UW will be spreading into the U District in a new way
The University of Washington has announced plans to build a lot of new student housing on the west side of its main campus, filling in parking lots and easing the space crunch for the 5,100 students who now live in dorms. There will be eight new buildings, mostly six stories high. This is a good move, for several reasons, and an interesting opportunity for urbanism.
UW President Mark Emmert wants undergraduates to have a richer student life, beyond just attending classes and the occasional football game. Having more places to live on campus, and in dorms that have seminar rooms and auditoriums, is a good step in this direction. Most nights, the UW really does feel like a commuter campus, with few folks around and few events scheduled. And of course with housing so expensive in Seattle, more UW students have to live farther away from campus.
For a long time, the University District tended to think of the UW as a large beast that needed to be kept in its cage, stopped from expanding outward. The new thinking is that campus and nearby city should not be sharply demarcated but more shuffled together, with commercial spaces interpenetrating ivory towers. The Ave, having been hollowed out by competition from University Village and the invasion of teenagers, is now much more interested in welcoming the University to revitalize dead blocks and bring more streetlife. The UW has a fine record of building handsome, contextual new buildings on campus. Now it has a chance to show architectural and urbanistic flare on the perimeter.
A footnote: Mike McGavick, who was Safeco CEO from 2001-05, is leaving Seattle to head a Bermuda insurance firm, XL Capital Ltd. McGavick was a strong advocate, while at Safeco, for creating a more vibrant University District, along the lines of Cambridge, Mass. It wasn't easy: the UW was standoffish, and ultimately Safeco (under McGavick's successor) decided to move headquarters to downtown. Safeco Tower will now become UW Tower, staking new presence for the U. in the district. So maybe McGavick's advocacy paid off? At any rate, his strong concern for city values will be missed.
Comments:
Posted Tue, Mar 18, 2:27 p.m. inappropriate
thrilled: This would be incredible for the U-District and for Seattle.
Seattle wants more affordable housing. Building these projects would allow thousands of students to vacate existing off-campus housing, meaning way more units of cheap housing for everyone else.
It would reduce transportation demands by putting thousands of people closer to school. Further, those who work Downtown or basically anywhere would have easy bus service to get there. Better yet, many work in the U-District, and their lives will get a lot easier.
It would greatly energize the U-District. 2,133 new beds is a LOT. The U-District is densely populated and energetic, but nowhere near as much as it should be.
Of course it's great for the students and university programs as you say.
Posted Wed, Mar 19, 9:14 a.m. inappropriate
DORM STIMULUS: Seems like a good idea. I have to wonder though whether dormitories are very good at enlivening shopping streets. The Post WWII dorms on Campus Parkway and the later developments along NE Pacific haven't ever stimulated anything like commercial bustle down there. That was then, I guess. What is apparently being proposed (incidentally, that link goes to an ecco-housing article, not the UW proposal) sounds good.
The strategy to neutralize the 16 yr. old population street population with a horde of 18 year olds has got to be unprecedented.
Posted Wed, Mar 19, 9:29 a.m. inappropriate
response: (Wow this website is slow! Hopefully I'm remembering your points, which unfortunately aren't shown once the comment window is open.)
The 18 vs 16 year old point is interesting, but I think the situation it's better than that. We're talking panhandlers vs kids that are at least trying to go for careers. Despite all the unflattering things than can be said regarding hordes of underclassmen, they certainly liven up a lot of college business districts, including ours to a degree.
I agree that the existing dorms haven't resulted in a great retail street right there. But they've certainly helped the Ave. The Ave can work very well because it's concentrated retail rather than dispersed retail. Maybe one or two of the new buildings should have significant retail too, but hopefully this is limited. Seattle has a bad habit of requiring more retail than the density of people merits, which results in a lot of half-assed retail strips and few great retail streets.
Posted Wed, Mar 19, 5:53 p.m. inappropriate
Why only six stories?: I guess I am not sure why they would limit these to just six stories. In an area intended for light rail and already one of the better-served for transit and urban services, why not up the density? As long as the buildings can be sited/designed in a way to minimize view capture or solar capture, why not go higher?
If UW believes 48 stories is all that is necessary to meet demand, then I can see the limitation. If we think out of the box, however...
-o- How about tossing on a couple of extra stories of low-income or "workforce" housing?
-o- How about building six buildings at eight stories and pop in a couple of pocket parks in the other two spots?
-o- How about building them seven stories each and sell the top floors to fund low-income scholarships for UW students?
By some reports, we have enough zoned density in the city to handle our population expansion needs. Being smart about increasing density in already dense areas with good concurrency in terms of transit service saves money and political headaches involved in trying to upzone less dense areas with poor concurrency.
Posted Wed, Mar 19, 6:11 p.m. inappropriate
RE: Why only six stories?: I totally agree about density. The U-District is a great place for buildings at least a little taller than six stories. In fact, because most residents will walk, ride transit, or bike, the U-D can handle virtually any sort of density without the transportation impacts many naysayers typically complain about.
Still, six stories with high occupancy per square foot is pretty good.
Posted Wed, Mar 19, 6:14 p.m. inappropriate
RE: Why only six stories?: More... I'm not sure whether you'd get much help for scholarships out of that deal, or really any financial benefit at all for that extra floor or two -- you'd have to offset the cost of the additional floors, plus an 8-story building will cost more than a 6-story building per square foot, as only the top 5 can be wood. But I love the park idea. The dorm neighborhood could really use another one.
Posted Fri, Mar 21, 9:02 a.m. inappropriate
Neighborhood Plan?: I was a member of the neighborhood plan board for the University District during the early 90's - first to be done in the City. I actually didn't live there and wasn't currently enrolled.
The University District was my favorite place to hang out - I had a P.O. Box there and was a regular at the Allegro cafe. I actually lived in Madrona - only a couple blocks from Mr. Brewster, on the same street. I served on the community organization there as Secretary for 3 years. Never met Mr. Brewster there, though I'd hope we have at least one or two friends in common. FWIW Dwight Pelz was also a resident and never met him around the area either.
I'm not one of these anti-growth types, instead taking a centrist position - the only apparent result was being turned into a pariah by both sides.
The UW as landlord though strikes me as a bad idea. These are the same folks that brought us Sound Transit, failed Wamu, and have created a monopolistic bully in Microsoft - not to mention criminally conspired with Jack Abramoff to undermine our nation's integrity.
Mr. McGavick's citizenship in the University District may have been laudable, but his leadership of Safeco is, apparently, not so. Just ask any customer whose claim was denied so that they could afford their grand HQ, better than anything their neighbor Microsoft has.
Not that Microsoft is the subject here.