Bellevue: Spring District

[BellevueBoy]

From the DJC's recent Urban Development special piece

http://www.djc.com/news/re/11201144.html

[Bond James Bond]

Boring name. They should call it Utopia. Or maybe Hell. Or even Nowhere. Something more catchy.

[Puertalian]

Yay new urbanism!

[bgwah]

First, what an awful name. I really hope they come to their senses and pick something better.

Second, why no high-rises? I don't get it. A transit corridor should have high-rises, especially around the stations. From what I've read, these types of developments have been extremely popular Vancouver---IIRC something about a 500 or so unit condo tower complex being sold out within 30 hours. A project in the suburbs around a sky train station. It will be sad to see the Bel-Red corridor be underused---it has so much potential.

Third, just because I think this is interesting, the project will supposedly include 800 to 1,000 residential units, at least 800 of which are apartments from what I can tell.

So, 36 acres and say, 1,000 units... That equates to just under 18,000 units per square mile... Say 1.5 people per unit, and we're just under 27,000 people per square mile. That's certainly fairly dense, but I still think it could be quite a bit more. No high-rises perplexes me---who's going to complain if they build some? A cold storage facility? Ugh.

Overall, over the next 25 years the 900 acre Bel-Red Corridor could have up to 5,000 residential units (some plans have a lot less proposed, I'm using the maximum). Say 1.5 people per unit (perhaps I'm being too generous or too conservative with my estimate there, but whatever) and that gets to about 5,300 people per square mile... Pathetic.

I don't mean to sound angry, but it just seems so disappointing... Does anybody else feel the same way, or is my logic flawed? Sigh.

[Method101]

^ I agree with you on there being not ONE highrise in the whole district. It almost just looks like a large office park, but it is nice to hear they are doing something with that area of Bel-Red

[NW Mike]

Its a big office park. but maybe it will spread out and get bigger.....Sprawl!

[guinessbeer55]

I dont think itll look like an office park... I think itll be more like Europe... I think its gonna be nice.

[testdrive]

I think it will look good also............there doesn't have to be a high rise in every new development. In fact it will help with the step down look as you approach dt from the east.
If I remember right didn't they raise height limits just to the east of the freeway which will also help minimize the look of a dramatic wall of buildings.

[sequoias]

Hmm, it looks like a office park complex because the buildings are wide and not so tall. I hope they will add a few slim towers to make it look appealing. It didn't explain exactly where they may build a district.

[NW Mike]

Its at the old Safeway distribution center across I-405 near the 520 interchange.

[sequoias]

Isn't that the area on NE 12th St, across from Cola coke warehouse?

[sequoias]

Sorry double post, nvm.

[mokocoko]

So cheesy. This could be cool with a mix of whatever and blah-blah-blah but in that part of Bel-Red? It's going to be an infinitely boring bit of nevermind.

see: San Jose, Ca.

[CorePlus Seattle]

I believe the developer is working with the Bellevue to get height variances. The zoning, currently, does not allow for highrises. In their current form those buildings should be pretty comparably sized to those of Vulcan's SLU stuff...

[kub86]

Yikes. I think this 36 acre parcel can do MUCH better. They're not being ambitious enough.

If it were my way, it'd have at least 120 units/acre (4,320 units), 3.5 million sf of office (about 14,000 jobs), 300k sf of retail (including supermarket), a 180-room hotel, and about 8 acres for parkland.

[joe_hardhat]

They may be on to something here. Shorter buildings are faster to construct, multiple buildings give them the ability to phase development to meet demand. Sure, it's not sexy like building 500 foot tall office towers, but it seems like a sound business strategy.

In addition, from the planning side, is it truly wise to develop this area into another super-dense downtown like area? Is Bellevue as a city prepared or capable to administer itself to two urban cores? You can make the same argument for Factoria and some of the arguments for building taller down there as well.

[bgwah]

When/if light rail is put through the Bel-Red Corridor, I really hope the areas immediately around the stations have high-rises. Maybe only a dozen or so 15-20 story towers. It just seems like a waste not to have high-density directly around the stations. It could also be an opportunity to provide high-density but quiet neighborhoods with great access to public transportation, maybe something families would be interested in. I'm thinking of something along the lines of what Metro Vancouver has been building around their suburban sky train stations.

[kub86]

Personally I'd rather dense up downtown Bellevue and its immediate vicinity before redeveloping an entirely new area...

[Sounder]

Originally Posted by kub86

Personally I'd rather dense up downtown Bellevue and its immediate vicinity before redeveloping an entirely new area...

This is pretty darn close to DT Bellevue. If DT Bellevue keeps growing, the Lake Bellevue area is probably the next step after the areas west of 405 fill up.

[Sounder]

http://www.shorenstein.com/pdf/Belle...ion_Center.pdf