December 16, 2014

Legacy aims for 2016 start on 11th & Pine

Rendering courtesy of Ankrom Moisan Architects [enlarge]

The White Motor building will go before the Landmarks Preservation Board on Wednesday. The developer wants to incorporate the facades of two auto-row-era buildings.

Legacy Commercial of Bellevue said it hopes to start construction in spring of 2016 on a mixed-use project at the southwest corner of 11th Avenue and Pine Street that will incorporate the facades of two auto-row-era buildings.

The project on Capitol Hill will have 17,000 square feet of retail, 60,000 square feet of office space, 16 apartments and 141 parking stalls.

The street-facing facades of the White Motor Company Building and the Kelly-Springfield Motor Truck Company Building will be preserved, said Will Nelson, an asset manager for Legacy, a family-owned commercial real estate company.

Also some materials from the buildings will be incorporated into the project. The White Motor building was constructed in 1918 and the other building in 1917.

A new building to the south will be part of the complex. Parking will be in it so historical facades of the older buildings do not have to be modified, Nelson said. He said Legacy wants to preserve the “experience” of those historic buildings, with their openness and high ceilings.

Capitol Hill needs more office space. Nelson said the Legacy project will let businesses grow in the neighborhood rather than move downtown.

“The neighborhood has been looking for additional office development because your office space is what creates that active street life and vibrant restaurants,” he said. “(Now) people leave the neighborhood during the day.”

Re-purposing historic buildings is popular. That coupled with the project's location on a prominent corner should make the retail attractive to customers and tenants, Nelson said.

The apartments, he said, round out the project and add to its unique nature.

Legacy Commercial has filed applications to nominate the White Motor and Kelly-Springfield buildings as city landmarks as part of the project's master use permit process.

Nelson said the Kelly-Springfield structure has been “nominated for further review” by the Seattle Landmarks Preservation Board.

The White Motor building will go before the board at 3:30 p.m. Wednesday in Seattle Municipal Tower, 700 Fifth Avenue, Room 4060. The application is at http://tiny.cc/cwoxqx/. It was prepared by The Johnson Partnership.

Nelson said the landmark review has “been the linchpin in the process” of developing the complex.

Legacy said it hopes both buildings are not determined to be city landmarks, and it is able to restore the exteriors “and preserve the integrity of the site for future residents of the Pike Pine Neighborhood.” The firm filed the nomination applications to “get some clarity of the appropriate path forward,” Nelson said.

If the Landmarks Preservation Board nominates a building as a city landmark, alterations or significant changes must be approved by the board and the building may only be demolished if the owner can demonstrate it does not have a reasonable economic use.

Ankrom Moisan Architects is the architect for the Legacy project.

The team also includes Place Studio, landscape architect; Coughlin Porter Lundeen, civil engineer; and Riley Group, environmental and geotechnical engineering.

Legacy acquired the Kelly-Springfield building at 1525 11th Ave. and the adjacent lot in 1996. That building is home to Value Village.

It acquired the White Motor building at 1021 East Pine in 2006.