Closer look at 134-unit apartment building that will replace Mac’s Upholstery

Meghan Walker Ballard

Earlier this year, we reported that Mac’s Upholstery (5011 15th Ave NW) will be replaced by an apartment building. We now have a better idea of what that apartment building, called Ponte, will look like.

 

Designed by Hybrid Architecture, the five-story, 134-unit building will be two interlocking L-shaped buildings with a courtyard, with 33 small efficiency dwelling units and 101 congregate units. There will 101 bike parking stalls, but no vehicle parking — the site is within the Ballard Urban Center, where parking is not required for apartment buildings. The L-shaped buildings will be designed to capture rainwater, channeling rain into “centralized bioretention planters that will slow the speed of the runoff into the city’s sewer system”. 

According to the design plans, each apartment will have a bed, table and chair, wall closet, refrigerator, microwave and private bathroom, with shared kitchens, laundry, and lounges. For a 175 square-foot unit, rent would be $875 per month. They foresee an average resident being mid-30s, with an income around $30,000.

The Mac’s Upholstery site sold in 2017 for $2.2 million to a group led by Calhoun Property Management. Mac’s Upholstery, which has been operating in Ballard for 49 years, will stay put until their lease ends in 2021. Then, the store will move a few blocks away to 46th St., right next door to Mac’s Canvas Shop, the company’s marine operation.

There will be a public design review meeting about the project on Monday, Oct. 22 at 8pm at the Ballard Community Center (6020 28th Ave NW) in the Sunset/Captain Ballard Room.

Renderings courtesy Hybrid Architecture

32 thoughts to “Closer look at 134-unit apartment building that will replace Mac’s Upholstery”

  1. Ugh I live right down the street and it’s going to be a nightmare for parking. Luckily I have a spot but while I’m at work someone’s always in my spot when I get back and I have to park behind them go up to my apartment and then wait for someone to start honking. They don’t have Towing at my building so it’s very annoying. + 133 units I guess most of those people will have dogs walking down the street shiting and not picking it up that’s what’s going on lately. Most dog owners are very conscious but there’s a handful or more that just leave their poop anywhere. I need to move out of this town before 2021

  3. This is a great development for 15th. Hoping more apartment buildings there, directly in front of rapid transit to downtown, will bring a lot more vibrancy to the neighborhood.

    1. People in their 30s are sick of roommates and sharing kitchens. It is irresponsible greedy developers wanting to make the most money with the least spent!

      1. You don’t need an entire kitchen to microwave tofurky for your cat, Betsy.
        But yes, developers are awful BUT HEY at least their middle mgt is diverse, amirite?

  8. Funny story. I recently hosted a fundraiser at my new, cheaply built, ugly, boxy house and the chief curators of two local museums happened to be attendees. We were talking about Seattle growth (of course!) and one of them asked if I was aware of comments people made about the new style housing in the area. I said I was. His next comment was great: “If these houses had been built in 1922, today we would have been hailing them as Modernist masterpieces. Never forget what all those pearl clutchers in Oak Park said about Frank Lloyd Wright’s homes.”

    My house is no Frank Llloyd Wright. But it’s no piece of shit, either. Viva the new.

    1. Yep. People who don’t want newcomers in their neighborhood learn to hate modern styles, because it seems more reasonable and less awful to hate buildings than people. But we can see them for who they really are.

    2. There’s nothing modern about townhomes or boxy buildings. The modern style was all about spreading space out, often on one floor on a big suburban lot.

    3. Wait, are you comparing these hideous, edge to edge lot, 3000 sq ft cuboid homes being dumped in Ballard, made from designs you can download from the internet and materials that looks like sh*t within a few years, with FLW?

      Maam, I’ve visited Frank Lloyd Wright homes in Oak Park, and on the North Shore of Chicago. I even knew someone who owned a Usonian home.

      You right, you aren’t living in a Frank Lloyd Wright or Mies van der Rohe, you are living in a architectural abortion.

  10. Seattle “designers and architects” are either blind, retarded, or trolling everyone with a massive inside joke because these drab postmodern abortions are hideous. They put up one after another of these human file cabinets, and the yuppies making a cut somehow always act like these eyesores are great art or something.

    You like fast food, too? Because same principle here and just as cancerous.

    This looks like leftover Soviet crap. Soulless commie garbage.

    1. It’s the kinda stuff you expect to see after an area’s been carpet bombed. Hastily built, shoddy construction that’ll either need to be substantially rebuilt in ten years, or will turn into hovels. Tree canopy gone, public spaces eliminated or (even further) degraded, water runoff a major problem…

      Watching this stuff get built, I can only feel sorry for the people who buy it. Sue early and sue often; that’s my recommendation.

      1. How is it that so many hate it but still new people flock to Seattle and oldies refuse to leave? Do they think it will suddenly return to 1965?

        1. Good question. The liberals here do seem determined to pretend it’s 1968 forever.
          Muh flower children

          1. Not so much just flower children who were just a tiny few than lasted only a short time. More so those who led privileged lives in 1968 and felt they deserved that privilege. For example it’s easy to not see redlining when you are privileged. Romanticizing the past is really just childish selfishness.

            As for the newbies, well they are mostly just suburban privileged kids who think that city life is ‘cool’ but want it to be just like the suburbs where they grew up; basically white and clean.

            Humans re very predictable and amusing. Everything changes, except human nature.

          2. People don’t vacation to the ghetto, Champ. And they vote with their feet in the long term. The boomer kool-aid gave everyone diabetes.

      2. You know, it’s been more than 10 years already that these townhouses have been built around here. Let us know when you see any of them falling apart.

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