It’s been nearly one year since Sunset Bowl closed (April 13, 2008), but the 25,000 square foot building still stands on the corner of 14th and Market. Last October we got to see the development that could replace the old bowling alley.
Later this month the developer will be back in front of the Design Review Board with some changes. (Note: the image above is from the previous design review meeting. This is not necessarily the current plan.) The original project description was for a “six-story mixed-use building including 234 apartments above 15,000 square feet of retail. Parking for 294 cars below grade.” The new proposal has 13,000 square feet of retail space at ground level with 233 residential units above. There will be parking on two levels below-grade for 277 vehicles. The Design Review Board will be meeting on Monday, April 27th at 6:30 p.m. in the Ballard High School library. The meeting is open to the public.
Developer to show off Sunset Bowl replacement
Yuck
Copy. Paste. Done.
Yuck and boring.
wow, how do you say…damn…
*beats head against wall, repeatedly*
How about an amusement park on the roof?
Ballard is getting boring.
Didn't I see this unimaginative development “shown off” in Bellevue? Or was it South Lake Union? Yawn and yuck, indeed.
Needs a bowling alley on the roof.
Sexy. Needs razor wire and graffiti; could be popped.
no thanks
what was the original feedback from the design review board, other than 'make it smaller'?
this building should be set to the same standard as the Denny's turret building across the street. it's a pretty prominent corner and to see anything remotely looking like that rendering above would be abominable.
Its great to see more housing options on the way, but I agree with the other readers that they could put a little more thought into what they are building and how it will mesh with the surrounding community. I think it is quite telling that their mock-up shows the building with just a white background. Community? What community?
Maybe the sales offices for Canal Station, Trio, NoMa, Hjarta, Danielle, Leva, Ballard on the Park, Alexan, Broadstone, etc., etc. can all move into that 13,000 square feet of retail space. One-stop shopping, save gas and shoe leather.
And with all the retail space available in Ballard, maybe we'll finally get a second Starbucks on Market Street. 'Cuz you can never have too many corporate coffee outlets, y'know?
Yes, the future is bright indeed for Ballard!
Disclaimer: yes, I know density is good for the community, Starbucks is a great and benificent company, people need to live somewhere, and so on and so forth. But this building is just more of what we already have in abundance, mediocre mixed-use crapola that squeezes the life out of streets. Would it have been so inconceivable to let the Sunset Bowl survive?
wow.
are people really going to live in all these places?
There is a law of diminishing returns around here somewhere…
AB if you wanted Sunset Bowl to survive you could have purchased it from the land and business owner. Business is business.
I hope it's a mixed use building with retail on the bottom and condos on the top!!
Ballards' soul sold to the highest bidder. Sad really.
I forgot. I can't care about anything I don't own. Oops, sorry.
Here, let me take a sip of Kool-Aid. Ah. Nice. Look at that lovely design! Do you think there'll be a Gap store? Yes, I feel much better now.
YUCK! it's ugly and looks like most other condos I've seen….
poor ballard. i wanted to eventually buy a house there, but no longer. it will be completely bereft of character in 20 yrs. all they need now is a mall
AB I’m not trying to be snarky by stating the obvious. Of course you can care. I simply answered your question. It was perfectly conceivable that the lot continue as a bowling alley but it was not conceivable if no one wanted to use the lot and building for that purpose. It’s not as if the owners were forced to close or use of the space as a bowling alley was outlawed.
I was sorry to see it go also but I also knew that I had not been bowling in at least 35 years because I loathe bowling. The parking lot has been pretty empty for years so I assume others feel the same.
I am curious as to how the life is squeezed out of streets by high density? I would think more people would add life to our streets. Mixed use was always the norm for cities; well it was until the 50s and 60s and since. Was there no life in cities before the modern era?
Please, I imagine that there are talented architects around? Can no one come up with a more imaginative design that this box? I was so saddened to see the bowling alley sold, but an attractive design should not be out of the question here..
Why is there no standard for building in Ballard?!?!?
How can we stop this garbage from being built, or any of the crap they build here? Ballard used to be so amazing with it's old world charm, now it looks like Bellevue or any stripmall USA town!
Get rid of our city leaders who allow this to happen. Save Ballard, save Seattle!
There are plenty talented architects around. But sadly the big developers don't go to the talented guys. They go to the cheap guys who can crank out a drawing set for 234 units in two weeks. It's frustrating every time I see one of these renderings and think to myself, how do these guys get these juicy jobs? Maybe the answer is that they aren't really juicy after all.
Like I said earlier…copy, paste, done. Then vomit.
To be fair, everything around the old bowling alley is equally plain and ugly- this fits in. I am with everyone that questions the creative talent of the architects, however. This looks like something anyone with a ruler and 4 crayons can come up with. For the retail space on the first floor, I see a Teriyaki place, a Payday loan business, a Tanning salon, a Coffee shop and one artsy business that will fail within a year of opening. This is as bad as Carlos Silva.
The reason these things look like crap is because of all the fussy zoning zealots and community-planning busy-bodies in Seattle. When you cap every building at 6-stories, you force the floorplates out to the curb — to create enough leasable space to make the projects economically attractive. Then you come back & complain that there isn't enough pedestrian space and a lack of uniqueness and charm…
Well, guess what – We're competing with every other city for these development dollars. We can either get better at working WITH developers to reward good design (with variable heights, in exchange for architectural distinction — or get used to looking at ugly f'n boxes everywhere.
Please remember that every single time the “community” (the dozen or so freaks that argue vehemently against everything, like Jeannie Hale at Laurelhurst Community Club), demands a plan re-design, the more money it costs the developer. Now: How do you think they recover those costs. They cut corners on design and material quality, or push the floors out to the curb.
It's your choice boys and girls. These hyperactive community whiners and process-crazed city officials aren't making this a hospitable place to develop, so developers are simply going to slap-up cookie cutter boxes.
There must be someone somewhere that can make a 6 story building look better than this. Haussmann was able to make Paris attractive with 5 story apartment buildings… Ballard doesn't need skyscrapers. If developers can't come up with projects that are economically attractive in Ballard while following our zoning laws, then they shouldn't buy the property.
Zak- community involvement is an important part of our society. The people that show up there are going to be the ones with strong opinions. Maybe developers could look into designing something that people LIKE, then you wont get the “whiners” showing up at these meetings. Don't blame zoning laws, city officials, and citizens for a bad design-we aren't holding the pencil.
What’s the big fuss? The Sunset Bowl building is a big square box made of concrete blocks. The location isn’t a sunset hills neighborhood and it is zoned commercial. The new building will be a big improvement to that block.
Skyscrapers? How about letting someone go to 8-stories at the core of a building in exchange for set-backs for terraces, or wider sidewalks at the pedestal, or any number of things that might make a building look great…. Try getting THAT to fly in Seattle.
Yes, community involvement is an important part of our society. But in the absence of civic leadership, involvement just becomes a cluster-f that results in the birth of ugly buildings. Developers are just one party to this process. The intractability of our community zoning “experts” and neighborhood “interests” have as much to do with the homogenization of Seattle as anyone.
Limiting height and then bitching about the street-level view is just a passive-aggressive (uniquely Seattle) way to prevent development. Well, cities are going to develop ANYWAY, so instead of fighting any progress, it's about time the NIMBYs were told to shut the hell up learn to DEAL with progress in a constructive manner.
(Here's one for you. When you go to a public hearing, look at the sign-up sheet for the addresses of people that want to speak first. You will noticed that the people that are so quick to tell the developers what to do with their private property, are more often than not renters. There attitude would be different if someone told them what they could/couldn't do with the design of their house….)
Haussmann’s Paris was done in an era when building material was cheap and labor was skilled and paid well. My uncle was a master plasterer in Philadelphia for 40 years, was a true craftsman and made very good union wages enabling him to rent in the buildings he helped build. He learned the craft from his father while serving as an apprentice. We live in a time when that kind of work is no longer valued by high wages and therefore it is a dying art. Who wants to spend years learning a craft that pays wages so low you can’t afford to live in the city where you work let alone the buildings on which you work? It’s also hard, backbreaking work and most today prefer to push pencils or keys. There are very few real craftsmen left and those that are left charge more than the pencil and key pushers can pay so we get cheaply built buildings.
There is also the issue of material and ecological concerns. Marble and stone are not sustainable you know and real hardwood floors are hard to come by when there are no old growth forest left since all were cut down to make way for housing. The current bamboo trendy floors will not look nice for 20 years let alone 100 or more. Older buildings are freezing in winter and like blast furnaces in summer. Add better insulation and heating and cooling systems to the cost since we need our comfort today. Heck if you were to try to duplicate a simple Ballard Tudor today the selling price would be over a million.
These things cannot be faked. We see the results of that with fake Palladian windows and such in tract housing or the cheap look of Canal Station or the absurd tower planned for 15th and Market. We have made choices that prohibit the kind of building that was done years ago. We need bigger spaces to store all of our consumer crap. In some places storage units are being offered for sale for the crap we can’t keep in our giant houses . We have chosen quantity over quality. We can’t have both.
Exactly zak. The townhouses all look alike due to the hoop jumping AND expense required to get just one plan approved.
STUPID!
Blah.
Sweet Rose,
Actually, the Sunset Bowl owners wanted to continue with the business but the land owners wanted to sell. Sunset Bowl couldn't afford to buy the property at the current value and remain a viable business, so they were forced to close. Business had been great for the last few years…they were even open 24 hours a day. So it didn't die for lack of interest. You might argue that Sunset Bowl should have purchased the building years ago and you would be right. But they didn't, the land owners wanted to cash out, and the only people with the money were developers.
I absolutely don't feel that density squeezes the life out of streets. But this sort of looming, monotonous architecture does. Just look at the block of Market Street in front of Hjarta, and compare it to the block between 22nd and 24th. Where is there more life? Where would you rather spend your time?
When this condo is built, people will drive their cars in and out and you will never see anyone outside. If there is a coffee shop it will be filled with people staring at their computers. I spent many enjoyable hours inside the Sunset Bowl, and one thing you could say for the place, despite its flaws, it was certainly alive with humanity.
There was cocktail lounge with karaoke and strong drinks at the Sunset Bowl. Also a decent cafe. And a game room. Loathe bowling or not, maybe you should have taken a peek inside sometime. You may have been surprised.
And that's what's lacking in these mixed-use developments: any chance of being surprised. You know exactly what to expect, and you will not be disappointed. I think that's sad.
Yes, Haussmann did a great job – seizing private property and then leveraging the force of an emperor (Nap's III) to get his plan through.
He was immensely unpopular and became widely regarded for killing the social life of Paris from 1860's until after WWI.
Great example.
all this talk about Haussmann is making me hungry.
they need to slap a mansard roof on this building and lease it to McDonald's
Just another bland, insipid, uninspired, tired old McCondo.
See 'em, done 'em. No ambition and very little interest.
Lame.
Sorry, Jay, too late for that it seems. There's always some 'public intellectual' who knows what best for us….yeah fu you know who…
yup. it's gotta fit in their little box, or it won't happen.
there's the door…I'm not leaving, this is my home.
Ballard whiners: Why couldn't it look more like University Village?
Oh great, less ground floor retail space, and less parking with basically the same number of Apartments.
Way to go……. I'm so F___ing angry with this developer for tearing down the bowling ally
The bowling alley is still there.
Well said! I couldn't agree more. This is yet another reason we should step back, take a breath, and think before sacrificing any more of our neighborhood's past to a quick buck and market trends that have already lost their momentum. Viable businesses (as Denny's and the Sunset Bowl were) generate a lot more benefit to the community than the vacant lots that replace them.
Well, the building is. All the stuff that made it a bowling alley has gone away.
Good point, Kevin – but the French have a word for comments like this – “snob”. You can make the same point without sounding pompous… Also, the context of your comment is way off. No one is seizing private property here, especially to leverage the force of an emperor. Great example.
I was not trying to show off a deep understanding of French history and Haussmannian architecture, I was just pointing out that one can do a lot with 6 stories. Do you like the condo design? That is what this news story is about.
Well don't blame the developer. Blame the people that gave up and sold out.
Can't vouch if this is completely accurate, but one time in the Sunset I overheard a sales rep refer to the place as “the highest grossing bowling alley in the US” and yet they couldn't compete with the developer's profit potential.
Ever try to get a lane on a Friday or Saturday night? At least an hour wait. Bowling might not be your thing, but it was for a lot of other people.
super….
That would be the land owner, not the bowling alley.
The family corporation that owned Sunset Bowl decided they'd rather have the $13 million than the revenue from the bowling alley. It's a shame, but inevitable when land prices soar.
I did a little checking, and I had my facts wrong, sorry. Sunset Bowling and Recreation is a family-owned corporation (with about 29 shareholders) that owned and operated Leilani Lanes and the Sunset Bowl. They decided to get out of the bowling business and sell the properties because the financial return of selling was much higher than continuing to operate the business. Not to mention lower risk. The driving force here is rising land values.
Sunset Bowl was profitable, just not enough so. There was interest in resurrecting it somewhere, but bowling just doesn't pencil out as well as it used to. Blame all the other things that compete for our leisure time and money. Sad to say, no matter how busy one bowling alley is, it really can't survive unless the the whole industry is healthy. The startup and maintenance costs are just too high.
I really hate to see it go. Bowling on a Wii just isn't the same.
UGH! It might as well be a Jail building – why do developers in Seattle go for the drabbest, ugliest designs that can be found??
That’s sounds real nice AB but the nature of business is to make profits not to benefit the community. We have allowed this and actually reveled in it now for 30 years and few of us are innocent. We either vote for it with our pocketbooks/usage choices or do the same when we look to make the maximum profit from the sale of our own assets. Anyone here willing to sell his Craftsman for $150,000 to a nice young couple with three kids starting out because it will be more of a benefit to the community to have families living here instead of DINKS? Of course not. So many hate corporations but they whine when their 401Ks go down because corporate profits are down. It all ties together and we end up with exactly what we ask for.
I have spent many evenings in Sunset Bowl, just not for about 35 years. I agree with your distaste for the people sitting in coffee shops staring at computer screens but we have to assume they are VERY important and cannot even get as minute to relax without being in touch with ‘their people.’ : )
AB Americans in general and neo-Seattlites in particular don’t like being surprised. The generic nature of what has been successful business for a long time surely has not escaped your attention. From Starbucks to Nordstrom, it all looks exactly alike.
Again, I couldn't agree more. We are all complicit for the reasons you say and so much more. I earned my BS in business just as the MBA was becoming popular (1975) and I remember thinking at the time that another couple of years in school was not a good idea, as opposed to starting to get some actual experience. Concurrently, business education started focusing more on “shareholder value” as the prime goal of business enterprise. We have gotten exactly what we have been headed toward for thirty years.
Utopians of the mid-to-late 19th Century envisioned the technological future as a place where people had to work only a few hours a week, and spent their ample leisure time in uplifting pursuits, such as art, community service, scientific research, and the like. They couldn't foresee that 100 years later real income would decline, people would work longer hours, and spend their shrinking discretionary income on an endless stream of disposable gadgets.
Sometimes I think the best thing that could happen to the world would be for the stock market to be seriously overhauled to be more a securities exchange and less a casino. Disclosure: I do own stocks, but most of them pay dividends and I very rarely sell or buy, other than automatic reinvestment of mutual fund distributions. I've missed a lot of fast gains (and losses) with this practice, and I regret not one bit of it.
Hey! I'm a DINK! You saying my three dogs are worse for the community than the the three rug rats down the street? :-)
Never! I love dogs and also kids. Well I love my kids, tolerate and am amused by a few others and abhor most. Thing is, we make our choices and we pay the price. Once in awhile we get burned such as you have being a lane lover. Who knows, maybe the next folded up Ballard business will be one that I frequent. That’s the modern world. Do I like it? Sometimes yes sometimes no. I can only control the choices I make. It’s why I find the self righteous laments here to be absurd.
I think this recent panic will cause drastic changes in our society. I can’t quite decide yet which direction we will head. American value systems are a real SNAFU right now but I am not sure where this will lead. I avoid predicting the future.
What different does it make? It's going up next to a fast food joint, a grocery store both north and south and a paint store on the east. Who cares? Do you spend hours walking your dog around that block?
I heard at one point last year that there were talks of putting a bowling in the bottom section of the apartment complex…I'm sure it wasn't true but my goodness, don't you people realize how much it's missed…do we really need more apartments and condos? Come on…enough already. I agree, it's getting a little boring…keep it happening and put another bowling alley in there…please!!!
I read that in the Ballard News Tribune last year, the developer intending to smooth out some ruffled feathers over the loss of our bowling alley, said that they would take a serious look at including a bowling alley within the new development.
I guess it didn't 'pencil out' for them…no big surprise.
Yes why can't this building be more attractive? There has got to be a way to build a new building with character and style. I like Ballard's “old charm” but none of these new buildings go with it. Not that I want Ballard to look like Levenworth or anything but they have standards and any building built in Levenworth has to conform to the style and character of the town…even the McDonalds looks Bavarian. Why can't Ballard has some sort of building standards like that? I don't mean we need to look like a Disney town but let's have some style please!
As with any client-based business person, an architect must base their design on the client's requirements. Developers want to spend as little as necessary on architecture, cutting costs wherever possible, but still producing a building that their customers will use/buy. I'd rather see something like this than the ridiculous attempt to make a pedistrian scale facade you see on Stone Way and 45th in Wallingford. Keeping the design simple allows for it to be timeless, not gimicky, regardless of how much of the space is used.
From my experience, Ballard has become increasingly busy, with non-residents frequenting our businesses, be them in an older building or a new one. Busy shops and restaurants are good for our community. Obviously, if nobody went to Starbucks or Tullys downtown, they wouldn't be there. The fact is that they ARE there and small businesses keep closing up shop.
Maybe instead of complaining online about this, you should be out and about in Ballard, buying from the little guy and attending community design meetings (04/27) to give your opinions to those who can apply them…the developer and the design review board.
Thank you both for allowing me to observe and intelligent conversation in this comment stream. While most comments are opinion-based complaints, your dialog was fact-based and informative.
There is a design review process that provides an excellent forum to air any and all grievances with any proposed multifamily development. Things end up looking the same because any unique features get stripped in the three cumbersome rounds of public comment. No one can agree on anything, so the result is a meet in the middle compromise.
Growth is inevitable unless you want to sterilize everyone, and even if you did urban concentration is increasing without the aid of population growth.
I agree that this building is a little bland, but it is restrictions and limitations placed by the public and DPD that made it this way.
Chopper and Jenn:
The developer could develop the building with a bowling alley if there someone who wanted to own a bowling business in Ballard. There isn't. Secondly, would you live above a bowling alley? The developer could spend millions extra to install the bowling alley and the sound insulation needed to keep the noisy operations from devaluing the surrounding residences and business and still it would turn off potential buyers.
SEE??? I told you that Sunset was forced to close!
GADS that new building is UUUUGGLY!! No creative juices what so ever, not even a paty on the patio… what patios! It's another “BOX”
“Hey honey let's go buy a BOX to live in Ballard”
Yes folks the new BOX in Ballard is a new spacious BOX with retail stores on the ground floor, cost is another good reason the buy a “Ballrad BOX”
Just the cost of the united states debt, can move you into this new BOX, come in today, or just call “Lutefisk 800 666-6666” and order your BOX today!
WOuldn't you rather live in a Ballard BOX!
It's a nice BOX!
SOMEone said that the family that “HE” knew sold the property because the cost was too high, wel.. they did not buy the building the owners under them “cashed out”
Now look what we have….. A “Hole” for now…. let's hope it won't be like the GRENNLAKE HOLE or the STONEWAY HOLE!
And now for some thing completly different…. A BUILDING THAT LOOKS JUST LIKE THE NEW Qfc ONE ON 24th!! (only a little closer to the old neighborhood)
Break 19 ballard boy you gotta copy on this here Mouse FX, Tiger two mobile, hot rod? *click*
ok Ballard Cb gang is gone and now Ballrd is turning into the new “Little Bellevue”
I know I know bitching about it does no good. Im just gonna sit back eat my Lutfisk and drink my Late' and watch what unfolds, with a “I told you so” on my lips, but I won't say a word.
So long last of the cool neighborhoods, it was fun!