The Sunset Bowl in Ballard has lost a bid for historic landmark status—after the developer gutted the interior. (Not that Sunset Bowl, a humble building, would have qualified.) But members of the city’s Landmark Preservation Board were surprised that the potentially historic components were removed before they made a decision. Reports the Ballard News Tribune:
“The building is very unremarkable architecture,” said Tom Veith of the [landmarks preservation] board. “There is nothing distinct about it at all.”
However a concern Veith also had of Sunset was that the nomination came forward after the interior had been demolished and the original owners auctioned off items. Veith said he found it a little disturbing that when everyone learned that the building would be sold for land value only, the interior was destroyed before the landmark nomination. By doing this it took away some of the value of the original building.
I wouldn’t write this off as a procedural technicality that affected one dispensable building. In October, new owners of the MJA Building on Second Avenue and Stewart Street defaced the 1914 structure’s terra cotta facade. Tenants and neighbors said it was an attempt to block a landmark preservation bid next year. (It lost a nomination for landmark status by two votes in 2004 when only seven of the board’s 12 members attended the meeting.) It turns out, the new owners, Iowa-based Principal Global Investors Limited, commissioned a feasibility study to build a 20-story office building on the site. And if the building is nominated for landmark status next year, it won’t qualify.
This suggests the landmark preservation process contains a loophole. Property owners can strip a building to avoid landmark preservation, thus allowing them to develop the site. The city—the Department of Planning and Development or the city council—should make sure that if a building may be nominated for landmark status that no significant changes would be allowed to the structural or historical elements without a preliminary review from the landmark board.
The Sunset Bowl will be replaced by the Avalon Ballard, a six-story, mixed use building:
Your last sentence is missing the ending: “in about ten years, after a decade as a waterlogged hole in the ground, surrounded by chain link and graffitied plywood, sucking the life out of what ought to be one of the most vibrant corners in the city but which instead is one of its greatest shitholes”.
There’s a difference between preserving buildings with historic significance and using preservation as a way to prevent change. The Sunset may have been beloved, but it was a SHIT HOLE of a building. Using historic preservation this way makes the whole idea a joke.
Gutting for fun and profit!
Speaking of s.h. buildings, what ever happened to WaMu – I hear it’s being converted into homeless housing …
I’ve notice the NYT has been running a series on their city’s landmarks and loopholes developers have used to get around their Landmarks Commission. This one echoed what the MJA owners did:
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/11/29/arts/d…
If the Sunset Bowl was profitable, it would probably stay open.
Buildings that may be nominated should be protected until the Landmark Preservation Board makes a decision? Who designates which buildings may be nominated? The May Be Landmark Preservation Board?
Wouldn’t developers game the process by destroying parts of buildings that might could May Be Landmarks? You’d need a Might Could May Be Landmarks Preservation Board to protect these buildings until the May Be Landmark Board makes a decision.
Or perhaps we need a Not A Landmark Board to designate what is fair game.
Or perhaps the existing board could simply get a move on and protect what needs protecting instead of dithering until it’s too late.
Technical question: how did it lose by two votes in 2004, with 7 people voting? Wouldn’t the vote be 3-4 (losing by 1) or 2-5 (losing by 3)?
I have to ask: Why do we keep building condos when we can’t fill the ones we have?
@2, the Sunset Bowl was nominated by its current owner — the developer — in order to get the ruling out of the way. By receiving a “not a landmark” ruling now, there’s no threat of a “landmark” ruling in the future. I don’t think anyone is claiming the Sunset Bowl building should have landmark status.
@5, Sunset Bowl was increasingly profitable over the last few years, and was profitable until the day it closed. At a point, though, the profits realized by the owners were dwarfed by what they could raise by selling the underlying land to Avalon. A bowling alley was profitable, but it wasn’t the most profitable use.
I sure hope they put a Gap and a Starbucks there!
Let’s say you own what could possibly be a historical site and it gets nominated by the good people of your neighborhood. You don’t want that nomination. Why? Because it forever limits what you can do with your building/land. And for those who aren’t already aware of this, the value of commercial land is completely tied to what you can do with it. Limit your development rights and you lose your value. I hope you have cash on hand, because you can’t actually fight a historical nomination for anything less than $25,000. Oh, and win or lose, the money you spent on your defense is totally unrecoverable. You can’t even sue your nominator for damages.
I work at a commercial appraisal firm that has been dealing with the historical preservation board on two separate projects. In my opinion, the system is terribly flawed. I could speak of its flaws for days, but here I’ll just give some brief examples. In one case, the building that was nominated was done so in a form of attack. The nomination was meant to keep the building’s owner from ever redeveloping and potentially denying views at the nominator’s new condo tower. The second nomination (different site) was put forward by the board, however in both cases the nomination was not something that the current owners were interested in obtaining. In fighting the nomination, which would cut the value of these sites by at least 70%, the owners have each had to spend more than $50,000 (so far) in mounting what any rational person would think is a comprehensive and well founded defense. Of course, that means nothing when you have to explain what a proforma is to the board’s “real estate finance guy,” if you catch my drift.
Shameful as it was, I can completely see why the owners of the building at 2nd and Stewart defaced it as they did. The system is fucked up, not the owners/developers who are doing shitty things to avoid potentially huge losses. There just aren’t any incentives that make up for the incredible loss in value and implied hardship that goes along with historical preservation.
@ 7) The MJA Building required a majority of the 12 board members to vote in favor of designating it a landmark. Of the seven who attended the meeting, five voted in favor and two opposed. So it fell two votes shy.
Pretty soon all those empty 12 story “mixed use” garbage piles will be “historic”; once they are abandoned by people leaving Seattle in droves…
@8, the builder is a Virginia-based behemoth that puts up and manages their properties as apartments, not condos. Careful upper management, pretty transparent about their quarterly results. So far no suffering to speak of on their balance sheet.
Just Great. It is going to look just like all of the other shitty new buildings in Seattle. Why are all of the architects around here so fucking lazy!
@15 I’m sure many (most?) local architects would gladly design innovative and attractive buildings, given the funding to do so. Unfortunately, most local developers want cookie cutter 5 over 2 mixed use buildings and could give a shit about innovative and attractive design. It’s not about what the architect has the capability to design, it’s about what the developer is willing to pay for.
What I want to know is when they tear down the bowling alley will they salvage the maple lanes? And how much per linear foot will it cost if they do?
What? I’m doing some remodeling!
@16…and, by extension, what buyers demand from the places they either rent or buy. The market is the primary engine driving good design.
It’s a shame to not preserve the outside facade of Sunset bowl, or just the “Sunset” letters. The lettering looks early 1960’s to me. Does anyone know what era this building was constructed?
@17 – I ask the same question about the wood. Real and beautiful wood doesn’t seem to be in big supply, why sentence the lanes to a garbage dump? This type of thing probably happens everywhere every day though.
@14: That actually makes me feel a little bit better. Not great, but better.
@18: If buyers aren’t offered better looking or better designed buildings, how much can they be blamed for making the best of the bad choices offered to them?
Sorry, when your choices are limited to the building pictured or the building pictured painted green, buyer demand becomes pretty limited.
And blame the developers (they are pretty much scum who don’t give a flying fuck about the community they are destroying as long as the money is good) I agree with you but it is also the architects who simply punch in lot size and number of floor info into a computer to produce a variation on every other building that is built in Seattle (Hell, a strip mall in LA has more originality).
But here’s to taking the path of least resistance. Seattle becomes a shithole so that we can line the pockets of some developer who doesn’t even live here.
Regarding the wood used for the lanes: don’t worry, it’ll be sold out to the highest bidder. Plenty of reclaimed-materials companies in this town. Those damn owners will continue to maximize their profits by all means available.
Sunset Bowl was built in 1956. The lanes will undoubtedly end up in the same place the wood from Leilani Lanes did — Re-Store in Ballard, and the other house-parts places. You could have refloored your whole house in that stuff for almost no money.
@ 11
“You don’t want that nomination. Why? Because it forever limits what you can do with your building/land. And for those who aren’t already aware of this, the value of commercial land is completely tied to what you can do with it. Limit your development rights and you lose your value.
Hmmm anyone else know what this sounds like?
Welcome to your version of the Critical Areas Ordinance! Folks with open farm country property are having to fight the same types of battles.
Sorry Preston, I hope you don’t expect any sympathy from your outlying neighbors. Many of you eco rabid hippies deserve an example of your own medicine.
Maybe now you’ll understand when someone who owns property out in the county is fighting for their right to do with their property as they wish to…
I’m sure you all can see the irony
People who buy buildings for millions of dollars and develop them in to multimillion dollar projects are not mom and pop outfits with a big dream and a lot of hope. They are stone cold investors and the know goddamn well what the odds of landmark status are and what it might cost them. It’s disgusting to hear any of them crying weepy tears because they had to spend $50 grand arguing about landmark status.
If they didn’t want to deal with that kind of government interference, they should have invested in one of the many, many shitholes that let you do as you please.
Why don’t they invest in those shitholes? Because the profits aren’t as good. Why are places like that shitholes? Because developers are allowed to do as they please.
It’s the same deal with the Critical Areas Ordinance and similar environmental regulation. If you really hate having hippies tell you what to do with your property, sell it and buy five times as much land in Idaho, where the rivers overflow with lead and mercury. I wonder how they got that way?
@17 and 19. I vaguely recall some pieces at the Pacific Galleries antique mall in SODO claiming to be made of Sunset Lanes wood. It’d be a great documentary or article or something to follow the various hunks of bowling lane from Ballard to tabletop, counter, cutting board, landfill or wherever it all ends up.
@19: I agree! The “Sunset” letters are totally cool! I hope they can be preserved someplace! Also the floors must be great.
I just have to say: wow. Is Seattle going to be renamed condo-ville?
Yup. There clearly oughta be a law.
condo like buildings in this era will be rentals – as markets improve, they will sell them
better condo markets will develop as supply goes down and there are few brand new units under construction – say in five or six years
If you want to be a landlord, this might be a good time to invest. Long term only, consider a 15 year hold. Drive a hard deal on price and terms, remember tax incentives by owning rental real estate.
While Avalon is letting that property become an eyesore, how about placing some of the blame on the original owners of the Sunset Bowl for selling their souls (most of them do not live in the community)? They were also owners of Lei Lani and look what happened there. Lei Lani had so much potential to become a landmark than the Sunset Bowl with it’s 50-60s retro designs.