The West Seattle Junction parking lots that since the 1950's have provided easy access for patrons of the area are headed for development. The questions of what and when remain open.

An online meeting presented by the West Seattle Junction Association (WSJA) and Community Roots Housing  (CRH) on Oct. 21 presented a much  more detailed look at the plans the two organizations have developed, to construct a mix of affordable housing, retail, and community enhancements. 

Led by Executive Director of the WSJA Lora Radford, the meeting began with a brief history. 

SEE THE FULL PRESENTATION HERE

Radford explained, "In the 50s we had a group of folks that we're really beginning to look at the the West Seattle Junction as the hub. for West Seattle. And they decided it would be a great idea to put in some free parking lots. And so in the mid in the mid nineteen 1953 -1954 three parking lots were put in the junction and these were used for free parking for the community. A few years later, a fire station that was in the junction, it was moved and that became the 4th free parking lot."

Though not mentioned by Radford in this meeting that organization, called the West Seattle Trusteed Partners (WSTP) was originally comprised of local business and land owners, who formed a Type S corporation, and signed a covenant with the city to provide parking. That ownership group remains in control of the land and will have their first shareholder meeting and election of officers in more than 2 years on Oct 28. 

"And over years from like the mid 1950s to the mid 1980s, the residents and the business owners. ... would go around from business to business and they would ask the businesses to chip in money to pay for taxes. The maintenance for these parking lots ... as you can imagine, it was an awful lot of work. And a lot of begging for money and asking people to chip in to pay for taxes. 

And so it was decided in 1987 to create what was called a business improvement area or BIA. And the West Seattle Junction (Association) was born."

Radford explained that the WSJA is one of ten in Seattle and over time has evolved into an events producer and promoter bringing the West Seattle Summerfest, Hometown Holidays, Harvest Festival, the flower baskets and a lot more to the district.

In 2016, the King County Treasurer  and tax assessor's office began to look at the assessed value of the land in the Junction. Since that time the taxes have increased by 142% since 2013 said Radford and have continued to go up. That higher cost led to the conversion of the free lots to paid parking earlier this year. 

Over the ensuing months, the shortage of affordable housing was getting a lot of attention at City Hall and the city sold some assets and set aside funds for the acquisition of land to meet that need.

Community Roots Housing and the WSJA began looking at the potential to develop the land for that purpose.  CRH paid for an appraisal on the land value. They determined it was worth $14,490,000. The Executive committee of the WSTP has maintained that the value of the land is far higher, ranging up to $18,000,000 but there's an important factor in the valuation. The land is currently leased by the WSJA and 17 years remain on the lease. This is known an as an encumbrance and would prevent any development unless or until that lease is either broken or expires.

The presentation continued with Jeremy Wilkening of CRH taking over. He explained that CRH is what is called a Public Development Authority. They are non-profit and are chartered by the City of Seattle. Their primary mission is to create affordable housing.

""The primary way we build affordable housing is through the use of low income housing tax credit, which limits the incomes up to 60% of the area median income, which I know is a very dry way to think about it. What that really means is it relates to what the income is in the Seattle area. But it's roughly for a family of four, somebody making $60,000 a year. For a family of two, it's roughly $40,000. It varies by family size."

There's a chart on the city website. 

Wilkening went on to explain that, "The City of Seattle Housing Levy, which is our primary piece of money we use, does favor smaller units.  And that was all of us as voters voted on that...the city at that time was like trying to deploy the money. So it is typically smaller units... Ever since then, we're evolving more into trying to do more larger bedroom units so we we do try to favor as many larger bedroom units as we can with input from the community.  But you know, I think that would be something important to talk about as we're designing the building. There's no decisions made on unit count."

What about the loss of parking?

"We get funded through the city to build housing and that money could not be used to create public parking. But we are very concerned around the loss of these parking lots and want to work with Lora, with the junction, with everybody in this call to figure out how to replace the parking and how many parking spaces we would replace. I think it's it's very much economics. It's very much where do we find the money to replace public parking?  And when I say public parking, I'm not talking about like we're going to build a parking lot that's primarily for the residents. It's true public parking. It's parking that's available for people to park to go to the businesses."

Radford shared that in a parking study conducted by SDOT in 2018 they found that while 47% used a private vehicle, only 29% of people drove alone to the junction. 27% walked there. The remainder used a carpool, transit or biked.

Radford answered what she said was a common question. Has the loss of free parking impacted sales for the merchants there?

"The answer is no," she said, "Sales didn't. decrease for our retail people like Husky Deli or like Elliott Bay or the Beer Junction. 

But what we found was the parking lots were far emptier than they were before. And if you remember before we moved to paid parking... again, this is pre pandemic, but you will go on a Friday, Saturday night even on Thursday and you would drive around for forever trying to find a parking space and... people would just give in and just go home 'cause they just couldn't find parking. 

But what we found is the people who were using our parking lots when they were merchant funded are free to the community. are the people that we're living in the apartment buildings. Or they're parking their car in the parking lots and hopping on the metro. So when we talk about people, shopping or dining in the junction, keep in mind that maybe 700 parking spaces. within the district maybe isn't quite needed any longer."

Akeyla from CRH spoke briefly about some of the other properties that they have developed including the Liberty Bank Building in the Central District, Station House, 110 units located on Sound Transit land on Capitol Hill, and finally the White Center Hub a project they are currently developing to be built just east of White Center replacing the former King County Public Health building. This project is being built in partnership with the White Center Community Development Association.

Jason Roberts with architectural firm Ankrom Moisan then shared their "Feasibility Study" for developing the land. He pointed out that there are three sites on 44th SW and one on 42nd SW.

The height of the sites is different with the larger parcel on 42nd SW possibly rising to 85 feet high and stepping down lower as the hill slopes toward Alaska Street SW. The sites on 44th would only go up to 65 feet. To save on construction costs he pointed out that they would be concrete and steel construction only on the first floor with wood construction for the remainder.

"We really think it's important these fit in this neighborhood," said Roberts, speaking of sidewalks and spaces outside that promote engagement by people in the area. "We're really interested in creating some outdoor spaces adjacent to the sidewalk and making them public if we can the the way the buildings tend to work on the alley they want to kind of step back and have outdoor space on the front side."

Roberts spoke about how the ideas they have would work. "One of our ideas is to to make sure we maintain the ability to get through these blocks with kind of through block connections. So the ability to walk underneath the building and get to the alley to get into some of those spaces along the alley... the the blocks are fairly long, so we think it's nice to be able to make it more porous."

"There's an idea about an incubator space in Site 2 where we imagine people building mostly food related businesses as an open kitchen and probably... imagine big opening doors that engage the courtyard on that building and then the residents that will live on these parcels also have their own community. "

The size of the parcel on 42nd to the east of California Ave SW allows for bigger apartments.

"We're trying to create affordable family housing there, meaning we have a a bigger mix of of two and three bedroom units in that parcel," said Roberts, "We also imagined some retail space and the residents would have a common area and we have a ground level outdoor space with the ability to walk through the block," 

The site at Edmunds and 44th would be aimed at Senior housing and would also have a common area, likely a roof deck and some public outdoor space at street level. 

At the two largest sites, 1 and 2 Ankrom Moisan sees the potential for underground parking. How that gets paid for remains unclear however, since again, CRH cannot fund that portion of any development. It's not possible on the smaller sites since as Roberts explained, "When you go down, you need to create ramps and and it's it's pretty challenging, yet you sometimes end up getting not that many spaces for all the work." CRH Communications and Philanthropy Manager Jessica Sherwin said in a follow up to the meeting, "CRH is looking into creative ways to find funding for the parking. We cannot use any of the city funds specifically allocated for affordable housing on the parking component, but that does not prohibit us from prospecting and securing non-city funds to move the parking piece of the development forward."

The plans they laid out also showed room for a community meeting space on site 3 on 44th SW. and the buildings as conceived would have set backs, to reduce the scale on the street and more comfortably fit into the neighborhood.

All this takes place against a background of uncertainty. The WSTP board maintains that the value of the land is closer to $18,000,000 but have not paid for a formal appraisal, or if they have, have not shared it publicly. That opinion would hold more value if there was some clarity on how they plan to resolve the issue of the lease. It's possible they could take legal action to break it but it has thus far been ironclad. A shareholders meeting on Oct 28, the first in 2 plus years could potentially feature some discussion of the CRH offer but sources familiar with the matter have indicated that the Executive Board of WSTP would not permit a vote since they plan to look at other offers on the property before presenting anything to the shareholders. 

Even if the offer was accepted, CRH said during the presentation that it would not get under way until 2023 or 2024 and would not happen all at once.