UW News

November 10, 2004

New University Square design responds to community

UW News

UNICO Properties, the Seattle-based firm wishing to build a six-story retail, residential and office building at 42nd Street and 15th Avenue Northeast, has issued new designs that address neighborhood concerns about the project, which is called University Square.


Next, the designs will be reviewed by the City of Seattle’s Design Review Committee with an eye toward being given a Master Use permit enabling the project to proceed.


The development company, which also manages the UW’s holdings in downtown Seattle, is teaming with property owner The Wesley Foundation, on the building. The foundation is the local chapter of a nationwide, nonprofit religious organization, and operates in cooperation with the University Temple United Methodist Church, the site’s neighbor to the north. A residence for women students called The Wesley House stood on the site for years, until it was demolished in the late 1960s and a 58-stall parking lot was created in its place.


UNICO and the Foundation plan to build the six-story University Square building on the 16,480-square-foot site with about 48 apartments above three floors of office and retail space and about 85 stalls of public parking. The company hopes to break ground next summer and finish in the summer of 2006. The UW is interested in renting a floor of the building’s office space.


Several businesses in the area have voiced concern about the possibility of the building shuttering the open feel of the alley alongside the site, parallel to University Way and 15th Ave., which holds the popular Café Allegro. Some also worry that the building will reduce shopping traffic on the corner or kill the impressive ivy growing on the west side of the Magus Bookstore, which faces 42nd St.


Patrick McCabe, UNICO’s vice president for development and public voice for this project, said the company has held a couple of principles constant in the revised designs.


“One, our desire is to keep the Café Allegro vital, because it’s an important community asset and community gathering place,” McCabe said. “The owners were active in the community outreach program and participated in the design in workshops held about a month ago.”


McCabe continued, “And our other constant is our desire to make the alley a pedestrian place, but enhance it — to make it more of a pedestrian place than it is now.” He said the new designs feature a setback along the alley that will provide “breathing room” for the restaurant and needed daylight for the vines.


The project also includes two options for a mid-block passage between the University Square building and University Temple United Methodist Church, McCabe said, one being an open-air passage and the other covered by the building. He said the upper floors also are “stepped back” from the streetline to enhance the feeling of space in the design.


McCabe said UNICO is waiting to hear from the City of Seattle’s Design Review Board, which makes recommendations to the Planning Commission. Board members would then review the plans and suggest changes to the developer based on neighborhood planning guidelines. He said he has not yet heard back from the city, but hopes the process will be fairly short because of the work done beforehand.


“I think we’ve done a pretty good job of hearing the community and understanding their concerns and reflecting those concerns in our designs,” he said.