says the city has just agreed to extend the deadline to June 29th.
If you want details sooner – including a look at a few of the new project-exterior renderings – hard copies are in the city files, so we went downtown to take a look:
First, some background:
This project first came to light almost four years ago, proposed for 89 residential units – original discussion was for condos, but the market has changed dramatically since then – and more than 20,000 square feet of retail space. Here’s our coverage of its first Design Review meeting in 2007. Concerns at the time focused on its size and bulk, atop the SW Oregon rise from Fauntleroy Way to 42nd; its future site has held four small homes for almost a century (three will be demolished, while the fourth was moved to Admiral last year).
Fourteen months after the first hearing, the project was scheduled to return to Design Review, with a different architect – though the meeting coincided with Snowpocalypse ’08, and was delayed till the following month (January 2009).
That meeting resulted in board approval for the project – as it was proposed then, still with about 90 residential units and 20,000+ square feet of retail space. The project’s 2nd architects, Junction-based Nicholson Kovalchick, prepared a full “packet” which is still available online and yielded the drawings we are using below for the “then” part of the then/now comparisons.
More than two years later, the project is back on the front burner, with a new architect, JBDG, and a new development partner, ConAm. Though the formal application revision has not been published for public comment until now, city documents indicate the change to 135 apartments has long been in the works, as that number is cited in the developer’s application for the city’s Multi-Family Tax Exemption program, mentioned in a January document (the City Council took up the application in March).
The city file we reviewed on Friday indicates that the developer considers the changes “minor revisions” – one document includes advice from the assigned city planner on tweaks to make to preserve the classification.
Here are the then-and-now renderings. IMPORTANT: Keep in mind that the “now” drawings are iPhone photos of drawings pulled from a file in which they had been kept folded for weeks, so there’s a crease – if the architect supplies electronic versions, we will substitute those. (Also note that after the then/now visuals, we have some additional information about the project, from the downtown files.)
EAST SIDE OF PROJECT (on the alley between 42nd and 41st)
Winter 2008-2009:
Current version (sorry, the fold from the DPD files is particularly notable here):
WEST SIDE OF PROJECT (fronting 42nd)
Winter 2008-2009:
Current version:
NORTH SIDE OF PROJECT (fronting Oregon)
Winter 2008-2009:
Current version:
One other view, from the current hard-copy documents, is a close-up of the entryway along 42nd SW:
This is notable because according to documents in the project file downtown, the entry is now 24 feet south of where it would have been, and will mark the separation between the 2,900 square feet of retail (on the northwest corner of the building) and the residential area.
Other notes: The building’s height is described as “a maximum of 79 feet to the top of the elevator tower.” Its “gross total floor area” has increased from 149,020 to 158,349 square feet. The roof deck has been revised to include “P-Patch” planter boxes and a pet-service area. The proposed building schedule would have the project complete in January 2013.
As is usual for these projects, the file also contains some back-and-forth between the developers and the city planner, who had asked for a “correction” after observing this change: “Reviewing the elevations of the revised drawings, I recall that on the north facade, we discussed preserving the vertical gasket comprised mostly of glazing that separated the two major frames that drive the composition. I’m wondering what happened. It appears that the spandrels are much thicker than the approved drawings.”
Again, the project team plans to discuss it with interested community members at a meeting June 15th, 6 pm, Senior Center of West Seattle (California/Oregon). There are no required public meetings remaining regarding the project, as it had received Design Review approval previously, and it has not been suggested that these changes would require reopening that process.
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