Category — Children's Hospital

For those who aren’t following this project, here’s a quick recap, Laurelon Terrace is a 20-building, 6.7-acre condo development in Laurelhurst that Children’s Hospital has proposed acquiring for $93 million in order to expand the hospital facilities to a level it wants. The Laurelhurst neighborhood feels that Children’s development plans are too intensive for the neighborhood, and wants those development plans reduced.  Depending on which side you’re on, Laurelon Terrace is either in the way, the bulkhead against development, or your home -

Hi, let me start off by talking about my personal interest in your condo development. I don’t live in Laurelhurst. I don’t work for the city. I don’t work for Children’s. I’m not a lawyer. And my life is pretty much going to stay the same regardless of whatever decision you make. But I am interested in the process and find a few things about it pretty interesting, namely…

• Why city and state law (ed note: only state law was changed) is being changed for this project? In Seattle, it meant creating a Special Citizens Advisory Committee (with members handpicked by Children’s) to run the community engagement process, and in Olympia, it meant modifying a condo ownership law?
• Why Peter Steinbreuck “served as the Chair of the City Council Urban Planning Committee. The Council and the Urban Planning Committee hold a variety of trump cards in the Hospital issue” the changes to Seattle’s code on Children’s behalf, and now less than a year after leaving the council, is working for Children’s to help mediate an agreement? (ed note: I was wrong on the item I crossed out)
• Is the relationship between Children’s Hospital and Laurelhurst so bad that both felt the need to dive into this process ‘loaded for bear’?

But anyway, I was mentioned in a letter that was sent to your group, so I’ll take that as an opportunity to talk to you like we’re acquainted. So…what I thought I would give you are some things to consider that I’d give a friend. Some of them optimistic, some of them cautious…

• You were offered $93 million for your property, which I believe is equivalent to 2.8x each units value. I would take that deal. Was this the result of negotiating a higher price?
• Your legal fees are being paid for by the buyer. Did you get to choose the law firm? Do you think you might have more leverage to negotiate if you were paying for your own attorney?
• As part of the transaction you are responsible to, ‘…publically support Children’s MIMP and development of the Laurelon Terrace site as positive for Children’s and the community.’ Is it fair that you should be compelled to support anything more than saying you’re happy with the sale? Do you really think this is the best solution for the community? Do you really expect others who disagree with this project to treat your comments objectively?
• Is anyone asking what will happen to you, and how you feel about this?

Thanks,

Greg

Last night a straw poll by Laurelon Terrace owners supported Children’s Hospital’s buyout offer for their condo. Of course, this doesn’t mean that Children’s will be writing checks in the amount of 2.8x the value of each unit anytime soon. What is required for this deal to go through are the following clauses:
(You can download a copy of the proposal with all the terms here.)

1. The state legislature must pass HB3071, a bill to retroactively apply the ownership percentage (from 100% to 80%) required to change the law of any condo older than 1990.

2. The deal is contingent upon final approval of Children’s master plan and the plan must include expansion of the major institution boundaries to include Laurelon and must include development standards that meet Children’s satisfaction.

3. The city must approve street right-of-way vacations on terms determined by Children’s.

4. And to quote from Children’s,

‘Laurelon Terrace Board must publicly support Children’s MIMP and development of the Laurelon Terrace site as a positive solution for Children’s and the community.’

During last year’s windstorm we were less than thrilled to find out that water from the storm had found its way into our basement. We then spent the next few months learning how to fix the problem and then this summer added a drainage system around the house. The good news is that this system passed yesterday’s test with flying colors. So…if your basement got a little wet with yesterday’s rain, here are some pointers from our experiences last year.

1. Don’t freak out! Remember, it’s rain water, not sewage water! Things could always be worse.
2. Dry your basement as soon as possible, this means spending some quality time with a mop and bucket. (If you have carpet that got soaked, you will need to rip that thing up and get it out of the house. Believe me, in a day or so it’s going to really start stinking!)
3. Continue drying your basement. Get circulation moving by setting up some fans, or better yet, get ahold of a dehumidifier!
4. The water helped us make some easy choices about what things we needed to get rid of, so now you’ve got a great reason to go to the transfer station! (Oh yeah, the transfer station is going to be more crowded than usual during the next few days, so try and see if you can get there early)

Now, here’s some bad news. Water getting into your basement this time has made it easier for water to get into your basement again. And, because most drainage repair companies are going to be booked the next couple of months, you will need to make some short term fixes. (The good news is that as winter kicks in the weather should be getting much colder and drier soon!)

5. Make sure to point all your gutters’ downspouts are pointed as far away from your house as possible. Go to the hardware store and get some extenders for your gutters to get future rainwater away from your place.
6. Last year we also installed tarps along the side of the house, and this helped keep the area around our house dry.
7. Start making appointments with drainage repair companies. You’ll probably get an appointment for someone to see your basement within the next couple months, and could possibly get some work scheduled for February or March.

(Oh yeah, we used Bodine Construction. And although they’re on the higher end of the bidding spectrum, they did a great job for us.)

In today’s list of DPD application announcements, one that caught my eye was for a

Land Use Application to allow a six-story building containing 4,000 sq. ft. of retail at ground level and 145 residential units above in an environmentally critical area. Parking for 167 vehicles to be provided in a below-grade garage. Project includes 21,900 cu. yds. of grading. Existing 14,500 sq. ft. commercial structure to remain.

This building will be situated above a trailer park and single family homes to the East. The application doesn’t make it clear whether these will be condos or apartments, but this part of Lake City Way near Maple Leaf is really changing from used car dealerships and smaller one-story business to 4-6 story multi-family housing. As someone who commutes down Lake City Way to work, hopefully the city will require some investment in mass transit infrastructure improvements here. It also will be interesting to see what the neighbors think of this project.

The headline in the Seattle Times today was a story about how the Laurelhurst neighborhood (NE Seattle) and Children’s Hospital were now embarking on the latest round of their historically contentious relationship. Reading through the Times’ article, the Times focused on the meeting (where over 100 people attended), and detailed the historical problems the two have had with one another. However, I was a bit disappointed that the Times dealt with the superficial issues related to this project, and didn’t dive into the land use policy issues that are core areas of the dispute.

On the other side of the fence, the Laurelhurst group organized responded to this project on their blog (the Children’s Action Coalition), and was a bit more detailed with their points. Two very interesting that the Times didn’t report about that the Laurelhurst group did was:

• Children’s recently filed an appeal against the state Department of Health’s recommendation to allow Swedish Hospital to add 175 beds for patients on the Eastside.
• The community also brought in an expert who said “The DOH has ruled that Children’s Hospital needs only 65 additional beds over the time period under debate.”

Regardless of which side of this argument you are on, it is fascinating to watch two well-organized and influential groups engaging in so public of a land use struggle. You usually don’t find community groups as organized, competent, and as well-funded to justify their positions as Laurelhurst. Most community councils in Seattle tend to be fairly non-confrontational and allow these debates to be handled by quickly-formed groups of neighbors. For those of us interested in these policy issues, it should be interesting to see how this project unfolds.

3D model of proposed Children’s Hospital Campus

Last night I attended a Dearborn St. Coalition for a Livable Neighborhood meeting and was really surprised at how quickly this massive redevelopment project is making its way through the DPD’s Design Review Process.

The process is basically moving along as quickly as if the project was a 4-story condo building instead of a proposed 600,000 sq ft retail and 450 residential unit shopping complex. However, what really struck me about the Dearborn Street Group is how well-organized they are, the energy they are bringing towards making neighborhood-friendly changes to this proposed project, and how effectively they are building up their popular/political/financial capital throughout the city. They are providing tons of real neighborhood feedback to the DPD, and regardless of the Design Review Board’s recommendation, will keep pushing all the way to the city council. My prediction is that the developer, TRF Pacific, will need to accommodate their requests in writing, or will lose this battle.

Now, compare this to the Children’s Hospital redevelopment project in Laurelhurst where they plan to double their space and add 250 new beds. For this project, Children’s was able to get the city council to pass a resolution authorizing a Citizen’s Advisory Committee to basically organize a group of neighbors to gather neighborhood concerns and to make a recommendation. However, what is really surprising is that Children’s Hospital can make the call on who sits on this board. In fact, here’s what it says in city resolution 31002.

WHEREAS, the Department of Neighborhoods has worked with Children's
Hospital and Regional Medical Center to develop a list of twelve
potential members to serve on the Citizens Advisory Committee;

At first I thought that the Dearborn group wasn’t getting treated as well as Laurelhurst because they weren’t assigned a CAC for their project, however talking to someone from the Children’s Action Coalition (the other CAC) it doesn’t seem that the Children’s/city- appointed CAC is as activist oriented as the neighborhood group.

The problem for Laurelhurst is that the official voices of their neighborhood are being represented by representatives they didn’t even choose. So, this actually leads me to believe that the Laurelhurst folks are in a disadvantaged situation because regardless of what they do, there will be two different sets of Laurelhurst neighborhood recommendations. One from the Citizen Advisory Commitee’s view of the project, and one from the grassroots neighborhood group.

It should be very interesting to see how both of these processes play out.

Flyover view of the proposed Dearborn St. project

Proposed Children’s Hospital Redevelopment Project

On Saturday neighbors around Children’s Hospital in Laurelhurst staged a really unique protest. They hired a helicopter to fly at the same height Chilren’s Hospital’s proposed new skyscrapers would reach (240 feet above the ground), and staged a protest below that. Camera crews from three different stations showed up to film the coverage.

The real question here is about rezoning. Children’s wants to expand its development with a rather large complex of buildings, that would be the largest such buildings (with the exception of the Safeco building in the U district) in all of North Seattle.

You can learn more about what the neighbors are doing at their web site.

Here’s the DPD bulletin about this project.

The chart below shows the proposed height of the Children’s building in relation to other skyscrapers in Seattle.