DEVELOPMENT: See the design packet for Thursday’s review of 1116 Alki

| Development | West Seattle news

(‘Preferred option’ rendering from draft design packet by MZA Architecture)

Thursday night brings this year’s first – and so far only – scheduled meeting of the Southwest Design Review Board to look at a West Seattle development plan. It’s 1116 Alki SW, and the design packet for the meeting finally appeared online this afternoon, if you’re interested in reviewing it to comment on the plan – see it below or here.

This is the Early Design Guidance stage of Design Review, which means the board has to be shown three options for massing – size, shape, site placement of the building. Above is the project team’s “preferred option,” which would include 58 residential units in a six-story building with 92 parking spaces: 27 described as “mechanical,” 30 at ground level, 35 underground. The packet includes many other project details. The meeting is online at 5 pm Thursday (April 7th) and includes a public-comment period – this page has details of how to watch/listen/participate.

Whererwe April 5, 2022 (9:49 pm)

Someone forgot to tell the architect that there are incredible water views across the street that occupants may want to experience.

Resident April 5, 2022 (10:25 pm)

Wtf is that ugly design…

Jort April 5, 2022 (10:25 pm)

I look forward to a bunch of comments from people who look at the rendering picture and honestly believe that a beachfront condo won’t have any windows, at all.

miws April 6, 2022 (7:17 am)

It’s already happening, Jort! 😄 …🍿❓ —Mike
bill April 6, 2022 (6:00 pm)

As a matter of fact, St Frank Lloyd Wright designed a house for a client in Palos Verdes that functionally did not have windows. The client turned out to be a conventional person expecting to see the vistas from his property. The client found another architect.

JJ April 6, 2022 (5:46 am)

What boring designs.

Just wondering April 6, 2022 (7:06 am)

Still ugly!

Rick April 6, 2022 (12:03 pm)

But ugly is the new beautiful.

sgs April 6, 2022 (7:43 am)

Well there certainly are windows, but those big flat panels don’t look like windows and they cover 1/2 of the area. If the rendering is at all accurate and people don’t have to guess what the developers have in mind, then those large flat panels are unfortunate.

PJK April 6, 2022 (8:21 am)

JORT – I understand your comment, so the architects should present a more “realistic” representation of what this building will actually look like. Right now it looks like upscale self-storage! I grew up at Alki and would appreciate condos that actually look like they belong at a beach, and not Miami Beach!

WSB April 6, 2022 (11:52 am)

The “realistic” rendering comes in the 2nd phase of Design Review. This, as noted above and in all of our previous years of coverage of this process, is the Early Design Guidance phase, at which “massing” is the focus – size, shape, placement on the site.

Alki Jack April 6, 2022 (8:30 am)

WOW, if it really looks like that in the final drawing it will quickly become a Famous Landmark. It will be constantly referred to like this….Where is Anchor Park someone will ask? The answer will be, YOU KNOW THAT UGLY CONDO BUILDING ON ALKI, OH YES, well coming from the boat launch it’s just a little ways past it!

WSRedux April 6, 2022 (9:05 am)

Architects come in 4 flavors:1) technical architects: good at the building structure & mechanical details, but without an aesthetic sense. 2) design (aesthetic) architects: excel at the look, feel and incorporating the feel of a particular site of a project, but often fail at successfully designing the technical aspects, the underpinnings/bones of the building which often = later problems such as water penetration, etc. 3) those who consider themselves design architects, but apparently were asleep during or skipped their design classes. 4) aesthetic-technical architects: good at pulling together both the technical & aesthetic details of a project (a rare breed, the minority of architects).

As for aesthetics, MZA Architects,’ “preferred option” for the project clearly indicates they are category 3 architects.

Falcon April 6, 2022 (4:48 pm)

And which flavor would the Roman architects have been ~ fully competent?😉

west sea neighbor April 6, 2022 (9:22 am)

Really looking forward to construction crews continuing to tear up the pavement and set up fencing that encroaches into travel lanes. I barely remember a time when there wasn’t a large-scale project underway along alki.