Just filed with the city: A new proposal for 6016 California SW, to replace the small mixed-use building and house currently on the site. As we reported two years ago, a 38-unit microapartment building was proposed previously. Now a newly filed site plan proposes seven townhouses- three live-work units facing California, four residential-only units behind.
I still don’t quite understand the concept of live/work units. Does that mean the person rents an apartment plus a street-level space for their business? I’ve seen a few design-type businesses cropping up in the new residential buildings along California and wonder how they make any money. Are these storefronts sustainable?
After a surprising amount of googlefu I have decided that the intent of live-work spaces is to replicate the old model of mom & pop living upstairs from their mom & pop business. Apparently the “work” (AKA business) part has often been non-existent, though, for modern live-work “spaces.” The best explanation I found was athttps://www.theurbanist.org/2015/07/15/a-big-revision-seattles-pedestrian-oriented-commercial-districts/
L/W can work for a barber, accountant, real estate, and many other types of businesses.
Morgan Junction has some live work units already, on the west side of California between Raymond and Graham. They’ve been pretty successful at the live work concept, with active businesses on the ground floor. Apparently, in other parts of the city, the units are bought and then occupied as purely residential, resulting in a lot of closed blinds on the ground floor. That’s only happened a couple of times in MJ.
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