What some have called the “Ballard Swimming Hole” and “Ballard’s Green Lake” on the north east corner 28th and Market will be drained and paved over.
Robby sent us this photo this morning of what appears to be workers draining the water. The owner of the property tells us the hole will be filled by the end of next week and will be used as a monthly paid parking lot.
Vacant lot to be drained, paved over
that's just lame. At least that old Sunoco Station sold gas and goodies, but a parking lot is just a pathetic waste.
maybe all those people complaining about lost parking spots from finishing the BG missing link can park here.
Kudos to the owner for finally doing something about this corner albeit a long time coming. Hopefully some of the other crater owners in the city will take note.
This is great news, especially considering that its starting to warm up more, its good to know that this isn't going to stay a giant pit of mosquitoes for the next five years.
This is long overdue.
I wonder if they will find anything strange in there?!
finally!
Maybe all my missing socks.
Is that why it stinks?
It was too full of contaminsnts to build what they wanted to . If you put a parking lot over it you don't need to clean up all the nasty chemicals they found there.
Pavement rules!
So what are they doing with the contaminated water they are draining from it?
I suspect that its contaminated soil from an old underground storage tank, not an aquifer of toxins.
Pave paradise, put up a parking lot!!
Great, now I will have to go farther down the street to go swimming. heheh
I thought the sea creature they had in that hole was really cool.
A similar thing has happened downtown at 2nd and Stewart. The developer found it was too expensive to build in this economy. So, the giant hole they just dug is being filled back in and it will be paved over and used as a parking lot. Interestingly, that was what it was before they dug it up.
Is this true? I was under the impression that the builder/developer was out of cash for a standard project, but did the cost balloon as mitigation was fully understood?
is this a clean-up site or brownfield of sorts?
As someone intimately connected with this development project, I'm enjoying reading all of the bogus conjecture in these comments. Not one correct supposition yet!
Have fun wasting your time everyone.
As a technical point, Brownfield is a concept I don't quite get. I believe the contamination is from an old underground storage tank. It must be cleaned up to the standards set in the Model Toxic Control Act, which is the same standard used for Brownfields, but I don't know the site is a Brownfield.
Mondo – This is not conjecture, my results were reliable, but not accurate. I tried to looked the site up on the State's LUST list, but apparently don't have the correct address, and have to wonder if its even on the list based on what you say.
<sarcasm/> Still the suspense is killing me. </sarcasm>
Perhaps you want to enlighten us as to why their is a giant undeveloped pool of crap with eroding walls in our neighborhood.
Mondo either is low man on the totem pole or fell off it. The fact is that the site is hot (heavy metals and petrochemical compounds found in groundwater and soil), but below MTCA cleanup levels. Jim Dougherty, the owner can still be tied to future liabilites and nobody wants to deal with that. I work for a development company and not one report we're had done all along Market comes back as anything other that “Recommended Aquisition: No”. I'm not sure who Jim is, I can only assume he's the same Jim that works in Windermere's commercial real estate right next door to this property. He bought a property at the height of the market and the city likely told him that if you want to build retail and office space you need to put below grade parking. If I were him I hammer away at the city to allow me to develop the same use put somehow reduce the parking requirement. Is Jim smart? I don't think so. Did Jim do anything illegal? no, he's just going to game the system. I think they worked with Geo Group NW. It would be interesting to see their report. The owners did participate in a voluntary cleanup program that went through a 90-day performance measure. This should have ended around Decemeber. I don't know what has happened since. I follow mostly land use and aquisitions, not environmental follow-ups and permits. Sure, market conditons are affecting everyone (who's building retail and office space in the city when built out space is laying vacant all over for .25 on the dollar), but I guarantee the environmental aspect is affecting this project.
BTW, Edog, brownfield is just a classification of area that can be resused but is being slowed by environmental concerns.
Yeah, really. No need to be douchy about it.
Yay! They are taking away the pool and putting up a……parking lot…