Inspired partly by serial catowner on schools and low-income transit-oriented development, I have a vision of a new U-District high-rise, let’s call it Seattle Tower for the University Community (STUC). It would have housing for all ages and income levels, community features, and a school (preferably public because that’s how I roll). To get really crazy, it could be above University Heights, letting in plenty of sunlight from the south for the P-Patch; if you don’t think that’s possible perhaps you should read about the Louisville Museum Plaza. If that doesn’t fly there are many other locations, such as the 7th Ave NE view corridor along I-5.
This STUC idea would obviously require rezoning but it would be close by existing 10+ storey buildings including the University Plaza, Hotel Deca (Meany Hotel), UW Tower (Safeco Plaza), and SeattleHousing’s University West and University House. Library, grocery stores and farmer’s market, parks, etc. already exist on the ground. The project would easily take a decade, so transit options would include light rail only blocks away. I’m so excited, I would get a shovel and have a groundbreaking immediately if I had a few hundred million dollars.
This would be a great idea. I don’t know if they still do this, but for years the University let retired people audit up to five credits a quarter of their classes. I would love to retire to walking distance of that deal and the University libraries. Living close to University Hospital and on a transit line would be a dream hitherto unattainable in Seattle.
I think a public school would work well in a highrise. Classrooms are dense to begin with, and flexible spaces such as auditoriums could be shared with other uses.
The vision sounds nice but why exactly isn’t that possible right now? There is plenty of housing in the U-District and its incredibly vibrant and walkable already (not too mention, comparatively cheap). The only thing I see your tower adding is a view (for the rich few). Now, if you allow one big tower in there, then you have to allow others and eventually you’re looking out to another persons window. No view.
I just commented on STB as well, but I don’t understand the appeal of upzoning to 10+ stories. 4-6 stories are plenty to achieve the densities we are looking for. As well, when you start going higher you lose the focus on the street and pedestrian level and the get vertical segregation (not to mention energy inefficiency). I’m all for allowing some taller structures in some of the SFH areas around Roosevelt and the Ave but I really don’t see any need to go taller than 4-6 stories.
I’m not stuck on the high-rise idea, if you’ve got the funding for NC85 let me know.
It really is possible now, but as I replied as SeattleTransitBlog what has actually happened in the last decade or so in the central U-District is around 10 developments of uninspired 4-6 story apartment buildings, all catering to “professionals” with a couple thousand a month to spend on rent. Elsewhere in the city you have 6 story buildings dedicated to all low-income people. The places I’ve looked at are like suburb-in-a-box: it might have a nice lobby but above are thin hallways only used to connect people to their insular “single-family apartment”. Why not mix incomes, ages, and community space throughout one larger building?
Putting community space, a school, and apartments together really reminded me of this TED talk by Joshua Prince-Ramus on merging seemingly disparate goals in one building (on several projects, but especially Museum Place). That’s probably what made me realize that a high-rise might be able to attract a world-class architecture firm like REX that could not only do the job but give the U-District (and Seattle) a building to be proud of.
I guess the way I see it is that you can build a number of smaller buildings and accomplish the same goal. Build a very cheap condo unit that isn’t all that pretty but serves to provide housing to lower income people. Then right next to it you can build a really nice building with marble floors, solid wood ceilings and the like (although perhaps very similar sized units as the cheaper one). On the bottom floor of both you have a number of store fronts all about equally priced and relatively minimum in space requirements. Let the market decide what comes into these places. Across the street you have a school, maybe with a shared garden and gathering space.
What I like about this is that it concentrates activity in the street, where the motion and action takes place and the place that connects this little block with the rest of the neighborhood. In your scenario I see a static world taking place inside of a singular unit.
I have sometimes been accused of being “insensitive” but really, when you see a comment like this by JoshMahar, what can you say? For those on limited incomes, “Build a very cheap condo unit that isn’t all that pretty…” and then, for the rich, “right next to it you can build a really nice building with marble floors, solid wood ceilings and the like”.
Because, y’know, nothing makes the rich people want to join the street life and send their children to local schools like lots of obviously cheap public housing right next door.
In just a few sentences JoshMahar has summed up what we now know to be wrong about building community and providing low-income housing. The modern thinking, as seen, for example, in the redevelopment of Holly Park, is to mix different income levels and types of housing without segregating or ostracizing the low-income.
Besides the obvious community interests in having a viable community, there is the fact that the low-income, and particularly the elderly low-income, are no different from us. In fact, if you live long enough, you will be an elderly person with low (fixed) income, about half of which you will spend on medications, and no way to earn more. With the remaining half, which at the present time averages about $500 for SS pensioners, you can pay for housing, food, and entertainment.
Now, high-rise buildings concentrate people, or markets, if you will, which makes it economically feasible to provide services. In condo buildings it is quite possible for a middle income condo owner to live by rich and poor condo owners with no particular way to know who is what.
But high-rises have another characteristic which is almost never commented on- they come with their own free public transit system. With no fuss or muss the builder provides free elevators serving substantial populations with no fare collections costs to the users or building owners. If this free public transit were proposed for the streets surrounding the building, it would provoke an unending storm of controversy, but in the building itself it is entirely unremarked, and functions around the world with a rate of problems that is effectively zero.
In general, the discussion of skyscrapers has been deformed by segregated public housing built by the corrupt Richard Daly, and by the opinions Jane Jacobs formed in New York in the 1950s. Suffice it to say you can do a little independent thinking of your own and emerge smarter than the general concensus, which is, as usual ‘common’.
Thanks for posting that. I was trying to think of a polite way to point out the problems with that approach.
Now, you could have multiple smaller, attractive, well-built buildings that mix income levels, but those on a fixed income deserve quality places to live.
Actually, the high-rise turns out to be important. If you think of my vision of a year-round 24/7 community learning and social environment, it has one problem- you start adding in all the uses, and before long, you have a huge site, larger, for example, than almost any town in Mason County.
Ths solution is to go straight up. For most uses, the only advantage of ground-floor location is the ability to evacuate easily in case of fire. In fact, for residential uses, the quality of life is usually enhanced by being up in the air, as most of the lots around here that have no view at ground level have got great views at the fourth floor.
Strange to say, this is the kind of visionary use of existing technology that we could indulge in a hundred years ago, but have trained ourselves to believe is not possible today. Kinda like how when you’re a kid you dream of being big and strong enough to swim across the lake, but most 40-year olds have embraced the view that it is not only natural but even inevitable to be so out-of-shape that swimming at all would be impossible.
Using middle-rsie and high-rise development makes it possible to build communities with small footprints and large numbers of people- a useful trait that can put a community cheek-by-cheek with a great university, or, alternately, increase population and reduce sprawl in a rural county.
We have the technology.