DEVELOPMENT: See the design packet for Thursday’s review of 86-apartment 3010 SW Avalon Way

(Rendering by Studio 19 Architects)

Three weeks ago, we told you about the upcoming Design Review hearing for an 86-apartment project at 3010 SW Avalon Way. At the time, the city hadn’t linked the “packet” for that hearing (though we found a draft version for our story), but now it’s available and you can see it here. The online review meeting is at 5 pm Thursday (February 6); the links for participating/viewing are on this page. As we noted last month, this will be the first time the city has convened the Southwest Design Review Board since December 2023. The project passed the first phase of Design Review in November 2021. P.S. If you’re wondering how close this is to the future light-rail station, that’s shown on a map in the packet.

37 Replies to "DEVELOPMENT: See the design packet for Thursday's review of 86-apartment 3010 SW Avalon Way"

  • Orb February 3, 2025 (3:33 pm)

    They ditched parking to include a “courtyard” instead? Wow

    • walkerws February 3, 2025 (4:41 pm)

      Sounds great. Because a courtyard adds value to residents and parking is unnecessary since this is along rapid transit.

      • Erik February 3, 2025 (7:46 pm)

        Tell me you don’t understand that some people actually need cars without telling me you don’t understand that people actually need cars 🙄

        • K February 3, 2025 (8:54 pm)

          Some people need cars, sure, but people who own cars don’t NEED to live in this building.  Developers don’t NEED to cater to the wants of car owners.  The developer for this building is catering to a client who prefers a car-free life.  

        • WS Urbanist February 4, 2025 (4:37 pm)

          Americans have been conditioned for decades by car-centric urban design to believe we need cars more often than we actually do. Well-designed cities with efficient public transit, safe bike lanes, and walkable neighborhoods can significantly reduce car dependency for a large portion of the population, benefiting both individuals and the environment. Anecdotally, I been able to go weeks without having to drive my car, but still able to run my errands, go to the doctor, eat out with friends, and walk in nature :)

    • You can’t wish cars away February 3, 2025 (8:21 pm)

      All new development should be required to build 2 9×20 parking spaces for every unit, with the option to sell unused spots. 

      • Brennen February 4, 2025 (11:13 am)

        Adding parking adds huge costs to a project, I would much rather live car-free and pay less for my unit. If you prefer to own a car, that’s fine too. You don’t have live here, you can choose almost any other building in the city and it will have parking for you.

      • Parker February 4, 2025 (12:45 pm)

        Vehicle owners should be required to have, and use, off- street parking for all vehicles.  
        In Tokyo, Japan this is done through parking space certificates that prove you have a space for your car.
        This would be radical for our Seattle mindset, but it would largely eliminate many vehicle issues.  

    • Hunk February 3, 2025 (9:29 pm)

      Massive upgrade 

    • Reed February 3, 2025 (10:25 pm)

      All the people who live there that need cars can park in the adjacent neighborhood. 

  • Jake February 3, 2025 (3:36 pm)

    I like it! Always need density and Avalon should be lined with apartments. 

    • Platypus February 4, 2025 (11:23 am)

      Its too bad all these buildings don’t have retail on the first floor.

      • Jake February 4, 2025 (12:58 pm)

        Steep hill without a lot of foot traffic, I think retail zones should be on flatter areas like up on 35. But not opposed. 

  • Mike February 3, 2025 (3:50 pm)

    Another box with no car parking.  Parking on Avalon and neighboring streets is already a nightmare. But we keep dreaming.  

    • K February 3, 2025 (4:16 pm)

      No one with a car is required to live in a building without off street parking.  No one with a car is required to buy a house without off street parking.  It is up to car owners to manage their car storage needs, not architects, builders, or SDCI.  

      • Jess February 3, 2025 (4:31 pm)

        The problem is that these builders don’t care about causing congestion and frustration in our community. They get in, make the money, then move to the next area they can ruin. More than 80% of Seattelites have a car so it is very unrealistic to expect that building a multi-unit building with no parking will not cause problems for the community.

        • K February 3, 2025 (6:12 pm)

          It’s not the builder’s job to problem-solve parking for hypothetical future residents.  The people living in that building are grown-ups.  The builder’s job is to make sure everything is built to code, and to the atchitect’s specifications, and that’s about it.

          • Mike Phelps February 3, 2025 (6:37 pm)

            Actually it is their problem. One of the tenants of architecture is to solve problems and make usable spaces for all

          • K February 3, 2025 (6:49 pm)

            No, managing the hypothetical future parking needs of the hypothetical residents who are morally opposed to all the buildings with excess off street parking that insist on living at this address, at the expense of actual livable space to be used by actual humans, is not the architect’s job.  Not even close.

          • Erik February 3, 2025 (7:53 pm)

            “K”. I think you’re using flawed logic to try and justify unreasonable beliefs about parking. Many people actually need cars. Especially around here where we have food deserts. Not everyone can take the bus to work. And parking doesn’t hurt anyone. It relieves congestion on busy roads and makes parking and driving less stressful. You are correct that “no one with a car has to live in an apartment without off street parking”. But clearly people want it and it’s the responsible thing to do. Burying your head in the sand with those statements isn’t going to do anything to help the problem. By the way. You could also use the statement “people who get frustrated with overcrowded busses and long wait times don’t need to take the bus”. “People who are poor don’t need to live here”. And as someone who has had to look for apartments recently I can tell you that there aren’t “plenty of apartments with half empty lots”. Several apartments I toured aid that they were full up on parking, some of which had been told by the city that they couldn’t build larger parking lots. It creates a practical problem that we can’t fix by simply ignoring it and not building the necessary parking to support the needs of the population.

          • Ryan February 4, 2025 (6:44 am)

            I don’t need a parking spot, would you really require I pay more to purchase the amenities that fit your transportation needs instead of my own? 

          • Junction Resident February 4, 2025 (12:22 pm)

            I totally agree with K and Ryan.  To add to that, when a building is required to have parking, it must design the apartment building to accommodate parking first.  This is how you end up with apartment designs that are inefficient.  I would prefer to live in a building built for people first, not cars first.  Anyone who wants to drive is welcome to do so, but I don’t think every apartment building needs to accommodate that preference. 

        • Parker February 4, 2025 (12:58 pm)

          That is a cherry that Jess has presented…
            “More 80% of Seattleites have a car.”
          Simply false.  

          The 80% figure is the number of households in Seattle with cars.  
          And those households with cars are overwhelmingly homeowners. 

          Now that Seattle has become a city with a majority of renters, many more are foregoing cars.

          Renters in Seattle are much more likely to live without a car than homeowners. Nearly 67,000 renter households did not have a car — that’s about 1 in 3 renter households. Among homeowners, only about 7,200 were no-car households, which pencils out to about 5%.” https://www.seattletimes.com/seattle-news/data/car-ownership-rate-hits-record-low-in-seattle-census-data-shows/

  • DRW February 3, 2025 (4:51 pm)

    Any apartment building with more than 10 units needs parking. We are catching up with San Francisco though.

    • K February 3, 2025 (6:17 pm)

      There are plenty of apartment buildings with half-empty parking lots.  There is no need for more units with off street parking.  There are almost 2.5 parking spaces for every man, woman, and child in this city, one of the highest ratios of people to parking
      in the country.  We absolutely do NOT need more parking, especially not so close to rapid transit and the future light rail.

    • Platypus February 3, 2025 (10:27 pm)

      The units will be cheaper for not having parking, and will specifically attract those who don’t want parking and want to pay less. It also is better for everyone who does drive to not have that many more cars on the road. 

  • Dad February 3, 2025 (7:30 pm)

    It’s a free country.  The market determines the value of an apartment with versus without off street parking.  The developer obviously knows the math.  I would prefer that everyone had ample parking on their private property, but I don’t feel it’s my right to insert myself into the free contracting of buyer and seller here. 

    • Erik February 3, 2025 (9:17 pm)

      It doesn’t work like that. It’s a rigged system because the city often does not allow as much parking as the developer wants. They specifically reduce the parking in permitting to try and force people to take public transit. 

      • Derek February 4, 2025 (6:28 am)

        Rigged? You know life existed in Seattle pre-cars and will long after oil is tapped out too. Cars aren’t everything. Sorry there’s no conspiracy to make car manufacturers money and you’re not required to live so far from your work that you need a car. Exceptions like contractors, ADA, etc. but most people can take busses.

      • k February 4, 2025 (8:54 am)

        That’s like saying the system is rigged because the city won’t let developers use products that give residents cancer.  Or because the city makes them provide heat systems, and smoke detectors.  If developers could do whatever they wanted, we’d all be in big trouble.  The system isn’t rigged, it’s regulated.

      • Brennen February 4, 2025 (11:18 am)

        This is simply not true, it’s actually the other way around. Most developments are REQUIRED by the city to have a minimum number of parking spaces, and the developer can choose to add more than the minimum if they want to. This building is exempt from the minimum because it is near rapid transit, but the developer still has the option to add as many parking stalls as they want to. The reality is that parking is expensive and they can get more money using that space for people, not cars. The reason there is no parking in this building is simple economics.

  • Platypus February 4, 2025 (11:27 am)

    For all those that say these buildings need parking, it seems like you have identified a need and you should buy some property near by, and construct a parking garage and charge people for parking. I think you will very quickly see how much you would need to charge to cover the cost.  Parking a car is incredibly expensive and someone has to pay for it. But you are certainly allowed to do so.

  • anonyme February 4, 2025 (2:21 pm)

    Nothing at all in the packet about green building technology, sustainability, energy efficiency, etc.  Just another ugly waste of dwindling resources that will be crumbling in ten years like much of the new construction around here.  The only thing green about this is the amount of money developers will make from it.

    • k February 4, 2025 (2:52 pm)

      The only new construction I can think of crumbling was that building on California where the wall fell off, but that was during construction.  It has stayed generally intact since it was finished.  What other buildings falling apart have I (and WSB) missed?

    • Parker February 4, 2025 (3:32 pm)

       “Buildings will be crumbling in ten years like much of the new construction around here.”

      Really?

      Please share a few examples of these multitudes of crumbling new homes?

  • Bbron February 4, 2025 (6:50 pm)

    Man, I grieve for car maximalists that will forever have parking on the brain. Constantly concerned about where they’ll store their vehicle. Rampant projection that because they are so dependent on a car that others must be too. It’s amazing to see how the idea of offering housing to those that want the option to not be forced to pay for a parking space they don’t use (and having amenities for humans enjoy like a courtyard in this case) ends up being too fantastical for them to grasp. A future where their happiness and comfort is dependent on the being enough pavement for everyone’s cars instead of a future where a person can exist without private vehicles in this city.

  • H2OK9 February 5, 2025 (4:31 pm)

    Follow The Money The main sources of revenue for the city of Seattle in a state that has no income tax are property, tax sales tax business taxes, taxes on utilities, licensed fees, fines, and user fees. The problem comes with the amount of people you’re trying to fit and pay for this services in Seattle. Seattle is the 18th largest city in the United States by population however, by size it ranks 137, much smaller than cities like Palm Springs, Boise, Idaho Des Moines, Iowa or Lincoln, Nebraska. We need to extract $8.5 billion from this small area to meet the city’s revenue! It is easy to see why Seattle is encouraging density within city limits rather than a more regional, sustainable solution to a constantly growing population and housing shortage. A more reasonable regional solution that would prepare us for the future would be a partnership with surrounding communities, look for opportunities where development is needed/desired, this in conjunction with a far more robust transportation program to reach out to an expanding population based in the area. Naturally it would’ve been wise to pursue this strategy before attacking many of Seattle’s most historic and desirable neighborhoods. Most cities in America and most on the West Coast are scrambling to build housing and create density, from Vancouver to San Diego some are more successful than others. Seattle continues encouraging density with little regard to infrastructure, service or community; the very definition of over-crowding NOT livability.

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