Anyone have any information on the NE 6th and 114th Ave site? They installed a small red tower crane a couple weeks back. Just curious on what this is.
[edit] I found information about this site on the permit website. A new 7 story Residence Inn by Marriott will be built there, apparently after being in limbo for over 20 years! See below:
Seattle Times Article Link
Marriott deal puts end to wetlands struggle
By Ashley Bach
Seattle Times Eastside bureau
A 19-year struggle to build a hotel near the Mercer Slough wetlands apparently is over, with groundbreaking on the seven-story building set for this summer.
Marriott bought the property Jan. 20 for $4.25 million and plans to build a 231-room Residence Inn there. The project still needs city building permits, but they are expected to be approved soon, city officials said.
Bellevue-based Fluke Capital Management, led by general partner David Fluke, first applied in 1987 to build a hotel at 605 114th Ave. S.E., on the southeast edge of downtown. Once the project was approved, Fluke planned to sell it to someone else to build — but the sale took nearly two decades.
Fluke needed to obtain permits from the state Department of Ecology and the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, and local activist Geoff Bidwell opposed him every step of the way.
The land is split by Sturtevant Creek, a tributary of Mercer Slough, and the hotel footprint will include eight-tenths of an acre of wetlands.
The building would not be allowed under the city's current environmental regulations, but Fluke applied for the project before the city's first sensitive-areas ordinance was approved in 1987, said Carol Helland, the city's land-use director.
Bidwell said the hotel was not appropriate for the land, but after Fluke got his most important permit, from the Army Corps of Engineers, in 2003, Bidwell said he was ending his campaign against the project.
To compensate for building on wetlands, Fluke will plant 1.6 acres of plants to help wetlands nearby.
Fluke no longer has a stake in the project, but his long battle — which spread all the way up to a state appeals court — is over. "It's great to have it done," he said.
The hotel, with an attached three-story parking structure, will cover about 3.6 acres. The other 3.4 acres on the lot are wetlands and will remain undeveloped.
[edit]