West Water, the video
Yes, we know the West Water condo-conversion marketers are likely laughing all the way to the bank, while observers grumble and gripe and gnash teeth over the unprecedented overkill of their over-the-top campaign. Nonetheless … it’s the gaudiest thing to hit this side of West Seattle in a long time, so we’re all over it. Earlier today, we discussed the spotlights that are the latest bling in this blitz. After dark, we couldn’t resist heading down the hill with our video camera:
In today’s earlier post, and its comments, readers shared info about how to complain about aspects of this condo campaign that appear to break city rules, such as the sandwich-board signs along roads and highways. One more to add — this one from Jill:
Please add the Seattle Dept of Planning and Development number 206-615-0808, so that citizens can complain. Or file one online at
seattle.gov/dpd/enforcement/code_compliance/filing_a_complaint
The marketers have laughed off the city’s attempts to assess 500-dollar/day fines. Apparently that’s less than the cost of renting throw pillows. Maybe a lawsuit over light pollution, the windsail signs, or a traffic accident in front of Ladro will be needed to do the trick.
West Water, the saga continues
A few new comments and e-mails have come in about the latest marketing tactic deployed by the heavily marketed West Water condo complex, ex-Watermark(e) Apartments, south of Morgan Junction — a light show (equipment at right of above photo, taken late yesterday). The latest e-mail, from WSB reader Kerri, begs the question, how much marketing is TOO much marketing?
Is anyone other than me tired of West Water condominiums’ overzealous and trashy marketing campaign? I thought I would share the contact information for the person who takes credit for the sandwich boards every 200 feet going both directions on the viaduct, the posters staked every 15-20 feet up and down Fauntleroy and California, the dozen giant flags, used-car lot style balloons and now giant spotlight laser show that pollute the front of the building, etc….
Her name is Judy Gamel, office phone: (206) 216-7200.
I went in to complain tonight and she seemed pretty pleased with how successful their trashy marketing campaign has been so far. It sounds like they plan to keep it up full force until the building sells out.
Tuesday tidbits, early afternoon edition
-After driving under the Fauntleroy overpass “Help 7-year-old Dylan fight leukemia!” banner again, we caught the phone number (and realized we originally posted the wrong name – surname on the banner is actually Redlinger). So we called that number last night to try to find out more; it was answered by a very generic voicemail/machine message. We left our contact info; no response yet.
-More on the lightning-speed condo conversion at the newly renamed West Water, south of Morgan Junction. Sarah e-mailed to say she saw a TV commercial for it, adding: “Thought it was interesting that they didn’t show any pictures of the condos themselves, but there sure were plenty of Alki and downtown!”
-One week till Election Day. You may well have voted already (if you vote in person, like us old traditionalists, this may be your last chance, we’ll see you at the polls). There’s been so much great election coverage all over other media sources lately that we haven’t had anything unique to add, but here’s one note we’ve been meaning to mention — if you are still trying to sort out where you stand on Proposition 1 (“Roads & Transit”), Chas Redmond pointed out the recent Sustainable West Seattle forum on Prop 1 is captured in a podcast (mp3 download) on the SWS site. One other election note – saveseattleschools.blogspot.com has an interesting West Seattle-specific observation on the School Board District 6 race. (Though the entire city votes on every School Board seat that’s on the ballot, whoever wins District 6 — Steve Sundquist or Maria Ramirez — will be “our” representative, replacing Irene Stewart, who decided not to run again.)
Another condo conversion christened
In the tradition of Graham Street Apartments=Strata, etc., yet another California Avenue condo conversion has its fancy new name. The lettering above for West Water has just appeared on all the exterior fancying-up that workers have been doing at the former Watermarke Apartments (6960-6970 California, chronicled here in August and in September) for the past several weeks. West Water’s future website promises these will, of course, be “luxury condominiums.” (Found the complex’s pre-conversion sales price, $13 million, on this site, along with sales data on several other WS buildings we are now researching. EARLY MONDAY ADDENDUM: That brokerage site also has a blog, with what appears to be the behind-the-scenes story of this building’s sale.) Before/after pix (not the same exact angle but close enough) — one month ago, then today:
Where the signs are hung by the curb with care …
Maybe too soon for the Christmas phrase-turns; blame the decorations that already have sneaked into some stores … But we digress. This post is about real estate — always a Sunday pastime as “open house” signs pop up on corners around WS. A couple noteworthy offerings, not necessarily brand-new, but they just hit our radar. First, 4315 SW Stevens, across the street from PCC , across the alley from McDonald’s, $725K:
This is notable because the property was home to a hair salon that some neighbors were upset about (as reported here last March). Thanks to WSB reader Luckie for the tip that it’s now for sale; she sent the photo shown above as well as a photo of the flyer posted in the window, which touts “beautiful extended family home … also has a fully running hair salon … you can work from home!” Here’s the official listing page, though it currently appears to be displaying the wrong photos. … Now, to another up-for-sale home, with almost twice the price ($1,499,000), almost twice the age, and countless times the history:
That’s the Herren House at 1603 45th SW, shown in a photo from the city Department of Neighborhoods’ page detailing its history, which DON says dates back to 1891, though King County property records say 1900. Interestingly, the official listing website calls this house “The Painted Lady,” same as the still-apparently-unsold “Satterlee House” on Beach Drive.
Will this be the one that beats back the backhoes?
Almost six months have passed since we first told you a teardown-to-mixed-use proposal was on the drawing board for the elegant old brick apartments shown above, at 3811 California (across from the also-in-limbo Charlestown Cafe), drawing laments from dozens of commenters (as well as from us). The four-story project planned for the site appeared to be proceeding full speed ahead. But maybe not – according to the following e-mail we received late last night from one of the current tenants:
I realize this is an old story for most, but for anyone interested in the fate of this beautiful building, we (the tenants) received a notice from the landlords today stating the following:
“The Landmark Preservation Board has determined that this property may meet the standards for Landmark Designation. Before this can be determined by the board, it is necessary to access the units for construction details.”
They’ll be doing a walk-through sometime tomorrow. The real significance for me is that this is the first documentation we’ve received at all from the landlords regarding the potential fate of our homes.
(On a side note, the notices were slipped into our mail slots in Omni
Construction envelopes — my first thought was they were our vacate
notices. Glad to see they weren’t!)
We will check today with the Landmarks Preservation Board to find out more about the expected inspection and what might happen next.
From Fauntleroy
First, a couple updates on this morning’s “doomed duplex” post. Seems demolition permits must be after-the-fact formalities unless all this happened in the hours after the permit was issued yesterday … the duplex and its former neighbor are already gone:
We also heard back from the ex-duplex’s former tenants. They found another rental just a block away; not as small as the ex-duplex (900 sf) but comparably priced per sf (less than $1 per). The kicker … it’s a townhouse. 2 stories, 8 years old. So perhaps some of today’s teardown replacements are tomorrow’s affordable rentals. Meanwhile, in future Fauntleroy construction news, a week after we mentioned the “one of the last (lots of its kind)” listing on the curve, a sign just went up:
West Seattle had its own holdout
This P-I article today reminded us of something similar along West Seattle’s waterfront Condo Row about 10 years ago — a Harbor Ave condo complex that went up in a U shape around one semi-ramshackle little house whose owner refused to sell. We managed to find an archived P-I article mentioning the Harbor holdout, photo included (scroll down this page). According to city permit records, the house finally came down, and the condo buildings came together, in 1999. Haven’t yet found a record of how much the holdout house finally sold for, though.
On the next episode of “Maury” …
… watch for Alki residents vs. city land-use planners. But seriously — we have attended two Alki Community Council meetings now, and they (the officers and the members/attendees) — are a genteel bunch, as well as lively, involved, engaged. All the things you would want a community group to be. ACC vice president Randie Stone ran tonight’s meeting and she was even passing around a basket of treats during a break in the action. But before visiting DPD planner Mark Troxel was finished with his guest appearance, the room was in a lather over teardowns and soulless redevelopment. Especially considering, as calm and polite as he tried to be, his answers about why there are no rules governing some preservation of neighborhood character in redevelopment, boiled down to nothing more than (we’re paraphrasing) “well, that would cost too much, and we really have to be concerned with housing affordability.” 
The spark for tonight’s briefly fiery discussion was the impending teardown-to-townhome project we have mentioned before at the site of the Shoremont Apartments (photo right) at 57th & Alki (on the corner east of Alki Auto Repair). “Those townhomes aren’t going to be affordable,” one attendee pointed out, laying waste to the “things might look nicer if it didn’t cost so darn much” defense. Another audience member chided the city, in the person of stalwart Mr. Troxel, for “lack of courage.” He was actually there to talk about amendments on the drawing board for a city planning document, but that discussion got derailed. After a cathartic burst of outrage about cookie-cutter townhouses, which the city rep said he isn’t thrilled about either (because they fail to maximize density potential, as well as because of their aesthetics), all ended fairly civilly, but we were a little worried there for a moment. Randie noted that the topic is enough for a meeting unto itself, and perhaps the group can invite Mr. Troxel, or another city planner, to return. Meanwhile — we’ll have several other ACC meeting items to report tomorrow, including what the city says can be done about those rental trucks that have long been bottlenecking Harbor Ave by ActivSpace. P.S. If you live in the Alki area and you’re not an ACC member yet, you can join online.
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