DEVELOPMENT: Sweeney family sites slowly advancing through city process, one year later

| Development | Triangle | West Seattle news

One year ago today, the Sweeney family announced they were looking at redevelopment alternatives for some of their West Seattle Triangle properties – most notably, the ones that hold their best-known business, Alki Lumber.

So what’s happened since then? We talked with family spokesperson Lynn Sweeney just as the potential project showed up this week on the city’s Early Community Outreach for Design Review website.

There’s no specific proposal yet, she told us – this is another step in the required process. Here’s the summary on the city website:

The proposed mixed-use project includes approximately 500 new residential units over approximately 18,000 SF of retail located near the future Avalon light rail station. The project spans two sites on either side of 36th Avenue SW between Avalon & Oregon.

The family, meantime, is still scouting for a new location for the lumberyard, but wants to stress it is NOT closing any time soon – the Alki Lumber move is at least “two or three years” away.

The project’s official addresses remain those of two sites, 4440 Fauntleroy Way SW and 4406 36th SW, both zoned for 75-foot mixed-use development. (The family’s holdings stretch beyond that, as detailed in this followup from last year.) The Early Community Outreach process means there’ll eventually be a community meeting or site tour before the project gets into the official Design Review Board stage, but there’s no date for that yet. The Sweeneys are continuing to work with West Seattleite-founded developer HB Management.

ADDED THURSDAY: The aforementioned early community meeting has just shown up on the city website for February 12th.

WTF January 29, 2020 (9:39 pm)

Why in god’s name does building YET ANOTHER apartment building make any sense at all? Can NO ONE not see the damage that’s already being caused by the number of apartments being built here. 800 more doesn’t mean 800 people, it means 1,200-1,600! Because there is a sliver of land, it doesn’t mean it’s smart, nor right to fill it.

Stu January 30, 2020 (6:42 am)

Because there is a housing shortage and instead of allowing the entire city to be built up to, say the height of the tree canopy like most European cities, all growth has been ghettoized into a small section of land, making this one of the few places that can be built to accommodate more growth. Pretty simple.
KBear January 30, 2020 (9:20 am)

Because we live in a big city where growth is going to happen. That site is ideal for apartments. It’s close to the Junction and it’s going to be close to light rail. It’s not an ideal site for a lumber yard anymore.
Jort January 30, 2020 (12:25 pm)

Can you help me understand what “damage” is being caused by the “number of apartments being built here”? I like my new neighbors. (If you’re going to say “traffic,” I would ask you to consider showing me an example anywhere in the totality of human history in which traffic “problems” have been “solved.”)