The Seattle Condo Blog

Laconia Development, the Bay area development firm who’s planning to build two condominium buildings in Seattle, is rethinking those plans. Instead, Laconia may proceed with the projects as apartments. The two projects are Icon Tower, at 6th and Wall Street near the Seattle Center, and Seneca Towers at 8th and Seneca on First Hill.

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.

Seneca Towers
The DJC reported that Laconia Development (formerly Levin Menzies) plans to start work on Seneca Towers this summer and anticipates completion in the summer of 2010. Seneca Towers, located at 8th & Seneca, will consist of 294 units in two towers.

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.

Denny Way has become a hotbed of construction activity with no less than eight residential projects currently under development. These projects will dramatically re-invent the SLU, Denny Triangle & lower Queen Anne landscape.

Four of these are located within blocks of each other near Denny Way & Aurora Avenue. Of the four, two are expected to be apartments with the other two being condominiums.

Hyatt Place Hotel & Condominium (600 Denny)

Update 2/08: This project will be developed as a hotel/apartment complex consisting of two buildings. One building will be a 56-unit apartment (6th & Denny Apartments) and the other will be the Hyatt Place Hotel.

Located to the West of Starbucks at the old Greg’s Japanese Auto site is the 9-story 160-room Hyatt Place Hotel that will also include 56 condominium homes. The project is being developed by Kauri.

Image courtesy of Johnson Braund Design Group.

Borealis Apartments

Borealis (website) is well underway at Denny & Aurora. This green built Vulcan project will feature 53 apartment units, 50 of which will be priced for residents earning 80% of median income. The building was designed by Runberg Architecture.

Read the full story

Laconia Development (fomerly Levin Menzies) received city-approval for the master-use permit of its 29 32-story ICON Tower. Designed by Weber+Thompson and Vancouver, BC - based engineering firm Glotman Simpson, the slender tower sits on a triangular 10,665 square foot parcel at Denny Way, Wall Street & 6th Avenue. Construction is slated to begin in early 2008.

“Making the structural and parking systems work effectively and finding ways to add saleable area to the project to offset the extra costs were the most challenging aspects,” said Blaine Weber, who leads his firm’s Urban Projects/High-Rise Team, which is designing 12 high-rise towers in Seattle.

Dan Foltz, principal of Weber+Thompson explained that the project could not, for instance, rely on a traditional shear-core structural solution. In lieu of a shear core, an outrigger structural system provides lateral resistance while avoiding a perimeter moment frame. In addition, some mechanical parking helps offset the inefficiencies of the site.

ICON will have punched decks between the various juxtaposed forms, and pre-cast concrete architectural frame features will break the mass of each facade into more slender vertical and smaller-scaled elements, Foltz explained. The top of ICON will have a generous roof-top garden deck as well as a sculptural, iconic element that will allude to the Space Needle. This halo, which will be lit at night, is intended to be a beacon.

ICON will feature 224 283 “homespaces” ranging in size from 570 to 1,400 sq ft. The average “homespace” will be about 900 sq ft. No word yet on pricing or pre-sales, but we’ll do a review once marketing begins and information about home designs are made available.

Renderings courtesy of Weber + Thompson

San Francisco developer Laconia Development, formerly Levin Menzies and Associates, is proposing to build a sleek, 32-story glass condominium tower at Sixth Avenue and Wall Street in the Midtown / Belltown area of Seattle. The site is currently a parking lot across the street from Greg’s Japanese Auto on Denny Way. The project will include 283 residences on the top 32 floors with retail and parking on the first 5 levels. Project is still under city planning review.

The design for the project, possibly due to it’s small footprint, is to be a tall skinny building. As a result, on average, units are expected to be smaller compared to the other new projects and per the developer, “affordable”. Time will tell what affordable means.

On the main level facing Denny, the project will incorporate 1% for the Arts featuring public art works and fancy lighting. There will be 12 floors of parking; 6 above grade, 6 below grade. From the early rendering, it appears the building will face north with views of the Space Needle and Lake Union.

Construction is planned for Summer 2007 with occupany in 2009.

Seattle PI article