Excited to say that the project mentioned in Ruffhauser's post above has created the advent of Shoreline's first yellow crane! (At least from my memory, I can't think of any other project that has had a big yellow crane like this)
But there's definitely a lot more room for potential! Keep an eye on our upzoning process for the 145th and 185th/North City station areas, it's gonna be an interesting time for policy in the coming 6 years!I'm liking how Shoreline is densifying. Suburban densification helps keep housing prices in check for Seattle as well.
Meh, remember that Surrey has had rapid transit (Skytrain service) for almost a quarter of a century now. Once our light rail starts getting built out, you'll eventually start seeing stuff like this in the Puget Sound area.If only our suburbs could actually start building tall on terrible surface parking lots right now...
I agree with that sentiment. Having lived in Vancouver, the towers around stations model doesn't really work in a lot of places where the neighborhood before was just SFH or light commercial/light multifamily, for example Edmonds, Marine Gateway, or Holdom. The station towers concept does work, however, in large commercial destinations, a la Metrotown, Brentwood, and central Surrey. I'm pretty excited to see what happens when places like Alderwood, Factoria, the mall in South Everett, Burien, and Federal Way get Link access. I think the skytrain strategy could really work there!A common theme with the Vancouver suburban high rises (that you can see in the photo) is close proximity to the Skytrain stations.
I'm not sure how big a fan I am of "transit station = high rise". Creates some awkward neighborhood layouts. The high rises tend to be at the very very tip top of the price range which creates a wide disparity in both housing type, and income levels.
Speaking from 100% from my arse, but for the most part I like the more gradual approach to densification that Seattle has taken where the neighborhood first gets filled in with mid-rises that are a little closer to the middle of the market, which also helps build up the retail area. After that's taken root, then replacing the older, close-in, mid-rise buildings with high rises. Feels like that would help build a better mix of housing types, and might also help grease the rails with some of the Nimby-ism. Tho, like I said. 100% from my ass. Maybe thats way too slow a process that will still see San Fran like prices and I'll be choking on those words when a 200sqft closet will run you $2000/mo. We also haven't really seen the second part of that equation anywhere either. We finally approved such things for the U-district, and we missed the opportunity with Captiol Hill.
The North City Post Office has been located at NE 175th and 15th NE for decades. However, it didn't own the land it sat on, but held a long-term lease, periodically renewed without issue.
Katerra is, for all intents and purposes, the in-house contracting arm of Wolff. It's a separate company but Wolff is Katerra's primary backer and, as far as I know, Katerra is building all of Wolff's future projects.Anyone know of images of this project? Katerra is pretty new so I'm interested to see what this looks like. Wolff Company did (still doing Phase 2) the CityLine apartments in Columbia City among other projects.
http://www.shorelineareanews.com/2017/09/north-city-post-office-will-close-in.html
I'm very interested in seeing if their model works. It, like most any other start-up these days, relies on scale. The possibilities are very exciting and I think it has a far better chance of reducing the cost to construct housing than modular construction does.I have at least one friend at Katerra (brilliant structural engineer) but I didn't realize much of a connection to Wolff. From what little I've heard/seen Katerra is vertically integrated design and construction company like Tesla is doing for solar roofs to battery packs to car power.
Wolff is boring apartment buildings and some remodels from what I've seen but I haven't dug too hard.
Wow! This will be pretty huge for the neighborhood! This development will join the recently completed complex down the street on the other side of NE 175th, as well as a new multifamily project under construction just west of the Arabella apartments on NE 180th! North City is probably the densest part of Shoreline, so this is cool to see.Anyone know of images of this project? Katerra is pretty new so I'm interested to see what this looks like. Wolff Company did (still doing Phase 2) the CityLine apartments in Columbia City among other projects.
http://www.shorelineareanews.com/2017/09/north-city-post-office-will-close-in.html