The latest Land Use Information Bulletin from the city brought word that the proposal to renovate the interior of the Shoremont Apartments on Alki is proceeding – it’s been determined no environmental review is needed. You’ll recall the twin apartment buildings were once proposed for demolition, to make way for an ultra-modern development planned 3 years ago; then foreclosure led to new ownership. This morning, we talked for the first time with new owner Dennis Schilling, who tells WSB he bought the Shoremont because he has “always liked small brick buildings … I thought (these) were pretty interesting.” More about his plans, ahead:
“I do apartments, and occasionally, I buy one and try to fix it up,” Schilling told us during our phone conversation. “The goal is to pretty much leave them (as they are) as much as I can, to the extent the city will let me do that.”
That does not mean leaving the 88-year-old apartments at 2464 Alki SW in their current state of neglect. Schilling says he is hoping first to “get a roof on” the building, and in the meantime, he is going by frequently, and taking care of some of the exterior problems. Just a few weeks ago, he says, he and his wife and son were there pulling blackberry bushes and doing some other cleanup; he says he hopes to get a dumpster onto the property soon, for more cleanup.
Inside, he has “to bring everything up to current codes … (including) earthquake compliance.” That means some exterior changes on the rear side of the buildings: “Some windows will disappear on the back because they are too ‘open,’ we need to have some shear wall, if the building moved” in case of a quake.
And as the applications we’ve noted suggested, he wants to change them back to what they were originally built as, two four-unit buildings (some years back, two of the units in each building were consolidated into one), and then they will be rented out.
As for a timetable: “Everything has been turned in to the city right now,” though the review process is not a speedy or simple one, but he believes the city “want(s) this to happen as well.” Schilling adds that he’s hoping they will “let me get going sooner rather than later.”
He reiterated that he’s not in this particular project to make money: “This is not a high return; if I make anything on it, it’ll be 20 years” in the future. “I really just liked the building.”
And if you have any ideas for it, Schilling said, he’s “open to input.”
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