After a four-year delay in the development process, work on the former Ballard Library site on 24th Avenue Northwest is restarting with an Aug. 9 early design guidance meeting.
Four years after an initial design review meeting for the former Ballard Library site on 24th Avenue Northwest, the development process for the site is restarting with an early design guidance meeting Aug. 9.
The current proposal for the development at 5711 24th Ave. N.W. across from the new Ballard QFC is a commercial, live-work and apartment building with underground parking.
Though more specifics on the proposal will be known at the Aug. 9 meeting, the proposal presented at the 2006 design review meeting was for a 94-unit, mixed-use development with underground parking for 120 vehicles.
The owners of the site, Pryde + Johnson, put the project on hold after that initial meeting because of the high number of other developments, including the Ballard on the Park Apartments across the street and Pryde + Johnson's Hjarta Condos, underway in the area.
In the interim, Abraxus Books was located in the former library space. But, the store moved to Queen Anne in June 2009, and since then the building has been vacant and the regular target of graffiti.
In Aug. 2009, Curt Pryde of Pryde + Johnson told the Ballard News-Tribune it could take another three years to develop the site due to the lack of available financing during the economic slowdown.
The early design guidance meeting for the project will take place at 6:30 p.m. Aug. 9 at the Ballard High School library, located at 1418 N.W. 65th St.
