Like it or loathe it, the upcoming 514 East Pine Street development will be hard to miss.
The project will take up the entire block of East Pine Street between Summit and Belmont avenues. It consists of a five-story structure containing 106 apartments over ground-level retail space with underground parking for 150 vehicles. The businesses on the block currently help define the social feel of the Pike-Pine neighborhood - think Man Ray, Kincoras and, until recently Bimbos and the Cha Cha Lounge. The upcoming project will likely define the neighborhood by its size alone.
While construction has yet to begin, signs of change have been apparent for several months. The Cha Cha Lounge and Bimbo's Bitchin' Burrito Kitchen relocated to the former Des Amis location on East Pike Street; the Cha Cha space has become the home of Pony, a new gay bar whose evident popularity, given the specter of redevelopment, will necessarily be short-lived.
That the project is moving closer to what is likely its inevitable conclusion was evident during the Wednesday, Sept. 5, design review meeting at the Miller Community Center. Expected to be the last public meeting on the project, the architect presented plans that had incorporated some design elements requested by the neighborhood. Included among those were modulating efforts to break up the heft of the single building by making it appear to be two or three different structures.
"People felt the building looked flat," said architect Peter Greaves.
We've tried to break the building into distinct pieces."
Another change was creating the possibility of seven retail businesses on the ground level, although the spaces could certainly be combined to allow larger commercial tenants.
But those changes, while generally regarded as positive improvements, do not involve a re-imagining of what will be by far the largest building on the block.
Jennifer Power, who lives within a stone's throw of the 514 project and is a member of the Pine-Olive Way and Harvard Avenue triangle (POWHAT) neighborhood group, said she and others in the group are resigned to the project's inevitability. She's not happy with the large project that's coming to the neighborhood. But she thinks that the neighborhood's activism did point the project in a better direction than the building originally proposed last November.
"Design review helped a lot, but it doesn't go far enough. It's too narrow. Most of us would like to see a review system that takes into account more than just zoning and some aesthetics," she said. "Adding to the neighborhood is not this developer's goal. But I am glad the architect and developer listened to the neighborhood groups and made some positive changes."
Aside from design choices, zoning departures, materials used - all valid concerns - Power said that the biggest problem is simply that the building is so massive.
"My god, this is so huge," she said. "It will evoke a feeling of mega-malls and mansions. It doesn't have the charm of the Hill. And integrating with the neighborhood has more to do with design. I hope the developers rent to local businesses, ones that stay open late, but they haven't said that they would."
OWNER INTENT
Wade Metz, representing the Eastside-based Murray Franklyn development company, said he expects demolition on the current buildings to begin in December or January.
"The next step for us is the completion of Seattle's master use permit process, as well as going through permit review. It's in the city's hands now. But we expect that to be completed fairly quickly," he said.
Construction of the project will take roughly 16 months. If all goes according to Metz' expectations, the East Pine Street project could be completed by the summer of 2008.
Metz said he was aware of the neighborhood's many concerns, especially ones relating to the new building's upcoming tenants.
"I think the neighborhood is mostly worried about the retail spaces," Metz said, referring to the street-level store fronts. "I have no intention of creating a barrier to retail, but I will be leasing space to market-rate establishments. I'm not going to pre-select the kinds businesses [the neighborhood] would like to see. If those businesses want to come in here they will certainly have the opportunity to do so. If local businesses are out there, we're open minded to them."
However, contrary to a stated neighborhood desire that the night-life character of the block be retained, Metz reiterated that his company will not be renting space to bars or night clubs.
"We are not interested in bars because of the amount of difficulties we've had with them in the past. We've owned plenty of real estate, and bars are a delicate balance. We are trying to put in retail that's good for the neighborhood and for the residents of the building."
Metz acknowledged awareness of the neighborhood's suspicions but asked that judgment be withheld until the project is completed.
"This neighborhood has a ton of potential," he said. "I think we'll make good neighbors. I think people will look back years from now at what we're going to create and be happy with it. I know we're going to be very proud of this building."
Another resident who lives close to the project, Dennis Saxman has attended all the meetings and spent countless hours researching the legal ins and outs regarding zoning issues, neighborhood plans and design guidelines. He doesn't accept that the building is inevitable. Nor does he mince words.
"This is a terrible building," he said. "It simply doesn't fit within the neighborhood context. The developers have paid lip service to neighborhood issues but have ignored all the elements the neighborhood has said it values. They talked to us, but it was only window dressing."
Saxman also think the developers, with city acquiescence, haven't paid enough attention to the neighborhood plans it adopted nearly 10 years ago, plans that were meant to help deal with growth in a thought-out and neighborhood-supported fashion.
"This project eliminates 45 low- and middle-income apartments. It eliminates several local businesses who won't be able to afford the new retail spaces. It will be a huge project that dominates the neighborhood and ads nothing at all to it," he said.
Saxman agrees that the current design looks better than the original one but laments the bulk and scale of the building, the one element that has not changed and, he says, the most significant one.
"Good design is about respecting context," he said. "The neighborhood's design guidelines, the area's transit overlay and the neighborhood plan all reference elements the neighborhood favors. Like affordable housing and local, independent retail, architectural character. The developers have not done it. You have to wonder what the city expects the neighborhood plans to be for."
Saxman said he intends to file an appeal when the city approves the project's Master Use Permit.
Chip Wall, from the Pike-Pine Urban Neighborhood Coalition (P/PUNC), sounded resigned to the project's inevitability.
"I think among the P/PUNC group the project seems to be in the "good as it gets category," he said. "[The developers] seemed to have passed on a great opportunity for a super statement for Capitol Hill and settled for a much more generic, current mishmash rather than anything stunning or innovative."
Wall noted the similar disappointment many feel toward the 700 Broadway project at the north end of Broadway, a building designed by Weber+Thompson, the same firm designing 514 East Pine Street.
Power said she and just about everyone else laments the upcoming loss of the businesses along the north side of the 500 block of East Pine Street.
"Sure, it looks better than it did. But I'd still prefer what's there now. I think everyone would - we like those businesses," she said. "At the end of the day, a lot of us are pretty sad. We're losing a big part of the neighborhood's character. I think neighbors should have more of a say as to what's going on in the neighborhood where they live."
Doug Schwartz is the editor of the Capitol Hill Times. He can be reached at editor@capitolhilltimes.com or 461-1308.
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