Don’t Cave to Pressure for Extra Height in Pioneer Square

“Pioneer Square is just now blossoming with exactly the kind of local, homegrown, creative economy that cities crave”

What are you smoking?

They need to accept more density where there is a variety of mass transit options.

Pioneer Square is NOT Blossomming. People have been saying that for 20 years and look at the lack of progress. 100 foot heights will just create more office buildings, not residential. Require developers of big buildings to help reasonably contribute towards a fund that restores the historic sites so they don’t sit there like rotting corposes. The big buildings have to go through so many design reviews and the Historic Society etc they will relate enough to the existing history and only compliment it.

We’re not preserving Pioneer Square we are EMBALMING it; pretty but no life or soul to it. We need residents and a balance of social services (NOT what is down there today)….this proposed height by the City won’t stimulate residential growth.

I would love to move to Pioneer Square because it’s the handsomest area in Seattle. However, it’s not safe. Start there, and worry about building condos next.

There no doubt are great things occurring in Pioneer Square, such as an influx of office jobs, which Cary mentions. What the neighborhood lacks and what the neighborhood wants, is more market-rate housing – which will help expand the vibrancy of the neighborhood into the evenings and weekends, strengthen retail businesses, and improve parks and public spaces.

For close to 20 years the Pioneer Square neighborhood has prioritized more market rate housing through its neighborhood plan. Today, market rate housing makes up less than 30 percent of the housing supply in the neighborhood. The existing zoning has been insufficient to support new development on vacant lots. The existing zoning is preserving surface parking lots on vacant land as the highest and best use. This is holding back the market in Pioneer Square and makes investment in historic properties for residential use less likely.

There hasn’t been a significant rehab of a residential building for market rate housing for at least 15 years in the Square. It’s be even longer since a new market rate residential project has been constructed.

A lack of residents in market rate units negatively impacts Pioneer Square’s small businesses, restaurants, galleries and ultimately the historic buildings they call home. The current retail vacancy rate in Pioneer Square is close to 20 percent, twice that of Downtown.

Pioneer Square continues to be told to just “wait and see what happens” in the neighborhood during the next economic cycle. Between 2005 and 2007 Seattle experienced the most significant economic boom to hit the city in 50 years, if not more. Multi-family projects exploded across Seattle, but not in Pioneer Square. Today, portions of the real estate market are strengthening and close to a half dozen multifamily projects have broken ground downtown, but none in Pioneer Square.

From Evan Osnos’ article in the New Yorker on Chinese tourists in Europe:

We followed the Seine west and passed the Musée d’Orsay just as the sun bore through the clouds. Li shouted, “Feel the openness of the city!” Cameras whirred, and he pointed out that central Paris had no skyscrapers. “In Shanghai, unless you’re standing right next to the Huangpu River, you can’t get any sense of the city, because there are too many tall buildings.” Europeans, he added, “preserve anything old and valuable.”

Read more http://www.newyorker.com/reporting/2011/04/18/110418fa_fact_osnos#ixzz1K1uyc232

This is a frustrating debate because it really comes down to whether we believe 100-120 feet or 150 feet is the magic number at which developers will build market-rate housing. Which is it? Don’t ask developers or the downtown business association, since they have an incentive to push it higher even if they secretly know that less height would work fine. Don’t ask preservationists or neighborhood activists, since they have an incentive to pull it lower even if they secretly know that more height would work better. Everyone wants more people to live there, but how much height is actually needed to make that happen?

So let me get this straight, we should not build the tunnel because we need to stop subsidizing car culture and encourage more dense, eco-friendly living, but at the same time we should also not build more of that dense, eco-friendly housing?

I say no height limits from Georgetown to Greenlake and East to Lake Washington.

I’m not getting this height limit debate. If we want people to live in Pioneer Square, are you saying the neighborhood doesn’t want *too many people* to live there? The secret to keeping rent affordable is to have supply exceed demand. There is lots of demand to live downtown. Now, how do we get supply to exceed it?

“Pioneer Square is (almost) hot. Independent internet and game development businesses are congregating there, attracted to the neighborhood’s historic buildings and creative vibe Cool cafes and restaurants– including a serendipitous eruption of terrific sandwich shops” don’t forget about the Open Air Drug Markets and the trash. I would welcome any new development that brought new people in. Nimby, Nimby, Nimby!

I don’t know the lingo. “Market rate housing” means not poor folks homes, right? More like Harbor Steps and less like the PHG housing that’s all over downtown (and concentrated a block away from Pike Place Market!)

Is the concern really height, or is it the character of the buildings? As has been pointed out, Seattle’s original noteworthy skyscraper, the Smith Tower, doesn’t ruin the character of Pioneer Square. It is a unique and original design that looks like no other skyscraper I’ve seen anywhere.

I’m not suggesting we need 40-story towers like the Smith Tower, but couldn’t 10-12 story buildings work if they are done in brick and classical flourishes to help them fit into the neighborhood? Wouldn’t 4-story buildings that are drab and cookie cutterish destroy the soul of Pioneer Square much more?

The first secret to keeping rent affordable is to prevent the destruction of existing sound housing. Oops, can’t allow that (interferes with sacred private property rights). The second secret to keeping rent affordable is to control rents. Unfortunately, we can’t get it authorized by the legislature, anymore than the voters will adopt an income tax on the rich. This is a liberal state?

Get rid of the hobos and the problem will be solved. Why is this so complicated for folks to understand?

pioneer square is dead.
the height does not matter if there are big setbacks and a staggered look and feel — as in Smith Tower.
The street level setback is more important than the height. paris and dc have lots of open space. because of broader streets lots of squares everywhere and bigger sidewalks. we have teensy tiny sidewalks and straight-up bulidings create a gloomy feel which btw pioneer square already suffers from. the reason the extra stories matter is you go with wood frame up to six stories, then you go to concrete and steel so the extra stories in having 150 not `120 is really adding to profit which (shudders!) does drive thye decision to build. As far as market rate housing or affordable housing? usually being 10 minute walk to downtown makes that land more expensive, you would build far more affordable housing putting it at othello or somewhere you transit into downtown like the rest of us middle class folk who don’t make $200K a year programming games.

pioneer square is dead.
the height does not matter if there are big setbacks and a staggered look and feel — as in Smith Tower.
The street level setback is more important than the height. paris and dc have lots of open space. because of broader streets lots of squares everywhere and bigger sidewalks. we have teensy tiny sidewalks and straight-up bulidings create a gloomy feel which btw pioneer square already suffers from. the reason the extra stories matter is you go with wood frame up to six stories, then you go to concrete and steel so the extra stories in having 150 not `120 is really adding to profit which (shudders!) does drive thye decision to build. As far as market rate housing or affordable housing? usually being 10 minute walk to downtown makes that land more expensive, you would build far more affordable housing putting it at othello or somewhere you transit into downtown like the rest of us middle class folk who don’t make $200K a year programming games.

I sort of wonder why people aren’t all for that, myself. If according to geological science the magic number for a given site, block or neighborhood was, say, 200 feet, why not let someone build to 200 feet there if they wanted to? If the magic number is 300, let them go to 300.

I sort of wonder why people aren’t all for that, myself. If according to geological science the magic number for a given site, block or neighborhood was, say, 200 feet, why not let someone build to 200 feet there if they wanted to? If the magic number is 300, let them go to 300.

I sort of wonder why people aren’t all for that, myself. If according to geological science the magic number for a given site, block or neighborhood was, say, 200 feet, why not let someone build to 200 feet there if they wanted to? If the magic number is 300, let them go to 300.

I sort of wonder why people aren’t all for that, myself. If according to geological science the magic number for a given site, block or neighborhood was, say, 200 feet, why not let someone build to 200 feet there if they wanted to? If the magic number is 300, let them go to 300.

I sort of wonder why people aren’t all for that, myself. If according to geological science the magic number for a given site, block or neighborhood was, say, 200 feet, why not let someone build to 200 feet there if they wanted to? If the magic number is 300, let them go to 300.

I mean I wonder where people like Moon think we should have density. Can’t raise heights in Capitol Hill or Pioneer Square, South Lake Union is just a give away to Paul Allen, and the rest is reasonably well developed as it is.

About the only place you hear support for development is Sodo and along Rainier which are different from Capitol Hill solely in that the small business there are operated and frequented by fewer young white people.

I mean I wonder where people like Moon think we should have density. Can’t raise heights in Capitol Hill or Pioneer Square, South Lake Union is just a give away to Paul Allen, and the rest is reasonably well developed as it is.

About the only place you hear support for development is Sodo and along Rainier which are different from Capitol Hill solely in that the small business there are operated and frequented by fewer young white people.

Hey Josh, there’s a Think Tank for you: WHERE should we in the city limits build up massive levels of density?

You folks are forgetting a key fact: There is a huge amount of development capacity under existing zoning. And it can be done without significant loss of existing housing (look up “embodied energy”). The desire to upzone is driven not by some altruistic desire to create a wonderful urban environment, but rather by greed, oops I mean “desire to maximize return on investment.” I cannot think of a high quality urban center that was not the result of planning in the public interest (Paris, Central Park, D.C., Golden Gate Park). When capital gets what it wants without that leavening, you get Lower East Side slums, Belltown condos with minimal parks/open space, etc. Maybe it’s time to reread Jane Jacobs.

Throw around all the buzz words and name drops you want, the fact is for greater density equals higher buildings. Plan yes. I’m all for design review, set backs, ground level retail requirements, no above ground parking ,etc, but you can either go up or you can go out. Up is better.

The issue in the article, before the city council, and that I’m discussing is whether to upzone a particular area and by how much. I’m pointing out that it’s a false premise that you need to upzone at all in order to have more density . You can call it buzzwords, I call it a key fact that’s missing from the arguments put forward by most who discuss the competing proposals.

As long as the folks demanding mass transit infrastructure fail to accommodate the density that maximizes its use then they just should get it.
If they can not grow up then send the infrastructure and density out here to north Seattle. We are already getting plenty of giant condo cubes.

Why are people so against taller buildings? Is it a “keep my views” thing? Something else? Help me understand.

Not a false premise at all. If you want to have units that people want to live in you need to go up. The only other alternative is to subdivide existing units and well, that might be fine for a few people, but most want some level of space.

Your right there’s tons of capacity – and it will be there forever if the zoning doesn’t allow developers, the banks and the landowners to make some money. The right height is the one(s) that gets 500 apartments on the parking lots next to Occidental. Anything else is just capacity – or better put – hot air.

The ultimate reason the hobos are there is because no one else is there (though there’s a vicious cycle that works both ways). And no one else is there because there hasn’t been much market-based housing built in the neighborhood, and the desire to maintain the historical neighborhood means that there’s a lack of retail diversity and way too many bars and other businesses that cater to tourists and visitors instead of residents.

I don’t think you need to remove the historic buildings in the area. You just need to add density with new buildings around the historic core. Do that, and you create a local population that will support more diverse building uses and push the bums out of the park, or at least overwhelm their presence by numbers.

Cary Moon has been visionary on the waterfront and the surface option but she’s just plain wrong on this issue.

I’m not sure I understand this whole argument at all.

The lack of development in PS is not a supply-side problem (too little space). There are plenty of buildable parcels within the area. Yet increasing heights is a supply-side solution. Instead it is a demand problem, namely there isn’t any (for real issues and public perception).

Shouldn’t the solution be investing public monies to increase the attractiveness of the area first? Isn’t THAT what the Pearl District did? Work in a public-private partnership to create a few catalytic projects that will attract people to the area and increase the demand for housing and commercial services. If I’m not mistaken the PDC has, and continues to spend millions of public dollars in the Pearl to make it an inviting and enjoyable place to be. They also worked with early developers to decrease the risks of projects they knew would have huge public benefits but were ambiguous in their financial returns. In the end everyone won.

I’m not sure I understand this whole argument at all.

The lack of development in PS is not a supply-side problem (too little space). There are plenty of buildable parcels within the area. Yet increasing heights is a supply-side solution. Instead it is a demand problem, namely there isn’t any (for real issues and public perception).

Shouldn’t the solution be investing public monies to increase the attractiveness of the area first? Isn’t THAT what the Pearl District did? Work in a public-private partnership to create a few catalytic projects that will attract people to the area and increase the demand for housing and commercial services. If I’m not mistaken the PDC has, and continues to spend millions of public dollars in the Pearl to make it an inviting and enjoyable place to be. They also worked with early developers to decrease the risks of projects they knew would have huge public benefits but were ambiguous in their financial returns. In the end everyone won.

Yes, Gastown. Exactly. Why oh why do Seattleites want to turn Seattle into Portland? Honestly, why can’t we let Seattle be Seattle, but with a splash of Vancouver?

Vancouver and Seattle are more similar in general than Portland and Seattle. Population, diversity, scale, international business influence, median income, transportation (Link is more akin to Skytrain. Ferries are akin to Seabus. Sounder is akin to West Coast Express), attractions ( Pike Place Market = Granville Island), and focus on neighborhoods are all things that Seattle and Vancouver have more in common than Seattle and Portland.

Our historic neighborhoods are more similar as well, because of the driving forces that brought these cities into existence: gold, timber, and natural ports.

Josh, the problem is not uniform, but in some cases adding more “supply” would indeed improve redevelopment potential. Development feasibility involves the comparative value of the existing use, the land value under existing zoning and land value under future zoning. In a case where the existing value of a parking lot is, hypothetically, $5 and the value of the land for redevelopment under current zoning is $5 (e.g, what a developer would pay for the land), there is no economic incentive to change the present use. However, if a rezone would increase the land value to $7, there would be incentive to redevelop. This all depends on the strength of the market for new units, and the value of the existing use. In many cases, you are right, adding height does nothing to redevelopment feasibility is the affect of additional units on land value is not positive (the value of adding the nth floor is less than its costs).

If a lot is zoned MR or HR but has a building that only uses half of the height or FAR or other allowed “density” metric, then the density on the lot can be increased without changing the zoning. What part of “unused capacity” don’t you understand?

The neighborhood desperately wants more people LIVING in the neighborhood – not just using it as a crossroads. I don’t know many neighborhoods clamoring for more residents, more density. We want more residents from all incomes too – not just the high income and low income – that means having apartments that can be rented to the folks who work here everyday.

We do have internet and game developers here (thank god!) but the folks who work there can’t live here – there is any housing for them! And don’t forget the lack of good broadband in the Pioneer Square and most of downtown.

Yeah I understand that additional height can make it economically rational for some developers but again, I think it misses the broader problem of demand for housing and retail in pioneer square. Perhaps it comes down to outcome goals: Is our primary goal to make Pioneer Square a dense neighborhood or a vibrant neighborhood (not that they are mutually exclusive)?

Height increases were the solution in Belltown. Sure the density has increased, but that density has not translated into a strong community. This is a challenge that continues to be an issue and that the city continues to battle.

I would posit that had the city done some more initial planning work, invested in more amenities up front, and worked closely with a few initial developers in the neighborhood, Belltown would be a much nicer neighborhood and have attracted development faster and more evenly.

I’m not against the height increase, I just think its problematic absent a more concrete strategy for the area.

Developers, banks, and landowners will make money whatever the zoning is. If land is zoned for x capacity, the value of the property will be pegged to that capacity (and the location). Significant upzones are a windfall for the developers etc because they acquired the property with an expectation of x capacity and now have x+y. For nothing more than the cost of lobbying ‘our’ city council. The availability of capital from the American casino economy (i.e., whether we are before the balloon pops, or just after) is far more predictive of whether developments will be built. Read the business and real estate pages of the ‘socialist’ Seattle Times.

I would say you might want to consider a much wider area for this kind of urbanism that includes the International District…which is along all the same major fixed rail transit systems as Pioneer Square and which has a bustling retail district.

However, if you do, you will find that the current heights are quite enough to handle much of the needed capacity.

For example, one would expect this beautiful old building with the label “1928″ on the outside to be transformed into office space…if office space were what is needed. But it seems quite empty to me:

http://maps.google.com/maps?q=international+district+station&oe=utf-8&client=firefox-a&ie=UTF8&hl=en&ll=47.598003,-122.327657&spn=0.009492,0.021865&z=16&layer=c&cbll=47.598114,-122.327658&panoid=p0XcOPVRKQZy9GGvXTqkLA&cbp=12,90.39,,0,-0.55

Yes, that’s the idea. The low income housing in Seattle is subsidized by the generosity of Seattle’s taxpayers and is well below what the market will bear. A downtown with MOSTLY low income residents and/or those with substance abuse or mental illnesses cannot support a variety of businesses and tends to discourage middle class folks from shopping and sightseeing there.

Yes, that’s the idea. The low income housing in Seattle is subsidized by the generosity of Seattle’s taxpayers and is well below what the market will bear. A downtown with MOSTLY low income residents and/or those with substance abuse or mental illnesses cannot support a variety of businesses and tends to discourage middle class folks from shopping and sightseeing there.

But it is not necessarily economical to buy the land, demolish the structure, and build a new one if you can only go so high.

But the real point is why not go higher? Don’t we want tall buildings downtown close to where people work and shop? Don’t we want people downtown demanding things like parks and better transit? What is the reason for opposing it?

No one here, least of all Cary, is arguing against adding more housing. There are hundreds and hundreds that can be added without a height increase. But what’s on the table is the absurd proposition there’s some magic minimum number of units that will fix Pioneer Square or some magic height below which developers can’t make these projects pencil out. Developers are falling over themselves to buy up property in Pike-Pine, with a height limit of 65 feet, because the New York Times says it’s trendy — unaware that its sudden trendiness is the product of patient, long-term owners who have invested in their old buildings, inserted appropriately scaled infill, and hand-selected retail tenants to create a place with a unique value proposition. Due to thoughtfully curated building reuse, foot traffic in Pike-Pine has surged far ahead of new residential development, suggesting that Pioneer Square is putting the chicken before the egg.

All of these comments skip past the fact that the north lot apartment development (already approved and soon to be built) will reach 240ft in height, dwarfing anything else built in Pioneer Square. The additional heights currently in front of the City Council will seem minimal in comparison.

So, why aren’t you building in Pioneer Square then? Too busy in Pike Pine? No Market for PS apts? Who here can tell us why two recent development booms, where the city was awash with cheap money, passed over Pioneer Square?

Seattle should realize and remember what a treasure Pioneer Square is. This results from a combination of both architectural style and scale. If 668 living units are coming to the North Lot, that’s a great place to start for increased pop. density in the area. The architectural integrity of Seattle’s historic core is unusual for a contemporary American city and any change to allowable building scale should be considered very carefully.
BTW, that photo is not a particularly apt one to demonstrate the Pearl District. The Pearl has a lot going for it for what it is, but what it is is more like Belltown/Regrade with better provision of parks and public space. Very different than either Pion. Square or Portland’s own “Old Town” (adjacent to the Pearl), which lacks the coherence and Richardsonian beauty that makes Pioneer Square special.

I have the same question Liz. If what you say is true, then when can we expect you to redevelop the Sinking Ship site at 85 or 100 feet? How much longer does Pioneer Square have to remain “patient?”

And how do you propose some of the current owners of empty retail spaces go about “hand selecting” tenants?

Listen I don’t know the PS well enough to know exactly what the dynamic is. From the outside it looks like the building owners are a huge, glaring problem. They need to hold hands and swallow whatever individual interests and/or passive victim attitudes are holding them back, and map out a coordinated retail/food strategy and implement it NOW. This means each and every one of them picking up the phone and soliciting the best most interesting local tenants they can find with cheap cheap short-term rent and assurances that the adjacent owners are at the same very moment doing the same, and that there will be critical mass Short-term effort and sacrifice for long-term gain, but sorry, that’s how it works.

Listen I don’t know the PS well enough to know exactly what the dynamic is. From the outside it looks like the building owners are a huge, glaring problem. They need to hold hands and swallow whatever individual interests and/or passive victim attitudes are holding them back, and map out a coordinated retail/food strategy and implement it NOW. This means each and every one of them picking up the phone and soliciting the best most interesting local tenants they can find with cheap cheap short-term rent and assurances that the adjacent owners are at the same very moment doing the same, and that there will be critical mass Short-term effort and sacrifice for long-term gain, but sorry, that’s how it works.

Liz,

Maybe more housing could happen with lower height limits. But why oppose taller buildings that could further increase the supply of downtown housing? The anti-height arguments here really don’t address that.