From the Aug 28 – Sep 3, 2003 issue

News

Iffert's Effort

Broadway Developer Sy Iffert Wants to Raise Broadway Heights

by Amy Jenniges

"I know I'm the bad guy," Broadway property owner Sy Iffert told the crowd, a group of nearly 50 neighborhood residents and business owners who came to an August 14 meeting at Capitol Hill's Seattle Central Community College to hear about an economic and land-use study of ailing Broadway.

Several residents had just finished preaching against increasing density and redeveloping the strip when Iffert--whose business card tags him as a commercial property developer--stood up. Undeterred by the NIMBY anti-developer sentiment, Iffert made the case for a bigger, better, denser, redeveloped Broadway, the kind he and several of his property-owner colleagues have in mind.

Those Capitol Hill property owners--who have formed a group and plan to tax themselves to hire more Broadway cops--envision a lively strip where people live in apartments above street-level retail businesses and restaurants that they patronize. But first, property owners need to convince Capitol Hill residents that they aren't out to ruin Broadway for their own profit. And they need the go-ahead from the city to create taller buildings.

Iffert--a World War II veteran from Minnesota who's owned property on the southeast corner of Broadway and East John Street for over 30 years--told the crowd about his efforts to revamp his building, which have been squashed by the city's land-use regulations. He's twice hired architects to design a new structure--most likely something taller, with living space above retail (currently, his building houses Twice Sold Tales, Perfect Copy & Print, and Piroshky's Russian bakery). But both times, zoning restrictions (his property is only slated for 40-foot-tall structures, and he needs 65 feet of breathing room) and parking and open-space rules killed the idea. "The restrictions are so high," Iffert told the crowd in a quiet but firm voice. Building codes on Broadway "need to be redone," Iffert continued, so he and others--like Bob Burkheimer, who owns the QFC complex at East Republican Street--can redevelop ["Raise the Roof," Amy Jenniges, April 10]. "There's density there to have multilevel buildings. We want to make the street better."

Iffert's comments drew silence. He quickly strode to the back of the room, and out the door.

Later, Randy Wiger--president of the Capitol Hill Stewardship Council, the group that oversees the neighborhood's master plan--points out that there's already plenty of density. "Fifteen thousand people already live within five blocks of Broadway," Wiger says.

amy@thestranger.com