(New design proposal for Alki Elementary, with 15 parking spaces in southwest corner of site)

By Tracy Record
West Seattle Blog editor

Four months after a city hearing examiner ruled that Seattle Public Schools must address parking concerns in its plan for rebuilding and expanding Alki Elementary, the district has submitted a new plan to the city. The original plan had no offstreet parking; the new one has 15 spaces.

First, some backstory – the hearing examiner’s order was the result of an appeal filed by nearby residents challenging the original city Department of Construction and Inspections (SDCI) decision last May to grant zoning exceptions (“departures”) for the project, including building it with no offstreet parking. The appeals were either dismissed or settled, except for the parking issue; the district was ordered to “revisit” it. SPS instead chose to go to court to challenge the ruling; after a hearing October 20th, a judge dismissed that challenge (on a technical point, not on its merits), leaving the district no option but to come up with a project revision. Now it’s done that.

One point of contention for the nearby residents’ appeal had been the parking study done for the original plan by Heffron Transportation, during a time period when both the pandemic and the West Seattle Bridge closure were factors. The firm has done a new study (see it here), looking at neighborhood parking this past August and September, and also looking at parking at and near the former Schmitz Park Elementary, to which Alki Elementary has moved until its new building is ready. The new parking study has findings similar to the previous one, contending that school-related needs still wouldn’t max out the available street parking near Alki Elementary. The new study also says they found Schmitz Park’s 47-space lot a little more than half-utilized.

All this, and the new plan, is summarized in a memo to SDCI (see it here) by project architect Rebecca Hutchinson of Mahlum Architects. Here’s how she explains what they did to come up with the 15 spaces:

… the design team was able to remove the loading platform and a dedicated driveway and staging area for SPS delivery trucks and garbage pickup. The design team also relocated the proposed transformer further away from the school building, which adds a greater cost than the original design. The design team then removed some storage space from the school and reconfigured the long-term bike parking structure (while still retaining the same number of long-term bike parking stalls). Finally, the design team removed the dedicated pedestrian path at the south edge of the site. This redesign sacrificed those elements that are desired for the functioning of the school, such as better loading, storage, and separated pedestrian path, and left only those architectural elements that were necessary to meet educational goals.

The result is that SPS was able to redesign the school to accommodate 15 parking stalls, including one ADA van stall. Depending on the needs of the student and staff population at the time the school reopens, it is possible that SPS can include one additional ADA stall and/or a time-limited load or unload zone. Now that the ADA stall can be included on the school site, the previously proposed on-street ADA stall across the street has been removed, which will result in retaining one additional on-street parking stall.

The architect’s memo also details why that’s the most they could do in terms of parking (if the project was built to code, 48 spaces would be required). A parking garage wasn’t an option, either above or below ground, Hutchinson wrote, for factors from height to water table to “(it) would increase the potential for uninvited persons to utilize the parking structure for a multitude of nefarious reasons.” She also wrote that a parking garage would likely add at least $10 million to the project price tag.

Another option examined: Condemning/buying adjacent residential property. They looked at a 16-unit apartment building south of the school and two single-family homes east of the school; neither seemed feasible or desirable for using that way, nor would either site enable the code-compliant number of spaces, the architect wrote.

In one last bit of case-making, the memo notes that seven SPS elementaries have no parking (none in West Seattle), 12 have fewer than 15 spaces, six have 20 or fewer; the project team has pointed this out before.

WHAT’S NEXT: It’s up to SDCI to review the revised plan and decide whether to approve the new version of the zoning exception (departure) or to reject it and insist on a plan with the required 48 spaces. If SDCI approves the revised departure, it would again be subject to appeal. The old school building already has been demolished but construction permits won’t be issued until this issue is settled.