Here’s just a few of Club Cielo’s premier services and amenities:

• An exclusive dining room and bar, including a garden terrace.
• Full-service day spa offering massage therapy, facials, manicures and pedicures.
• A professional grade 5,200+ square foot fitness center offering strength and cardio training equipment, two resistance lap pools, a yoga and Pilates studio and on-site certified instructors.
• A large theatre / multi-purpose room for private screenings, presentations or parties.
• A climate-controlled Wine Cave for up to 9,000 bottles, with an adjoining intimate dining room.
• Access to private chefs, car service, housekeeping service, personal assistants and animal care and dog walking services.

Club Cielo will also offer a limited number of memberships for non-residents.

Scheduled for completion in 2009, the signature Escala development will have 275 luxury condominium homes ranging from $500,000 to well over $5,000,000. Club Cielo will be operated by Columbia Hospitality whose other managed properties include the Salish Lodge & Spa and the Kenwood Inn and Spa in Sonoma Valley.

For more information on Club Cielo, please visit www.clubcielo.com.
For more information on Escala, please view our post or visit www.escalamidtown.com.

Club Cielo’s second floor entrance

Club Cielo’s Wine Cave private dining room

Club Cielo’s fitness center

Escala’s glass enclosed grand lobby from 4th Avenue

Escala’s fireside lounge

Renderings courtesy of Club Cielo / Escala

According to the Daily Journal of Commerce, both projects were originally slated to begin back in 2007 but the slow market and lack of construction financing have impacted the projects.

Laconia expects to make a decision in the coming months and could begin construction on Seneca Towers by the end of the year.

2612 3rd Avenue (Corner of 3rd & Cedar)

2612 3rd Avenue has a newer design than the one I posted a few months ago. The 17 story apartment will house approximately 185 units, a commercial space and just 82 parking spaces. Overall, it seems like a nice addition to this rather dead end of Belltown.

View looking SE, corner of 3rd & Cedar.

Looking NW from 3rd Avenue. Mosler Lofts is to the left.

Main entry facing Cedar Street.

6th & Lenora

The 6th & Lenora Apartment is a twin tower development spanning 1/2 block on 6th Avenue between Lenora & Blanchard. The towers will rise 18 stories with a 6 story podium encompassing 654 units, retail space and 419 parking spaces.

Looking West along 6th Avenue.

1900 1st Avenue

Located close to the Pike Place market at 1st and Stewart, the proposal for the 11-story 1900 1st Avenue development includes a 100 room hotel, 75 apartment units and 325 parking stalls. If built, it will replace a surface parking lot and would obscure lower level views from the proposed 1915 2nd Avenue condominium project.

When completed, Olive 8 will be the tallest residential tower in Seattle and the first condo/hotel development in Seattle to achieve LEED certification. The Hyatt hotel is expected to open at the end of the year while the first occupancy of the condominium is anticipated for early 2009.

View photos (click image below):

Clise is expected to put the properties back on the market once the financial markets improve.

More info: SeattlePI and Seattle Times

The Marselle Condominium, at 115 Aurora Ave, is the latest addition to the burgeoning area just north of downtown. The 7-story frame-constructed building will encompass 132 condominium homes ranging from 347 sq ft to 1,730 sq ft. Penthouse level homes will include a mezzanine level that opens to the roof top decks.

Every unit will come with parking and storage. Common building amenities include roof top decks with views of Lake Union & downtown, a billiard room, a resident lounge and a wellness center with cardio machines, weight training equipment and yoga space.

Given its location along Aurora, I asked about the noise reduction methods being used. According to the developer, the wood framing will have 1 1/2 inch gypcrete with 1/4 inch sound damping mat for all framed floors while ceilings and interior walls will have R11 sound insulation. Hard surface floors will be laid over a soundmat/pad.

I also inquired whether they had any concerns about developing condos in light of current market conditions as well as recent events with nearby projects.

Our company focuses on providing a quality product for a great value. We have already had a huge response from word-of-mouth contacts and believe our project will fill a much-needed void in the market of affordable city living (units beginning at around $415/SF). [Other developments] converting to apartments will only intensify the need for housing downtown in our price range.

Should Marselle be able to maintain the $415/sf starting price point, it’ll be attractively situated in the downtown-core new construction marketplace. For comparison, the highly touted Moda Condominium started at $500/sf which did not include parking for every unit.

Occupancy is slated for Summer 2009. The project is being developed by Marselle Partners who also built the Marc and Matae condominiums. Stay tuned for pre-sale information. In the meantime, the developer is compiling a pre-sale buyer list. Please contact the developer at:

Marselle Partners / Sierra Construction
(425) 487-5200

The 160-room hotel and 56-unit apartment will have separate lobby entrances, elevators and amenities, but will share a common wall. The building is being constructed to condominium quality, opening the door for a future conversion. The switch to apartments will keep 56 units out of the condo inventory for now. The project joins the Taylor 28 and Borealis Apartments, both under construction within a 2 block radius.

Icon Tower
The other project Laconia is developing in Seattle is the sleek & slender Icon Tower at 6th & Wall. Laconia expects to start construction in August. Completion is slated for the first half of 2011.

Insignia Towers
Work on Insignia Towers (5th between Bell & Battery) may begin as soon as next month according to the developer, Embassy Development, as mentioned in a recent DJC article. That is, of course, dependent on the market showing signs of improvement. The 643-unit project will be constructed in phases with each tower taking up to 37 months to complete.

1 Hotel & Residences
1 Hotel recently announced they’ve completed commercial leasing for the one-block project. Retail tenants will include Equinox Fitness, 1 Spa, the Ocean Restaurant by B.R. Guest who’ll also operate the urban grocer market, and a new retailer for the adjoining Macy’s garage. Completion is anticipated for early 2010.

AVA
AVA noted that they will begin private previews in their new sales center starting in March. The sales center will include a scale-model of the tower, kitchen and bath vignettes, floor plans, representative views and finishes. AVA is one of the few new condo projects to offer homes starting below $400,000. The project recently obtained its master use development permit with groundbreaking scheduled for later this year. Completion is slated for 2011.

114 Pike
There are some new renderings floating around for this project. Though, sources indicate that this project is being placed on hold. I believe occupancy for this project had changed from office/condo to office/apartment.

7th & Westlake
The latest casualty in the condo market shakeup is the office/condo project at 7th & Westlake, confirmed by a principal with Murray Franklyn.

Between the Westin & Escala (foreground)

Note: A 2nd design guidance meeting has been scheduled for this project on February 12th at 7:00 PM at Seattle City Hall.

It seems Seattle will be awash with double vision in the coming years. Besides the Heron/Pagoda project, at least four other twin-tower projects have been proposed in the downtown area — Insignia Towers, 1200 Stewart, 2nd & Virginia and the Pike Street Group’s project at 6th & Lenora.

SeattlePI article: Hotel-condo project to face Westin

Renderings courtesy of Ismael Leyva Architects.

“I don’t know who they have in charge of that,” Jewell said. “They probably just have one dude sitting behind a desk who’s like, ‘Hmm, what should we call that?’ ”

Lately, that would be condo marketer extraordinaire Dean Jones, president of Realogics Inc., which represents dozens of developments. He popularized the Midtown moniker [see Escala Midtown] — at least among real estate agents — and has invented other would-be downtown micro-neighborhood names.

Midtown was intended to define the geographic area at the convergence of other distinct neighborhoods, such as the downtown retail district, Belltown, Pike Place Market and South Lake Union.

It may catch on, or not, but it’s a lot likelier that you’ll be able to find someone if you plan to meet at the Midtown Starbucks rather than the downtown Starbucks, he said.

And, several SCL readers called me out on the use of the Midtown moniker.

On the other hand…

Belltown Community Council President Zander Batchelder predicted that most micro-neighborhood names won’t stick around any longer than their brochures stay out of the recycling bin.

“They spend a lot of advertising on it, but I don’t think it’s going to take,” he said. “You have to have a majority consensus for that to take off, and the other people who already live here aren’t going to rename it just so (marketers) can make more money on the condos.”