Why have two downtown lots have remained empty for over a decade? The story of the Seattle Times lot and the Pioneer Square Station lot. (Build Core)
Housing price dynamics in the US, UK, and New Zealand. (Patrick Boyle)
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52 Replies to “Sunday Movies: Vacant Downtown Lots & Housing-Price Dynamics”
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Big doings planned for Bellevue Evans Plaza Appologies in advance to our ace reporter Sam (expert on all things) for not providing a better link. This is a transit waste land. I’m pretty sure our Briddle Trails community group will oppose it and win out. FWIW, this is one of the non-starter areas ST propose for an east base. The way it works… ST picks their spot and put up all the alternates as non-starters; how the game is played.
It’s less than 1 mile walk to the Bel-Red station, that isn’t a wasteland?
Very few of the 800 households are going to walk a mile every day to get to a train that probably is taking them in the opposite direction from where they came. The appeal of this area is that it’s close to Microsoft. From Evans Plaza it’s about the same distance, abeit up a steep hill to get to Overlake Village. But then your already on the Microsoft campus. The 249 used to stop at the corner of 24th and 140th but not sine the pandemic. There is still lots of development yet to build around Overlake Village (e.g. the old Sears site). And there’s lots of empty space within a 1/4 mile of Bel-Red. Plenty of industrial park right next to Marymoor. East Main has a bunch of large hotels which surprisingly add nothing to Link ridership. But they have large, mostly empty parking lots. One was recently demolished but not yet developed.
It is odd that withing a mile walk to two light rail stations you have to walk just as far or farther to catch an infrequent bus which is less likely to take you anywhere you want to go than the train. So yeah, it’s a transit wasteland. Everyone is going to drive and the street grid there is not built to support it. This was one of the sites ST proposed for OMF-E.
The appeal of this area is that it’s close to Microsoft.
That is a good point. I could definitely see someone walking from there to Microsoft. It is about a half hour walk which is reasonable for a direct walk to work. I’m not sure how pleasant it is though. You do have a lot of trees along the way but you also have a lot of high-speed roadways nearby (including the freeway). There is a bike trail although again it doesn’t like like a good section. I would imagine most people there would want a car just to get around and would prefer driving to work (even at Microsoft).
Of course things could change. Running a bus on 140th Avenue NE under the freeway is not a crazy idea. There are no ramps there so you avoid congestion. The same thing is true of NE 24th. The problem in both cases is that there isn’t much else along those corridors. You also have the stations pulling the buses away from those corridors. I think the best bet is if a bus route had this sort of segment: https://maps.app.goo.gl/M5cZJkZAiT2Sgd1U8. It is hard to see that happening any time soon though. Service is spread pretty thin on the East Side with a lot of buses only running every half hour (even after the restructure). I think it is quite likely that the area will remain a transit wasteland for a long time. Yes, it would have been a good site for an OMF.
Yeah, it is about a 20 minute walk to Bel-Red Station and longer to Redmond Tech. It is about a 10 minute walk to the nearest bus stop. Unfortunately that is the 226, which is (and will be) infrequent. It is too far to walk to frequent transit and even the walk to infrequent transit is long. So yeah, a transit wasteland sounds like an apt description.
Housing is housing. There’s often going to be some downside to a site. No nearby grocery store. Poor bus service. Next to a freeway. Long walk to Link station. And speaking of me knowing everything, Evans Plaza is the site of the former Skate King roller rink. (1974-2015. RIP)
I drove by a development notice board a couple of days ago, and looked up what’s going on. This is west of that senior development I mentioned the other day. This project is near NE 8th and 120th, about 1000 feet east Wilburton Station.
https://www.djc.com/news/re/12171740.html
Yeah, housing is housing. It is better to have sprawling, car-dependent housing than no housing at all. But it is crazy that we add density in areas like this when there are areas that actually have good transit that aren’t allowed to grow. There are also plenty of “borderline” areas. These are places that have mediocre transit but would have better transit if there was only a bit more development. I’m thinking of areas served by buses like the 24, 28 and 33. They serve some dense areas but they also serve areas that could use more development. Instead we are building in places like this. It isn’t alone. This apartment is being built along Highway 9 in the city of Lake Stevens. It is fairly isolated from other developments in the city. It is not impossible to walk to a bus stop but it also isn’t easy or pleasant: https://maps.app.goo.gl/mBvKoCnnWGMytwn66. These type of places have some things in common. They tend to be close to a major roadway. This makes them less desirable places to live. This is by design as apartments are often viewed as bad. They are also convenient for driving. By itself these sort of developments don’t really matter. But as a society it ends up being really bad. People are forced into a car-dependent lifestyle or they compete for the handful of places that are convenient and/or quiet. More people drive which is worse for everyone.
The Skate King got turned into the Harley dealership. If this development goes through and that is gone I won’t shed a tear as it will significantly decrease the number of obnoxiously loud motorcycles going past my house. The site is several parcels all owned by the Evans Company except the 7-11 on the corner. I would miss the US Foods which our expert Sam will recall was originally the Prairie Market (circa 1970’s).
That’s right along the 520 trail. If they improve the connection to it, it might not be so terrible.
It’s not a terrible location now, and it will only get better over the years as the BelRed station area redevelops, and new bus routes are created for the residentially dense neighborhood.
It looks like this site wasn’t sold to a developer. It seems like the company that owns this 10 acre site, Evans Wakefield, is redeveloping their own property, so that would explain “why there?”
Their website says that they own a couple of large parcels much closer to BelRed Station, so hopefully they’ll want to redevelop them someday, as well.
https://evanswakefield.com/current/?owned-managed
Yes, it is a terrible location now. It is a terrible location from a transit perspective. Sure, there is the 520 trail but I don’t see that as major attraction — my guess is very few people will commute (or take other trips) by bike if they live there. Neither corridor has much density which is why Metro doesn’t run buses on them. At all. Of course that could change but I doubt it will. This isn’t enough to move the needle by itself and I don’t see a lot of other projects along the corridor changing things. And just imagine that it does. Will it create a better network or will it just force Metro into spreading an already thin level of service even thinner? I see more of the latter.
In contrast consider this little neighborhood here: https://maps.app.goo.gl/Hg9AseTMGcHpf77m9. It is not that far from the RapidRide B and the relatively frequent 245. It is also not far from grocery stores as well as an aging mall (that will likely be refurbished with a mix of housing and retail at some point). It is also not hard to imagine the area becoming more pedestrian and transit friendly. There is a large gap between 148th and 156th. A mid-block crosswalk would be great. Then Metro could add a bus stop on each side for the RapidRide B (given the large gap between stops there). Metro service doesn’t change — the buses just pick up more riders. Everyone benefits. This area makes sense for redevelopment but it won’t be, because it is zoned single family.
Again, this is common. I’m not upset about this development — I don’t think it matters much at all. It will add a little to the overall traffic (that the buses are stuck in, unfortunately) but it will make housing a bit more affordable in Bellevue. It is certainly not where we want development of this kind but it is a lot better than the sprawling housing developments that are common in the region.
@Sam.
Where did you find that Evans owns property closer to Bel-Red Station? I followed your link and nothing there. The dude that was behind this company was the father of people I know from HS. He was brilliant in buying up strip mall property back in the 70’s and holding until Bellevue blossomed. The “company” now is building large scale developments form Marysville to Olympia. At the meeting tonight they sort of tipped their hand that this property’s “asset” is proximity to 520 and 405. In other words, yeah… everybody that lives there will own a car because they are close to the freeway. Only one commission member called them out on the paid for study that claimed there would be only 74 more car trips after they build 800 units than there are today. That’s not the only shady thing in the application and the Bellevue Staff was deer in the headlights when asked some pretty obvious questions important to the decision.
As an expert on all things Bellevue I’m surprised you weren’t there to comment and set the record straight?
Try the above link again. I just checked it and it does work. Then … Scroll down from “Our Property Portfolio.” You’ll see Evans Center, and Evans Industrial Park. Evans Center is at 12730 Bel-Red Road, and Evans Industrial Park is at 1457 130th Ave NE.
Big hill both ways on bike trail. No fun.
It is not a good location, relative to the vast open parking lots next to 2 line stations.
“Big hill both ways on bike trail. No fun.”
Completely trivial with an e-bike.
Exactly, there are lots of other locations that need to be built out before Evans Plaza is considered for an 8 story complex. I’d note that of the places that have been developed near the link stations most are still empty. There is a glut of high end housing on the Eastside. The huge amount of construction around Overlake Village is still at least half empty and they are building more on the old Sears site. The towers around Bel-Red are almost entirely empty. The office space around the Spring District are zombie towers and pathetic number of boardings there are the result.
That’s right along the 520 trail. If they improve the connection to it,
It would be pretty hard to improve the direct connection behind US Foods. There is currently a WSDOT gravel storage area there but from Parcel Viewer it appears WSDOT must lease the property. Immediately west the parcel is owned by PSE which at one point they thought would be a corporate HQ. Those plans are long gone as PSE is no longer a publicly traded utility but owned by a company in Australia. I’m sure they would love for this deal to got through so the swamp land they own would become actually worth something. More likely it will end up being sold to COB and added to Viewpoint Park.
To the west the next connection to the 520 bike trail is on 130th. This is a direct shot down to Bel-Red Station. I thought that would make it a common bike to Link transfer but from what I see using Bel-Red three days a week is there are almost zero bike boardings.
To me, this looks like a classic “buy property adjacent to an upzoned area and obtain an upzone” to increase its value. I have to wonder if the property would have years of ownership changes with different successive proposal concepts before anything happens.
The question I would ask is if its further distance and new position as a transition area makes sense. There seem to be many areas in Bellevue that are closer to Link that seem better suited for higher density. However, there are plenty of denser neighborhoods around the region that aren’t close to Link, even in Bellevue.
Finally, I’ll just opine that BelRed station ideally should have been closer to NE 20th than where they put it. The current station location has an overlapping walkshed with the Spring District station and leaves a walkshed distance gap to the Overlake station. But what’s done is done. It’s a reminder that building rail stations and track is an installation choice that almost always lasts well over a century and shouldn’t be done cavalierly.
Al, you are an advisor to the developer. They ask you, what should we do with this 10 acre parcel? Leave it as it is? Redevelop into housing? Car dealerships? Offices? Something else? What would you tell them to do with it?
An advisor would either want to maximize the possible income or resale value of the property (investor) or find a property suitable for the kind of development that is being pursued (builder or developer). Property purchases that actually pencil out for the latter (developers) are not easily possible. The lengthy approval process is a major factor too as approvals can take a few years to clear.
Regardless, the City of Bellevue should consider what is in the city’s best interest most. I cannot say what I think that the City should do.
Al, you aren’t a politician on the campaign trail. What’s with the word salad? This is just a comment section. Speak your mind. The developer asks you what’s the best use for those 10 acres. Your answer is what?
Honestly, Sam, I think what happens to the property should not be dictated by Link proximity. The station is just too far. If Bellevue wants it for other reasons, it’s fine regardless.
Density isn’t necessarily a guarantee of walkability. I dated someone long-distance who lived in Northern Virginia. There are many apartment towers there that are surrounded by gated parking lots like it’s a living legacy to Le Corbusier, where my date lived. We drove everywhere even though the MetroRail station was less than a mile away. The density was impressive but the site was not. The building complex did run a private shuttle van to and from the station several hours a day.
In this case, I think it really comes down to the site layout and land use mix — and well it interfaces with the Overlake urban village walkability. If it’s a 20 story building walled off from the street it’s not as enticing to me as a few blocks of 4-8 story buildings that look like Downtown Redmond would be.
Since the entire city should be upzoned where it’s less than midrise, upzoning a block adjacent to an urban village is a good thing. We should thank the developer for pursuing it, and encourage the city to approve it.
Apartments next to freeways, and on the wrong side of freeways from urban villages, without great local transit around it, is not an excellent thing, but it’s better than the status quo.
It’s slightly closer to Bel-Red Rd than 20th/Northup. What’s the point of being close to 20th? There’s really not much on 20th. It’s become Luxury Auto Row and there is no longer any bus service. North of 20th there’s 520 and then 1 acre “horsey” property. They did build the Vincino complex on 20th but that’s a short walk to Bel-Red; though it needs a pedestrian path pushed through to 130th.
It’s not an overlapping walkshed with Spring District. It’s close if you are a crow but as they say in Maine, “You can’t get thar from he’ar”. Someday in the distant future Spring Blvd will connect but that’s decades away.
A mile from Belred Station, and a short walk to Safeway. It’s not that bad. If you don’t build anything until the transit is good, the transit will never be good.
Excellent point, CC. Also, if you don’t build housing unless it’s next to a Link station, almost nothing will ever get built.
If you keep adopting the peanut butter approach to development transit will never be even half ass. There are limited dollars to add service to a sprawling eastside. When you spread out the development Helter Skelter it’s impossible to add routes that are productive.
The fact is there are lots better places Bellevue can channel development. They actually have a plan and some projects like the one on 8th and 120th fit that plan. This idea doesn’t. It just makes for more investment in widening roads, more car dependent culture and more cut through driving in existing residential neighborhoods which is a driver of pedestrian casualties and a disincentive to bike or walk in said neighborhoods.
Our pace of Link construction is so slow, that restricting development to within 1/4 mile or even 1/2 mile of Link stations is totally insufficient. And if that would mean building in Everett or Tacoma rather than 140th and 24th, that would be a totally broken model of housing policy.
Under the current circumstances, Bellevue should not say no to any housing development of any kind. Do you see all the congestion on 405? That congestion is people driving to jobs in Bellevue and Redmond, many of whom are only doing so because they can’t afford to live in Bellevue and Redmond. If they could live closer, their drive would be shorter.
Rents are extremely high in Bellevue. There is a lot of untapped demand. Keep building apartments along 140th, and it will eventually be practical to have a bus route feed Bel Red Station from there.
One day, from BelRed to Overlake Village will be residentially dense. It’s going to almost look like downtown Redmond. It might take 20 years or more to get there, but when it does, there are going to be new frequent bus routes delivering riders to Link stations, just like buses currently take riders from one of the densest neighborhoods on the Eastside, Crossroads, to Link stations.
There are currently 2 large scale apartment blocks next to Bel-Red that have high vacancy rates; Vicino & Copal. To get people to move in they are offering 2 months free rent. There is a 3rd on 130th & Bel-Red that is in the final phase of completion. There are more that have been permitted and some still in the proposal/review stage. That still leaves many brown field sites, like the cement plan 10 acres with nothing yet planned. The same is true on an even larger scale around Overlake Village and Marymoor Village. The reason people commute isn’t because there’s no place to rent it’s because they can’t afford the rent. The requested “one off” upzone to Lowrise 2 (8 stories) would just create more Ritz housing and compete directly with the areas the City has already identified as targets for this level of density. City staff has recommended to Council that the area be upzoned to Lowrise 1 (4-6 stories) which seems like the right answer. The issue is the current zoning, General Commercial does not allow for any residential mixed use. An alternative to the upzone is to change the definition of General Commercial to allow mixed use. That change would affect all land in the City currently zoned General Commercial. The problem with that is then there is no way to steer development in a way that it creates pockets of high density along establish transit routes.
“The requested “one off” upzone to Lowrise 2 (8 stories) would just create more Ritz housing”
It would lessen the upward pressure on prices so it wouldn’t be as ritzy.
“compete directly with the areas the City has already identified as targets for this level of density”
It’s not a zero sum game. You can densify both this area and the other areas. That’s now all cities grew until zoning limited it to a few areas or streets. Chicago’s north side is mostly 3-11 stories with a few single-family houses scattered around here and there. Seattle would have gone a similar direction if zoning hadn’t frozen most of the city.
Granada, 100% walkable and uniquidous transit. Barcelona and Madrid, the same. Bellevue, 25% walkable, 75% unwalkable, and we keep talking about where there’s minimal or no bus service.
“An alternative to the upzone is to change the definition of General Commercial to allow mixed use.”
That’s another promising approach. Just as there shouldn’t be residential-only areas, there shouldn’t be commercial-but-no-housing ares. In Japan the zoning is additive: every level allows all the uses in the lower levels. Since housing is in the lowest levels, all those types are allowed in the higher levels.
Actually it is a zero sum game. The people that can afford to pay for Ritz apartments is limited by the number of high paying jobs in the location. The cost of building Ritz housing is set by the market so no projects are going to get financed if there is more supply than demand. You can’t drop the rents below what it costs to build. Your “economics” is based on the blackberry principle; if blackberry vines just overgrow everything then the fruit becomes free. 8 story buildings don’t just sprout out of the ground for free.
“The cost of building Ritz housing is set by the market so no projects are going to get financed if there is more supply than demand.”
The company does want to build it, and the other companies in Bellevue’s urban villages do want to develop their lots and are proposing and building them, so you’re arguing about a contrafactual hypothetical. In the future the demand for housing in Bellevue may dry up so much that there may be no more tenants/buyers for more buildings, but we’re a long way from that.
Also, one lot won’t make a difference. When demand dries up, it will be because of a major economic recession.
“You can’t drop the rents below what it costs to build.”
Rents can fall significantly and still cover construction costs. Developers and Wall Street investors got used to large windfalls in the 1980s, and larger ones in the 2000s, and still larger ones in the 2010s. They can take it out of that.
Wow, that’s a lot of word salad that says nothing.
Your “economics” is just plain silly. Lose a little on each transaction and just make it up in volume? We’ve had similar discussions in the past about generational wealth. You want to defend the rent vs own paradigm which always fails.
Yeah, so why gift this one owner special privileges? What’s the point of a master plan if you just willy nilly gift things to a single person? Who’s paying for “government by the people”. There’s been a lot of shad cast against Wallace for asking for up zoning property in or much closer to DT. I guess the Seattle thing of loving development but hating developers is in full force here.
“so why gift this one owner special privileges? “What’s the point of a master plan if you just willy nilly gift things to a single person?”
So give it to everybody around 520 or 20th who asks. Or just upzone it all to that level without them having to ask. It’s just bringing the situation closer to what the plan should have been all along. It’s not a personal gift to one person for their sole benefit; it’s to the benefit of everyone in Bellevue.
“Who’s paying for “government by the people”.”
What does that have to do with it?
“There’s been a lot of shad cast against Wallace for asking for up zoning property in or much closer to DT. I guess the Seattle thing of loving development but hating developers is in full force here.”
I’ve never heard of anyone being against any Wallace upzones along 116th or closer to the center. It’s what should happen to those car dealerships and Chick Fil A.
The issue with Wallace was that his Link Vision Line alternative on the east side of 116th would have raised the value of his properties immensely. It’s not whether he should get a height increase; give him as high as he wants. It’s that the Vision Line alternative had a conflict of interest. He was using his city council position for self-dealing. Let him do what any landowner can do: build to the zoning limit or ask for an increase. But putting Link there means those are the people who get walking access to the station. That’s wrong when the center of Bellevue is at 108th or Bellevue Way, and all those many more people and trips would be deprived and the transit network would be much less effective.
If the city zones too high or too dense, then only some of the lots will be built to that level. Others will redevelop to a smaller level leaving some of the lot’s capacity unused, and others won’t redevelop. It allows it to reach its natural ceiling or what the market will bear, rather than being limited by an artificial constraint.
Just stop playing favorites, and have the government meddling where the market can figure it out.
Just remove just about all zoning everywhere, unless there is some obvious risk to the public’s health. Problem solved.
Final Review Public Hearing for Evans Plaza Comprehensive Plan Amendment (CPA) – 2026
Tomorrow, Wednesday July 22nd 6:30PM Conference Room 1E-113 at City Hall and also on Zoom.
The commission voted to forward the staff recommended low rise 1 proposal to the City Council.
NB 2 line train I’m on (leaving Westlake, 5:03pm) just announced it is stopping at but not serving U District station (i.e. not opening doors). Not sure if this has anything to do with apparent earlier issues today. Nothing on platform signs, at least at Bellevue DT.
Follow-up: Platform signs at U District say “Fire in the station: please evacuate” and “Emergency fans are starting.”
The issue this morning was single-tracking at Roosevelt. So the U-District thing is a separate issue. Link has had a few false fire alarms in the past two weeks, so this could be another one.
U-District station is open again.
Thanks for the update, Mike. As per usual, there were no announcements or notifications on the live signage about this when I got off at Northgate a couple of minutes later.
I was headed to Friday Harbor from Portland and thought I’d try Link to Everett and then Skagit 90x to Mt Vernon. Both 90x and Amtrak Thruway are supposed to get to Mt Vernon at 12:30 pm.
Wound up taking E to Green Lake and then the 61 to Northgate, as it was announced there was substantial delay north of UW station. Wound up getting to Mt Vernon at 2:45 pm instead.
Speaking of development projects, I wonder if anyone is following a project that is being proposed in conjunction with the major Harborview expansion. This is at 755 Alder St, right next to the existing towers and near the Yesler Terrance developments. As far as I can tell, it will be 7 stories of underground parking with 6 stores of medical building above. The main purpose is apparently to prevent a large drop in parking capacity during the construction of Harborview’s expansion. According to an urbanist article, parking issues are significant driver of the cost problems the project is experiencing. https://www.theurbanist.org/harborview-expansion-plan-hits-trouble-with-parking-costs/
To me, the proposed garage seems like a fairly permanent parking solution to a temporary parking problem in an area that should be better served by transit, but I’m curious as to what others think. It sure would be nice if there were a rail station near Yesler Terrace as described here. https://seattletransitblog.com/2022/04/09/put-first-hill-back-on-the-table/
Anyway, there is a public meeting scheduled on July 23, from 6-7 pm, at the Harborview Research and Training Building (300 9th Ave. – Rooms 109 & 113). https://harborviewbondprogram.com/NinthandAlder/ if folks want to comment/get involved.
How are parking issues a significant driver of the cost problems the project is experiencing?
There was a recent Urbanist article about it: https://www.theurbanist.org/harborview-expansion-plan-hits-trouble-with-parking-costs/
Thanks. I would quibble with the word significant. Napkin math tells me the garage accounts for just 7% of the total project cost. And as far as cost increases, I believe the percent cost increase for the garage is a lower than the percent increase for the overall project. People can argue about the necessity of new garages, but I think it’s a mistake to highlight parking issues as the project’s cost problems.
Another day, another Link power outage. This one was from Beacon Hill to Tukwila from 4pm to 5pm.
At least this time the platform signage did note that, so I’ll give them small credit there. There were no announcements on the train I was on (2 Line W/NB) during that time period, which although the trip affected would be out of direction for most would certainly affect people transferring to head to the airport.