32 Replies to "West Seattle development: Preview 4745 40th SW before tomorrow's Design Review meeting"

• vanessa December 4, 2013 (4:37 pm)

  EIGHT STORIES!!!!

• Wendell December 4, 2013 (4:59 pm)

  And another 1/3 of a mile of cars.

• Peter December 4, 2013 (5:51 pm)

  I love it! It will perfectly block my view of the insufferably ugly City Watch Apts.

• Sonoma December 4, 2013 (6:23 pm)

  Eight stories indeed. Ugh. Say goodbye to natural light, a precious commodity around here.

• Alex December 4, 2013 (7:08 pm)

  Less spots than apartments, of course… Because so many people who live on Avalon don’t need cars. Perfectly reasonable. /s
  .
  The only people in that neighborhood who don’t own cars are the ones who leave the stolen grocery carts on the side of the rode every day.

• thistle stairs December 4, 2013 (7:17 pm)

  Looks like a human storage unit at some factory farm. Is the original design Soviet?

• Friend O'Dinghus December 4, 2013 (7:38 pm)

  Wow, how architecurally interesting! Not!
  How can the tenants possibly tell which building is ‘home’ when they all look exactly the same???

• buckwheat December 4, 2013 (8:05 pm)

  Alex is right on about the shopping carts. Maybe they will have parking spots for the shopping carts.

• Alphonse December 4, 2013 (8:17 pm)

  Hello Lefrak City circa 2013! If this gets built, Fremont should just give us the Lenin statue because it would look completely at home out front.

• CJ December 4, 2013 (9:38 pm)

  Wasn’t there talk of turning that lot into a public park or am I confusing it with somewhere else?

  • WSB December 4, 2013 (9:47 pm)

    The site the city is buying as a park is immediately north of the development site. Much discussion in prior reviews involved the fact the north side of this building will face it. – TR

• pupsarebest December 4, 2013 (10:43 pm)

  3 PM, left turn from Fauntleroy onto Edmunds, one car per green light—doesn’t the future look bright and rosy? (for the scumbag developers who will never have to endure the utter hell they’ve left in their wake)

• Brian December 5, 2013 (8:42 am)

  @pupsarebest: Do you honestly think the city won’t install a turn lane at that light once this block gets developed?

• JoAnne December 5, 2013 (9:44 am)

  Great! Another greedy politician/developer plan to use the street in front of my house.
  .
  And no matter what evidence to the contrary, they continue to lie their heads off about new residents not having/not needing cars.
  .
  Well, get in line folks. I haven’t been able to park anywhere near my house for a year as it is.

• Arquitect December 5, 2013 (9:58 am)

  It’s amazing how many world-class architects we have living in West Seattle and posting their architectural knowledge to this blog. I guess we should expect all multi-family housing to be designed by Frank Ghery, or maybe the bloviators simply will not ever accept/support any new development in West Seattle. I suspect that if a multi-family unit offered 1 parking space per unit, there would be outrage that it’s not 1.5 spaces per unit, and even at 2 or 3 spaces per unit, there would be contempt for development. The building is too high. The building is not interesting. The building tenants will use my pretty alley where I grow my organic tomatoes next to my compost bin. There’s not enough parking in the Junction and I may have to walk 3 blocks to get to my destination. We need another dog park. There are too many people. We’re against eminent domain to expand the roads out of West Seattle yet like to complain about the traffic. We don’t support public transit investments because we don’t use it, but then complain when more people drive to work and clog our roads. My God we are a bunch of whiners!

• wetone December 5, 2013 (10:22 am)

  CJ the city of seattle (seattle parks) have bought two lots 4731 40th SW size = 11,500sqft sales price $1,440,000.00 recorded on 12/17/12 . The 2nd adjoining lot 4723 40th SW was just recently bought by the city and recorded on 10/29/13. lot size is 5700sqft sales price $720,000.00 numbers and dates per county records. 2.2mil. dollars for 17250 sqft. land. Now they need money probably another 2mil. to design and build the new park when said and done. That is one reason why Seattle Parks is asking for more money (tax increases). Very expensive little park that will benefit the investment companies surrounding properties well. I think it is great for these types of parks, but in an area such as this one the investment groups should be required to pay for them. Then donate properties to the city. There needs to be a fee that the developers pay based off the total sqft of their buildings for green areas, then used in same area as their projects. Just saying… going to be $$$$ to maintain, but the grocery carts will have a nicer place to go instead of the old funeral home. On a different note that intersection Alaska & Fauntleroy should be a fun one with an extra 1000 cars using it daily in a couple years :0

• Brian December 5, 2013 (10:26 am)

  @JoAnne: Where is it written in any codified law that you are entitled to park on the city-owned streets in front of your house?

• Wendell December 5, 2013 (10:39 am)

  The word count of that last post wins the longest-whine award so far. Just sayin’.

• sam-c December 5, 2013 (10:46 am)

  Brian- I am sure they will say that they need to study it first for a couple o years, and then maybe after that, recommend it, but they don’t have any money to implement it.

• John December 5, 2013 (12:41 pm)

  This one really bothers me. It’s perfectly located to take away my view of downtown Seattle… Also close enough that I’m sure extra cars will be parking the block and a half away in front of my home….bummer.
  Not my doing….I have no children to add to the overpopulation growth.

• Brian December 5, 2013 (1:03 pm)

  …and the winner for most selfish and myopic comment of the day goes to John. Good job.

• Alphonse December 5, 2013 (1:51 pm)

  Yeah, Arquitect, you will find that when people have little-to-no say about issues that are going to permanently change the place where they live, they tend to voice their opinions and frustrations. I don’t mind most of the new development nearly as much as some and understand that multi-family rental development is going to be pretty marginal in most regards, including aesthetically, but this is way below most of the other developments I’ve seen proposed. I truly think (hope) that this architect can do better than a tribute to 1960’s era public housing.

• Civik December 5, 2013 (3:17 pm)

  The architecture is probably the cheapest way to build. Considering most people could make the drawing for it with a piece of graph paper and a pencil. Perhaps we could call these designs something like, Pushing Squares. It is probably similar underlying structure that they just ‘push’ other squares around inside.

• thistle stairs December 5, 2013 (7:03 pm)

  John, thank you for acknowledging the real villain in almost every modern problem, overpopulation.

• dd December 5, 2013 (7:47 pm)

  LeFrak City was not a terrible thing. It was built to house the growing population of NYC and it did and still does offer reasonable (for NYC area) rents and has amenities in and close to the building. So a comparison to having something like that built here is not really a bad thing.

• T December 6, 2013 (1:22 am)

  Why? Just why.

• pjmanley December 6, 2013 (11:54 am)

  I can live with the size and scale, but those who call this Soviet Contemporary or 1960’s Tributary are right on. Boxy is boxy, and a 7 story box is a 7 story box, whether Ghery, Da Vinci or Christ himself designed it. Much modern architecture is mired in group think. Hence, the last to realize it are the architects. Not new. Happens in every profession. @Arquitect: You prove this point.

• JoAnne December 6, 2013 (1:33 pm)

  Yah Brian. Who do those elderly and handicapped homeowners think they are, expecting to be able to park somewhere near their homes?
  .

• Martha December 6, 2013 (2:53 pm)

  What happened to the park that was promised in the original plan? Why would you build a building just below the City View Apts. Guess you plan on blocking our beautiful view?

• Arquitect December 6, 2013 (5:20 pm)

  JoAnne – handicapped homeowners can actually use ADA petitions to get a designated handicapped spot in front of their homes. Homeowners could also make the choice to sell and move to a location more convenient, perhaps with parking. The housing market here is hot so at a certain point it’s a life choice to stay in place and complain about development.

• Mike December 7, 2013 (7:40 am)

  Yes Arquitect, we should all be forced to give up our multi hundred thousand dollar investments to appease the developers making millions on sub-par design and cheap construction with government subsidies to NOT put in parking spots for each unit. It could never be that the all mighty dollar determined the cheapest route to make the most money for the politician and developer…no, that would never happen. ………

• Jimmy December 9, 2013 (4:12 pm)

  Do any of you frustrated bloggers have any real experience in urban planning or development? Try saying something thoughtful and constructive. This is actually a very nice looking project compared to lot of the other mediocrity we see in West Seattle. The City rezoned these parcels, so at least we voted out our crazy mayor.

  West Seattle was nice a pristine hill – so where ever you live now was once undeveloped and likely full of lovely flowers. You have already played your part in the process.

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