Comments on: What Does TOD Look Like?

by: Morgan Wick

Thu, 17 Jul 2008 18:07:29 +0000

Don’t just talk about this! Write City Council members and the mayor, and see if you can get time to address the Council!

by: Hey Wait

Wed, 04 Jun 2008 18:43:30 +0000

One more note… though I doubt it’ll be seen by the person asking the question…

Woodframe construction is good up to seven stories.

Assuming you have a concrete base (retail) floor, you can build seven stories of woodframe to hit the 85′ limit.

Anything higher is concrete/steel.

by: Hey Wait

Wed, 04 Jun 2008 18:40:11 +0000

Two notes:

1.
http://noisetank.com/hugeasscity/2008/06/02/the-tod-challenge-how-do-we-make-a-circle-from-a-line-part-1-in-a-series/#comment-2489

2.
I saw somewhere that SHA will be selling and/or willing to partner on the corner lots that it owns nearest to the light rail station. Maybe they’re waiting for the upzone before proceeding? (I hope.)

by: schottsie

Tue, 03 Jun 2008 03:45:29 +0000

Sabina - Yes! Real TOD can not just follow the linear path of arterials designed for cars. We need to draw a circle around the stations — the 1/2 mile radius or 5-minute walk radius — and upzone the entire station area to allow for more transit-supportive densities. And as important as the densities are the improved pedestrian connections throughout the station area. All paths should lead back to the station itself, where people can hop on the train and go downtown or to the airport, and from there make connections to anywhere else in the region.
That said, there is a market, and a real need for affordable housing throughout the city. Often it is apartments along arterials that fill that need. So we do need that type of development too.
And back to Steve - True, SHA may not have had the money to go higher. But with the zoning at NC-40′, it was never on the table. I imagine that SHA received money from the Seattle Housing Levy and the Hope Six programs based on the number of units in the project…so I would think that an increase in density would have brought in more dollars for construction. But I have no idea if another floor or two would have penciled out. I’d like to think that they gave the matter some good thought. But I suspect that the neighborhood opposition to the increased height prevented that conversation from going too far.

by: Sabina Pade

Tue, 03 Jun 2008 01:25:35 +0000

The present example does appear a missed opportunity. One question, however: how many people working downtown or at Sea-Tac airport, the presumptive destinations of most light rail riders residing in the MLK corridor, would opt to live directly on MLK, in a mid-rise wood-frame structure with large windows?

Big busy arteries, after all, are noisy. Conventional wood-frame construction and the large surfaces of thin window glass typical of residential structures are relatively ineffective at rejecting powerful low-frequency sound pressure waves such as those generated by truck engines; and even 6″ of reinforced concrete is not impervious to the blare of sirens.

Seems to me that genuine TOD, along the MLK corridor, will involve upzoning not so much along MLK itself, but along the smaller adjoining streets presently lined with single-family houses.

by: Steve

Mon, 02 Jun 2008 23:33:03 +0000

Schottsie — I think you’re right that SHA either owned the land already or would have gotten it at the same price.

That said, I’d meant to question whether SHA would pay the added construction costs rather than the added land costs. As I understand it, building higher usually costs more. I am not a developer, though — I don’t have a great sense of how much more, say, a 6 story wood/concrete building would cost versus a 4 story wood-only building (which is, I think, what they built).

At any rate, I’d like to see taller buildings here, too, but I’m not convinced it will happen even with an upzone unless the neighborhood gets fancier or construction costs drop.

by: Schottsie

Mon, 02 Jun 2008 21:43:48 +0000

Steve - I believe that both Rainier Vista and NewHolly were redevelopments of older SHA projects, and presumably the price to amass those properties was restricted by the covenants in place…so I don’t think that an increase in height should have affected the purchase price for the land. That’s my guess. If anyone knows otherwise, let me know.
The design of both redevelopments happened in conjunction with Seattle’s station area planning (1998-2001). (See http://www.seattle.gov/transportation/ppmp_sap_home.htm for more info.) The surrounding communities were not comfortable with the height increases to allow for more transit-supportive densities that were proposed as a part of that process. As a result, the upzones, where they occurred at all, were minimal.
Now that folks can see the stations, and the occasional train making a practice run through parts of the line, I think there may be a better reception to a discussion of height increases. The real question is when will Seattle initiate that discussion?

by: Steve

Mon, 02 Jun 2008 19:03:05 +0000

Matt the Engineer - Agreed, totally. Giving developers more flexibility shouldn’t be a bad thing (e.g. if concrete and steel prices suddenly drop a bunch and taller buildings become much cheaper).

Schottsie - SHA has a budget too, though — would they have been willing to spend more on a per-square-foot basis to get higher densities?

Ballard seems like an interesting case study on zoning for height. As I understand it, large areas of Ballard have been in 65 and 85 foot zones for years, with no real action. In the last few years, though, when Ballard suddenly became hip, we’ve gotten literally thousands of new housing units in these mid-rise zones.

by: Jonathan

Mon, 02 Jun 2008 18:55:29 +0000

One thing I’ve been wondering about is the construction price per square foot of residential or commercial space as a function of building height. (I’m sure this depends on the building footprint and a thousand other factors, but I’m looking for some kind of guideline.)

i.e. If you take out the land costs, how much more or less would it cost to build three 6 story buildings vs. one 24 story building with the same usable square footage?

Does anyone have a sense of this?

I suspect that there are many competing factors; wood frame construction works up to maybe 65 feet; the commodity prices of wood vs. concrete vs. steel etc. are always fluctuating, though perhaps in a relatively narrow band. Parking is a factor; in TOD projects presumably the requirement would be relaxed. The footprint of the site is surely a factor. The “tower on pedestal” building form is sort of a hybrid of low-rise and high-rise, and there are many other building forms, but for the comparison I’m looking for at least initially is for your basic rectangular box.

by: Schottsie

Mon, 02 Jun 2008 18:38:35 +0000

True, a private developer may not risk going to 75′ in the valley today, but an SHA project would have been the perfect opportunity to help shift both the market and the vision for the station areas. But if the zoning says NC-40′, then there is no other option. Rainier Vista and NewHolly are opportunities lost — large amounts of publicly owned land adjacent to light rail stations.
In addition, SHA has had difficulty renting the retail space at Rainier Vista because of the restrictive parking regulations in station areas. Businesses are reluctant to shift from the auto-centric model that tells them that all customers arrive in vehicles. But retail also has a different model for denser areas…e.g. the same Bartell Drug that mandates 150 surface parking spots in an outlying neighborhood is content with none when they site the store downtown because they know the higher residential and office densities will supply ample foot traffic. And here is the true opportunity lost by SHA. Had they built to a higher residential density, there would have been sufficient folks living in the community to support the retail on foot. But alas, that is not we got.