Up top is an early design option for a 71-unit apartment complex on the 4400 block of 42nd Ave S.W., just east of California Ave. in the West Seattle Junction. Below is an overhead view of three homes that would have to be demolished or relocated for the project.
Named Junction Flats, developer BCK Investments and architects Nicholson Kovalchick are proposing a 71-unit apartment complex on the 4400 block of 42nd Ave S.W., just east of California Ave. in the West Seattle Junction.
As a first step in getting the city’s blessing to tear down or relocate three homes and start building, the design team will present their early designs to the Southwest Design Review Board and Seattle’s Department of Planning and Development at 8 p.m. on Jan. 10. The meeting takes place at the West Seattle Senior Center at 4217 S.W. Oregon St., which is within eye-shot of the proposed project’s footprint.
The footprint ranges from 4433 - 4441 42nd Ave S.W., where three residences currently sit.
According to the developer’s early design packet, the 55,000 square foot building will likely be comprised of 71 residential units, potentially including two to three live/work units along 42nd Ave., and underground parking for 57 vehicles. Drawings show the building coming in at four stories tall.
“Although no parking is required,” they wrote, “… due to the site’s proximity to the heart of the West Seattle Junction Hub Urban Village, (underground parking) should help to reduce the possibility of street overcrowding.”
All developers who go through the design review process are required to present three schemes during the early review, which is focused upon the general mass and outline of the building. Future meetings get into more specifics.
As stated in their design review packet, BCK prefers Option 3, which would include (in addition to 71 units) a main lobby at the northeast corner of the site, live/work unit entrances from the sidewalk, bicycle storage in the garage, and a “large alley-facing (looking west) central courtyard, raised above grade, with both private and shared common areas.”
Required to list pros and cons of each option, developers recognize the “strong east-facing building wall is a departure from the existing street modulation” as it has no setbacks from the street, climbing straight up four stories.
