Why don't they just keep ignoring the place? Gentrification is the last thing Interbay needs!
Damnit!
Apartment builders target long-ignored Interbay
Virtually nobody lives in Seattle's Interbay neighborhood despite its proximity to popular areas like Ballard and Queen Anne, but developers such as Unico hope to change that with new housing projects.
This aerial photo shows a view of Interbay looking south, with West Dravus Street at the bottom of the photo and 15th Avenue West on the left. Unico Properties' planned 236-unit apartment complex would be built on most of the block at the center of the photo, below the golf course and playfield.
Prominent Seattle developer Unico Properties plans to break ground in the next few weeks on a project in Interbay that will provide the gritty neighborhood with something it long has lacked:
Residents.
Almost no one lives in this valley between hilly Queen Anne and hilly Magnolia. "It's always been a place people passed through," says Bruce Wynn, who heads the Interbay Neighborhood Association.
He and other advocates of the neglected area have maintained for years that Interbay could become a vibrant urban center if only a critical mass of people lived there.
Unico's 236-unit apartment complex should provide the first big infusion. More apartments are in the pipeline.
Unico calls its project Slate Apartments + Lofts. That's partly because Interbay is a blank slate whose story hasn't yet been written, says Jonas Sylvester, Unico's senior vice president for investment and development.
He anticipates the story will have a happy ending: "In five years," Sylvester says, "you'll look at this neighborhood and say, 'Duh! Why didn't we see that coming?' "
Between 2 bays
Interbay, as its name suggests, once was a marshy area between two bays, Elliott and Salmon.
A garbage dump operated there for decades. During the Depression, Interbay was the site of one of the city's "Hoovervilles," shantytowns for the homeless.
BNSF Railway's sprawling, century-old rail yard remains a dominant presence.
Today people come to Interbay to golf at the city-owned nine-hole course or to watch college soccer matches at Interbay Stadium.
They come to work in factories that make everything from cutting boards to harps. They come to shop and eat at the new Whole Foods shopping center near Interbay's south end, or at the QFC and restaurants that line West Dravus Street to the north.
11 residents
Then they go home. Just 11 people reside in Interbay's core, between busy 15th Avenue West and the railroad tracks, according to census data.
Wynn, whose home is a few blocks away on Queen Anne, says he has no idea where those 11 are.
The blocks north and south of Dravus are a jumble of squat industrial and office buildings and fenced-off storage yards. The few old houses are empty. Even Interbay's strongest supporters describe it as blighted.
"It's always been the dumping neighborhood of the city," Wynn says.
But he and others insist Interbay has potential. It's close to downtown and to some of the city's hottest neighborhoods Ballard, Belltown, Lower Queen Anne.
A flat, nearly car-free bike path links Interbay with the downtown waterfront.
And there is good bus service that should get even better next year, when "Rapid Ride" buses, scheduled to run every 10 minutes during peak periods, start rolling down 15th.
The campaign for a new Interbay began about seven years ago. The neighborhood association and property owners led by developer Freehold Group, which had invested heavily in north Interbay, began pushing city officials to allow taller buildings on the blocks around Dravus.
They said the zoning change was key to attracting residential development, which in turn would allow Interbay to blossom.
The Seattle City Council finally raised the height limit around Dravus from 40 to 85 feet three years ago just as the economy tanked and financing disappeared.
Now lenders are lending again, especially for apartment projects, and Interbay's time has come, Unico's Sylvester says.
His company probably is best known as the developer of the University of Washington's 10-acre Metropolitan Tract in downtown Seattle. It owns or manages 15 million square feet of office, apartment and retail properties across the West.
Slate, Unico's Interbay complex, will fill most of the block south of Dravus between 16th and 17th avenues West, property occupied by a deteriorating office building and several vacant houses.
Unico plans to finish the project in spring 2013. Bank of America is providing construction financing.
About 5,500 square feet of retail will front Dravus at 16th.
The apartment lobby will be around the corner on 17th; Sylvester says it will be furnished with light fixtures and paneling salvaged from Washington Mutual's former downtown headquarters, a tower Unico now manages.
In return for a property-tax break, Unico is setting aside 20 percent of the apartments for tenants whose incomes are slightly below the Seattle area's median.
The complex will include a workshop for bike repairs, a pea patch, charging stations for electric cars and a lobby kiosk with real-time information about bus arrivals and other transportation options.
Slate's target tenant? Someone who wants commuting choices, Sylvester says. Someone who wants to live close to downtown but not right in it.
More for less
And someone who wants a bargain, at least compared with new apartments in Ballard or Queen Anne. "We'll be offering a little more for a little less," Sylvester says.
That's probably smart, says Tom Cain of research firm Apartment Insights Washington.
Interbay is virgin territory for apartment dwellers, he says; it lacks the amenities of better-established neighborhoods.
"There's lots of traffic, and there's the railroad noise. ... It's kind of an odd area now."
But if the apartments are priced right, Cain adds, Interbay's location and good transit service could appeal to some renters.
Unico isn't the only investor that has targeted Interbay. Seattle Storm co-owner Ginny Gilder bought three properties in the neighborhood earlier this year.
"It's a great part of Seattle that's been a little neglected," she says.
Now, in partnership with Goodman Real Estate, a big-time apartment developer, Gilder is seeking permits for 118 apartments on one of those sites, across 16th from Slate.
The city's Queen Anne/Magnolia Design Review Board is to consider the four-story project Dec. 7.
Freehold, the developer that led the campaign to rezone Interbay, sold Gilder all three sites. It also once had an ownership interest in the property where Slate will be built. The company still owns several other properties in the neighborhood.
"Those two [apartment] projects are really going to transform the area south of Dravus," says Jeff Thompson, Freehold's president. "After all this time, I couldn't be more delighted that things are finally coming together."
Wynn concurs. "It's been a long time coming," he says.
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Hmm. That address doesnt look right. It looks like the link pointing here was faulty.
Seems there is a "developer" born every minute. "Developers" always seem to have a lot of money. Developers "develop" as thats their M.O. So how do we "deter them"? You are going to lose no matter what if you are in their way.
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If you are in a horror movie, you make bad decisions, its what you do.
In March I'll have lived in the current digs seven years. Before that it was three blocks away...still Interbay, nine years!
Interbay's been home for a lot of years, but it's closing in on me. I feel restless anyway. Perfect timing... They'll ruin the character of Interbay. A pefectly good neighborhood as is!
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Hmm. That address doesnt look right. It looks like the link pointing here was faulty.
They ought a move the tires here while there's still time!
Giant mound of tires in SC visible from space
Dumped tires are seen piled in a wooded area near Elloree, S.C. on Nov. 17, 2011. Growing to a mound of about a million tires covering several acres of land. Officials say a $400 littering fine is hardly enough to deal with the problem. (AP Photo - Rainier Ehrhardt)
MEG KINNARD
From Associated Press
November 19, 2011 11:59 AM EST
COLUMBIA, S.C. (AP) The sprawling pile of hundreds of thousands of tires isn't easy to spot from the ground, sitting in a rural South Carolina clearing accessible by only a circuitous dirt path that winds through thick patches of trees. No one knows how all those tires got there, or when.
But, Calhoun County Council Chairman David Summers says of this giant rubber menace, "You can see it from space."
Authorities have charged one person in connection with the mess of roughly 250,000 tires, which covers more than 50 acres on satellite images. And now a Florida company is helping haul it all away.
Litter control officer Boyce Till said he contacted the local sheriff and state health department, which is investigating who had been dumping the tires. But the worst possible penalty that could be imposed locally? A single $475 ticket for littering.
Records show the property is owned by Michael Keitt Jr. of Far Rockaway, N.Y.
A phone number for Keitt could not be found, but local officials said the man was one of several heirs to the property, all of whom live out of state.
As part of the state Department of Health and Environmental Control's case, a state grand jury issued indictments against George Fontella Brown, 39, of Easley, on three charges of violating the state's solid waste act, according to DHEC spokesman Adam Myrick. Those state charges carry much heftier possible penalties, including thousands of dollars in fines and up to a year in jail.
Myrick would not discuss details of the case against Brown, and a spokesman for state Attorney General Alan Wilson did not respond to messages. No working phone listing could be found for Brown, who also faces similar charges in Greenville and Orangeburg counties, and court records did not list an attorney for him.
Tire dumping has historically been a problem in Calhoun County and other rural areas, said Summers, who recalled another giant tire pile in the 1990s that would dwarf the current monstrosity.
"This tire pile here is a baby compared to what that one was," said Summers, who previously worked for a company that ended up shredding those used tires.
South Carolina retailers charge motorists $2 for every new tire they buy, which helps pay for the cleanup and recycling of old tires. But Summers said many tires never make it to recycling plants, instead being discarded and growing into gargantuan piles.
For now, a Jacksonville, Fla.-based tire processing company is working to clear the pile.
Tricia Johnson, owner of Lee Tire Company, Inc., said a property owner whom she declined to name called her for help hauling off the material. So far, Johnson said between 10 and 15 tractor-trailer loads of tires have been shipped to her Florida facility. There, they will either have oil and steel extracted from them, or they will be shredded and made into tire-derived fuel, which Johnson said burns more cleanly than coal and is used by paper mills.
Johnson said she has waived her usual fee and is charging the property owner only for transportation costs. She hopes to have all 250,000 tires processed by early 2012.
"He had good intentions," Johnson said of the man who called and asked for her help. "He is trying to clean it up. He just got stuck. He tried all the resources to move the tires as quickly as he could."
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