I'm excited about my neighborhood growing. The neighborhood is halfway there....still way too sparse with missing pieces, but getting better year by year.

Our densest census tracts in 2010 were a couple on Capitol Hill, basically everything west of Broadway and south of Roy(?). One a little over 50,000 per square mile, and the other a little over 40,000.

Of course, "densest block" could be interpreted as gross square footage, and this block would be well down the list.

(disclosure: I work for a contractor but not involved here.)

??? You want density? Via 6, not too far away, will have 654 units in one-half block when it opens in February.

Stan, thanks for appending your comment, which in fact underlines my point: Belltown is becoming denser, as is Capitol Hill. Both neighborhoods have plenty of bars, restaurants, dry cleaners and nail salons, but Belltown especially is underserved in terms of food markets that go beyond convenience stores (the iconic Pike Place Market aside). Perhaps the next Belltown project will include 25,000 square feet of supermarket space.

Being ringed by supermarkets in all directions doesn't help -- IGA Kress, Target, Pike Place Market, Safeway, Metropolitan, QFC, and Whole Foods are all an easy (without luggage) walk from the center of Belltown, but a little far with more than a moderate bag or two. Regardless, they all bleed off some of the customers along the edges. And most of them won't do anything that close to existing stores without the most certain demand.

We have several places that are larger than corner stores, which, combined, offer decent variety. The corner stores themselves can also offer variety, assuming they're not part of the same network, i.e. carrying the same stuff.

Unfortunately these prisons will all end up vacant as population here falls dramatically in this decade.

Funny joke jabailo. Our population growth has continued throughout the downturn, as we're considered a desirable place to live and our economy has been outperforming the country. There are no signs at all of that changing, unless something huge goes out of business.

Why would we shrink? People want to move here. Businesses do well here. We're even getting more air connections.

Clearly you are correct mhays; population will continue to grow in the PNW, at least in the near term. However, there are some questions that few are talking about, questions concerning sustainability and the limits to growth. It appears to be a forbidden subject among those in positions of power (elected officials, developers and financial decision makers, influential NGOs).

For example, Peak Oil is the flip side of climate change. As we start sliding down the slope of depletion, how are we going to maintain our liquid fuel based infrastructure and economy? "Air connections" will become very expensive and many will disappear. Building a denser urban environment has some benefits as oil becomes scarcer and more expensive, but there are also some huge questions that need to be answered: How are we going to provide everyone with heat and electricity? Shouldn't all new buildings be pushed toward "ultra-green"? (cf. http://council.seattle.gov/2012/07/31/living-building-ordinance-amendments/)?

I'm not talking about this year or even this decade. But if we do local planning with the same foreshortened time horizon as we've been doing as a nation or globally, we're going to be in a lot of trouble by mid-century.

Some places are starting to show signs of awareness (http://www.sunshinecoast.qld.gov.au/sitePage.cfm?code=cc-strategy). We really need to be improving the content of our discussions about planning for the future. All of the buildings discussed in the article above are the 'same old same old' as far as I can tell. That's not good enough.

Uh-oh, it's the peak oil brigade! Hey, I thought the peak was 10 years ago. Oops. And if you think Seattle's "living building" ordinance was anything other than a corrupt payoff to developers who will fund the re-election campaigns of the city council and McGinn, well, then you must be another faith-based gullible Seattle "progressive" who'll believe absolutely anything as long as it's wrapped in green.

I bet you even think the plastic bag ban was good for the environment, don't ya?

Giving more people the opportunity to walk to work and the option of not having car isn't "same old same old" in my opinion. It should be the #1 priority for the environmental community. In this building's case, they also have a low parking ratio if I recall (0.5 or 0.6?), which both reflects who they think will live there and avoids the waste associated with overbuilding.

Buildings need to be greener about energy use, and gradually we'll popularize better ways of waste treatment and so on. But basic proximity will go a long way.

It's not part of the original story, but I'll add it now since mhays brought it up. One casualty of the new project is the Zipcar "pod" in the parking spaces behind the Washington Lung Association building. Sure, they've moved some of the cars to nearby surface lots, but I hate to see them go!

Trust me, Seattle's "progressives" do not, never have, and never will care about the environment. All that matters is a "green" appearance.

"King and Snohomish actually both lost people in 2011..."

http://seattlebubble.com/blog/2012/08/08/migration-into-washington-on-the-mend/

But please, keep building...it will create work...when we tear them down in two years as empty derelicts.

More humor jabailo! You read it wrong.

The blog post was about MIGRATION. I suspect it was only domestic migration. There's also BIRTHS OVER DEATHS.

I did 30 seconds of research. This is the SeattleBubble guy's source. It notes the natural increase point, which is generally around 40,000 per year for the state. It also notes significant growth per county. It also looks like the migration is overall, not just domestic. http://www.ofm.wa.gov/news/release/2012/120625.asp

I find it interesting that Wood Partners (which actually purchased the property just this week) intends to put a 27-tower not on the HALF block but on the QUARTER block. Allowed to to this by NOT building on the OTHER quarter block.

Sites of that size are pretty common. I can think of two other similar towers being built currently in Belltown on similar sites, one mid-block and the other on a corner.