At Large in Ballard by Peggy Sturdivant

He was waiting for me at the back table of Java Bean; a pleasant-looking man with a cup and saucer of plain coffee beside him. Nebil Dikmen owns the long vacant, graffiti-covered properties at the corner of Northwest 24th and 58th Street. He had offered to show me the development plans for the corner, describing them in advance as "very high quality." I sloughed off rainwater like a drenched dog. There was a pleasing scent of his coffee and European cologne.

I'd contacted him when I decided to organize the 24th Northwest street clean-up. Volunteers wanted to attack his property the most, pull litter from beneath the chain link fence, cut back the weeds, clean along the alley. He called during the clean-up and apologized for not responding sooner, assuring me that the demolition permit had been issued in advance of the building plans being approved; the structures would soon be demolished and the site cleaned. That was late September.

We met in mid-October as he was eager for reaction to his plans from people in the neighborhood, professing that he really wants to put up something they will like. The plans will come before the Design Review Board as part of a permit separate from that for demolition. He'd contacted me as a neighbor; I felt obligated to confess I was also a writer; wielding the description like a warning. Mr. Dikmen still wanted to meet and suggested Java Bean. I warned him again in person but he responded, "Let me show you what we've come up with."

He started with photos of nearby construction such as NoMa, Metropole and Hjarta (still in wraps) and drawings prepared back in 1999 for a previous developer. Then he proudly revealed new plans prepared by the architect Roger Newell.

Sitting across the table from this polite, soft-spoken man I looked at a drawing of pretty green trees flanking a six-story building and felt queasy as though the ground along Northwest 24th had already started to shift. Large evergreen trees, de-limbed on the power line side, a vacant two-story home, and a single-story building that once housed a veterinary clinic currently occupy the properties. Roofing material from the house lies in the yard. Police get calls about vagrants entering and have found evidence of drug use inside. Old and new graffiti mark every side. The current site may be an eyesore but then again it's not a six-story eyesore.

The tasteful drawing with colors didn't include the block of single story businesses on the north side or the former library on the south to put its size in perspective. As per the Master Use Permit issued years ago, this project will be a six-story, 31 unit condominium building. I remarked on a resemblance to certain "dated" looking buildings along the Queen Anne counterbalance.

This will be Mr. Dikmen's third large project; previously he was in the travel business for over 20 years. He's a polite man who has a wife and a mother. He doesn't fit my image of a developer, this man who finds Java Bean a charming change from major chains. But he is planning yet another condominium project on Northwest 24th Street and has asked me for my opinions. I have nothing to lose, except another block that might provide me pleasure on my daily walk to downtown Ballard.

Does it have to be six-story, I asked him? Couldn't it be smaller? There's a shortage of affordable apartments but a glut of condominiums - are you concerned about sales? What about the condo conversion at Lock Vista? What about the new condo's going up at 65th and 24th? Do you really think there will be a market when it is built?

Mr. Dikmen seemed surprised to learn about Lock Vista; not worried about the market because he's looking at least one and a half years ahead. In his opinion the project size is in scale with what will be built on Northwest 24th; once QFC builds its units and the old library site is developed. He was surprised that neither of those projects are pending; he had hoped to coordinate demolition with another project. As for the size, "the Master Use Permit is for 31 units," he reminded me, "in order to recover your margins, you can't make it smaller."

"Are you going to write about this for next week?" he asked, finally addressing the fact that I would be writing about our meeting. "No," I said. I knew I would need more time to work my mind around the plans. "I wish it didn't have to be so big," I told him but made a case for Northwest 24th as the most important north-south pedestrian street in Ballard - a veritable thoroughfare of strollers, Metro users, residents with dogs and coffee swillers on their way to the library, downtown Ballard, and the Farmer's Market. "If it has to be tall," I told him, "don't remind us at the sidewalk level. I want to be visually pleased. I want to be charmed by a new public space, a bench, landscaping, a stoop ...."

His phone started ringing: time to meet an arborist at the property. At Java Bean it was hard to remember that he was connected to the decrepit lot. Nebil Dikmen already seems to picture it like the drawing with trees sprung full-grown, the grass impossibly green and residents enjoying their balconies. But then he doesn't walk past it every day. In his parting words he reminded me to let people know that he wants to create something the neighbors will like.

"I want to know their reaction," he said again. He had not ceded any of his points, and I'm not sure that I had made any of my own. Will anyone miss the litter or the graffiti? No, but we can miss the tall trees and the home that once stood tall on that corner before they became so ugly that we wished them gone.

Peggy's e-mail is atlargeinballard@yahoo.com. She writes additional pieces for the Seattle P.I.'s Ballard webtown at http://blog.seattlepi.