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Frances Skinner Edris Nurses Home building receives landmark status

Durkan says waterfront LID has needed

support

City council to consider legislation for local improvement district to generate $160 million

By Brandon Macz QA&Mag News editor

Mayor Jenny Durkan used the Seattle Aquarium as the venue last Thursday to announce that there is enough support from property owners to transmit legislation to the city council for creating a local improvement district for the $712 million Waterfront for All project.

Negotiations with property owners, who had been

Restoration work to start when ACS moves out; 43-unit Arbor Place to be constructed next door

By Brandon Macz QA&Mag News editor

The Seattle City Council last month approved the landmark status of the historic Frances Skinner Edris Nurses Home in Queen Anne, which has been home to the American Cancer Society since the 1980s.

Equinox Properties developer Brian Regan nominated the building at 2120 First Ave. N. for landmark status, with plans to develop a 43-unit apartment building in an adjacent parking lot.

The building originally housed the nurses home for the Children’s Orthopedic Hospital, which later came to be known as Seattle Children’s Hospital. A new Children’s Orthopedic Hospital was constructed in 1911, and now serves as the Queen Anne Manor senior living facility.

The Fresh Air Cottage preceded it in 1908, and the Frances Skinner Edris Nurses Home was built in 1923, after the cottage was razed. It was redesigned by the original architect, A.H. Albertson, in 1928, and is a mix of Colonial and Mission Revival features.

Arbor Space LLC purchased the property from ACS for $4.2 million in 2017. The Seattle Landmarks Preservation Board approved its designa-

tion on May 16, and the city council granted its approval on Dec. 18.

Regan tells Queen Anne News that the landmarked building will be restored and the interior updated when ACS moves out later this year. It will be known as Arbor Space, and continue serving non-residential uses.

The Arbor Place apartment development next door has gone through administrative design review by the West Design Review Board, and is in the final phase of the master use permit zoning and environmental review process, which Regan expects to take another 2-3 months.

Final plans will be submitted to the Seattle Department of Construction and Inspections after that, which could mean another 12 months before construction can start, according to Regan.

While several residents worried about the loss of street trees around the site, Regan says they will remain, and are the reason the project is called Arbor Place.

The building will be 30 feet tall, plus another 5 feet for a pitched roof, with 16 underground parking spaces. Residences will be 39 small-efficiency dwelling units and four one-bedrooms.

looking at covering $200 million of the project to revitalize Seattle’s waterfront once the Alaskan Way Viaduct comes down, had been expected to conclude last year, with legislation going to the city council by late November. If 60 percent opposed the LID, the legislation would not have gone through. Protests filed as of early December had reached 52 percent, according to the Seattle Times.

Durkan said during the Jan. 3 news conference there were enough property owners had signed a

Legislation for a local improvement district to revitalize Seattle’s waterfront is now ready for vetting by the city council, and has been negotiated down from $200 million to $160 million, and will not include supplemental property assessments down the road.

written agreement not to protest the LID that she is confident the legislation will proceed.

“They’ve agreed they will not protest,” the mayor said.

The city has signatures representing at least 51 percent of the impacted property owners, an agreement hashed out with those future LID payers reducing their portion of the Waterfront for All project cost from $200 million to $160 million. The

(Above) The Frances Skinner Edris Nurses Home building at 2120 First Ave. N. has been granted Seattle landmark status. Image from Google(Left)The 43-unit Arbor Place apartment building will be constructed in the adjacent parking lot possibly sometime near the end of 2019. Courtesy image

Photo by Brandon Macz

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city is also agreeing not to conduct any supplemental property assessments in the future, and property owners inside the LID will not be responsible for covering project cost overruns.

A typical condo owner in the local improvement district is expected to pay a $1,900 median one-time assessment, or $95 per year for 20 years, plus interest. A commercial property owner would pay about $5,900 on average, or $295 per year for 20 years, plus interest. The interest rate would be based on the bond rates for the project.

Durkan said the entire city is bearing the cost of the Waterfront for All project, but it is those who will benefit the most who need to support it.

There are 6,310 individual tax parcels within the proposed LID boundary, and about 4,960 are residential condo units in more than 54 projects. The special benefit those property owners are expected to see from the Waterfront for All project is increases in property values.

“For all of them, the investment will be more than worth it,” the mayor said.

The agreement will also result in the formation of a new Waterfront Park Conservancy nonprofit charged with enforcing the agreement as the exclusive agent for property owners.

Durkan said increased capacity from the commercial parking tax is being realized as bonds expires, and will be applied to the $40 million difference from the LID reduction.

“It will not be new taxes,” Durkan said about filling the gap.

The LID legislation will first go before Councilmember Debora Juarez’s Civic Development, Public Assets & Native Communities Committee.

The Waterfront for All project is also being funded through $110 million raised by Friends of the Waterfront — with payments spread out from 2018 to 2024 — $249 million in city funding and $193 million from the state.

The Waterfront for All project includes an Overlook Walk that connects Pike Place Market to the waterfront, a rebuilt Pier 62 and floating dock, expanded Waterfront Park, an Ocean Pavilion at the Seattle Aquarium, a promenade from Pine Street to Pioneer Square along the waterfront, a new seawall already under construction and rebuilds of Alaskan Way and Elliott Way for multimodal uses.

The LID will support the Waterfront Park, pedestrian improvements on Pike and Pine streets from First to Melrose avenues, a Union Street pedestrian link from Western Avenue to the waterfront, the Overlook Walk, promenade and street improvements in Pioneer Square.

State Route 99 will close for three weeks starting at 10 p.m. Friday, Jan. 11, so WSDOT can connect the highway to a new two-mile tunnel from SODO to Seattle Center. Once the viaduct is decommissioned, it will take six months to remove the structure, which has been a barrier between downtown and the waterfront for more than 60 years.

“I know change is not always easy,” Durkan said. “There are many, including myself, who have a little love for the viaduct.”

But the viaduct represents the city’s “gritty past,” the mayor said, and its loss will make way for a waterfront that is “quintessentially Seattle.”

 LID,

Photo by Brandon Macz

Mayor Jenny Durkan said the city has enough support from property owners to get LID legislation passed for the Waterfront for All project during a news conference at the Seattle Aquarium on Thursday, Jan. 3.