SEATTLE | Downtown Projects: Completed, U/C, Proposed/Approved

[Aleks]

on Sundays and after six on Saturday its free!! well street parking. i saw a HUGE above ground parking structure in Spokane. it was between 15-20 floors!!
my guess is that its cheap because if its owned by the same company then they could cut costs to get more costumers. my point is that why doesn't anybody make such HUGE parking structures here in Seattle?

[mhays]

I have a hard time believing Spokane has anything like that. Do you have a picture or link?

Seattle doesn't allow single-use parking garages. In other words, free-standing garages. We limit parking because we don't want our downtown to be overcome by traffic. For any type of new construction, there's a maximum amount of parking allowed. For example, offices are allowed up to 1 space per 1,000, i.e. one per every 4+ workers. Retail and restaurants have their maxes too. On the peripheries of Downtown the maxes go higher. A single-use garage can be built if it's devoted to some other underserved building(s) nearby, though I don't know the rules on that.

Parking is free after certain hours because there's less of a problem with long-term parkers. The meters are designed to discourage employees to keep the spaces free, while keeping prices within reason for shoppers.

[J. Will]

Seattle doesn't allow single-use parking garages. In other words, free-standing garages.

I could swear I saw at least a couple.

If you guys want to see huge above-ground parking garages, go to Minneapolis. I saw at least a couple that appeared to take up an entire city block (I didn't walk all the way around to confirm that). Plus they're really tall (8-10 floors), and didn't appear to have much if any retail on the bottom floor. Years ago the city built several of these enormous garages so to encourage office towers to be built downtown instead of the suburbs (they wouldn't have to include parking in the towers themselves). But they ended up with these enormous, ugly concrete monstrosities that add nothing to streetlife or vibrancy. It's really unfortunate.

[Black Box]

^Yes, there are many parking garages in downtown Minneapolis. There is a very large collection of parking garages in the North Loop area that primarily serves commuters using I-394. Back to Seattle, the parking garages that stand out most to me are the "sinking ship", Macy's parking garage, and the several parking garages located around 2nd Avenue between Pike and Union.

[Vashon118]

Originally Posted by Aleks0o01

Is 5th and Yesler Approved or Proposed because i noticed that fencing started going up on the site. It could be just to keep people out or maybe... just maybe it will soon start construction...

Originally Posted by WESTSEATTLEGUY

^^^

I think it was always fenced off.

I went by there this morning and I'm preety sure that fence (which is between Terrace and Yesler) was not there when I was in the area the last time (6/25). Also, there's a trailer on the bottom of the hill.

On a sidenote, the manlifts at 5'th & Madison and Mosler Lofts have been removed.

[mhays]

Originally Posted by J. Will

I could swear I saw at least a couple.

Zoning doesn't affect what's already there.

[Aleks]

Yeah i have a picture, doesn't seem huge in this picture but it is. Its basically in the center of Downtown. hmm.. I think i over did the truth it must be under 12. I can count 7 in the picture but there's more behind the trees. Maybe it seemed huge at the time because all the buildings are small and compared to this parking structure they all seemed small. It still take up 1 block.



Related to Black Box and J. Will-i don't remember ANY parking structures but i wasn't to interested in Minneapolis when i went there so i didn't pay attention to downtown. i remember a lot of bridges though.

[WESTSEATTLEGUY]

^^

What a horrendously ugly building.

[testdrive]

Here is an example of a monolithic parking structure being built in dt Detroit next to a Casino......... I think this is what we are trying to avoid doing here.

[Aleks]

Originally Posted by WESTSEATTLEGUY

^^

What a horrendously ugly building.

i thought so too...
relating to testdrive:
actually i like parking structures they make a city like a....well city.
some parkings can look good i really really like the spiny parts of parkings idk why.
the 1 in Spokane is really ugly and that wasn't the whole thing i posted, theres also a tower on 1 of the corners that has this HUGE ugly sign advertising the parking.
i would have to make a sketch of what it looks like and you would agree its horrible

[WESTSEATTLEGUY]

-The worst parking garages around Seattle IMO is the Seatac curving garages. They're fun to drive in, but f-ing ugly.

[Aleks]

ugh i found pictures of the parking monster in Spokane. Its called Parkade Plaza. It has 11 floors, is 57 meters tall or in other words 188 FEET TALL!!
here are sum pics.



c by emporis

[NW Mike]

What the hell is that thing?!....Are they trying to get us excited to go to the Parking Garage? "Hey mom lets go to the Parkade Its so fun!"

[WESTSEATTLEGUY]

^^

LOL.

[Aleks]

we need something to kick this thread up a notch!! i think someone needs to get new updates. i can only do it until Friday. We need updates on O8, Escala, The Olivian and other projects around Seattle.

[WESTSEATTLEGUY]

^^

Please, be my guest, I would love to see updates. Maybe Skyline first hill, harbor view, 818 Stewart, enso, rollin street, and SLU streetcar. That would be sweet.

[NW Mike]

What's the story with 1800 Terry?
Anything new?

[WESTSEATTLEGUY]

^^ I haven't seen that version of the rendering before.

[mhays]

I assume you're talking about 1823 Terry, a proposed tower on the Gethsemane church property. They've been taking subcontractor pricing, and apparently the church decided to go forward with a ground lease to the developer last month. Someone in another thread commented that the lease terms were likely to be favorable since the property wasn't competing with condo land buyers.

[WESTSEATTLEGUY]

-So will this be underway soon???