The big move for a small Ballard bungalow is happening late tonight (Saturday). The city has put up “no parking” signs along the narrow sections of the route.
The home is located at 843 NW 62nd St. (above). Once its loaded up on the truck, it will travel down 62nd St. and turn south on 8th Ave. Then it will turn west on Market St., south on 15th Ave., east on 52st St. and then south on 14th Ave. toward the water.
Parking along 14th Ave. from 51st. down to the boat dock (above) is restricted from 11 p.m. tonight to 6 a.m. tomorrow. The home will start moving just before midnight. If you plan on watching the move — which will take several hours — please make sure you stay out of the workers’ way.
Once it gets to the dock, the bungalow will be loaded up on a barge and shipped to its new owner on Lopez Island. The move is a collaboration between the sustainable developer NW Built and the house moving company Nickel Bros.
Nick Carpenter at Nickels Bros. tells us they move a lot of homes to the San Juan Islands because it’s so expensive to build a home there. “We can deliver a house to them for a fraction of what the house costs in Seattle and also on the island,” he said.
If you have any photos to share of the move, please send them to tips@myballard.com or tag @myballard on social media.
So glad to see this home have a second life. Moving to the San Juans is something many of us aspire to in our later years :) Really wish more developers would try harder to save these old homes. Old growth wood and often charm and craftsmanship not found in newer homes. Then there is the embodied energy and carbon. So long bungalow, it’s back to a quieter pace once again. Bon Voyage!
Sadly, I really doubt that the amount of work involved dis-attaching, lifting up and moving a building 50 miles away via truck and boat, then re-attaching the house to a new foundation saves any money, let alone any carbon-footprint involved in the move.
Granted many of us ‘aspire to moving to the San Juan islands’; but this isn’t some playground that the wealthy should be able to pick their homes up and move over– it’s an extremely valuable and sensitive ecosystem that maybe should be well enough left alone
Interesting! I’ve never seen a move of a house like this before. The savings to actually building must be astounding!
Interesting alternative to building a new house.
I agree with Kim, developers should try harder to save these old homes. Many homeless people around to be destroying abandoned buildings instead of making them habitable and affordable.
Agree with Mark but you know how the market is driven, it’s not the right thing to do to abandon these homes but who is going to cover the costs for them and give them to homeless people. Still, developers should work with local governments and make this into a reconstruction project for the community.
Excellent post, we need to re-purpose these homes and not lose them as potential low cost houses.