Apartment Boom

June 28, 2012 | 8:00 am ET Staff Reporter

Like daffodils in the spring, apartment projects are sprouting all over town. (They don't smell as nice, but they also don't wilt.) One early bloomer: Via6, Pine Street Group's two-tower, 24-story apartment project at 6th Ave and Lenora, topped out this week.

Here's Pine Street Group project manager Matt Rosauer, Bentall Kennedy VP Joshua Gurnee, retired Bentall Kennedy president John Parker, and Multi-employer Landon Butler's Michael Ibarra at the fete. The $200M project will contribute 654 new units and 18k SF ground-floor retail space to the downtown market. To meet its February 2013 delivery date, construction has progressed at an "aggressive" pace, Matt says.

General contractor Lease Crutcher Lewis chairman Bill Lewis and project manager Bill Gormley posed among some of the 350 workers. Other members of the Seattle-based team are real estate advisor Bentall Kennedy, architect GGLO, and structural engineer MKA. One of the aims of Via6, which expects to draw rents north of $2/SF, is to provide downtown dwellers an excuse to go sans car (which means we can finally put that lazy horse of ours to work), Pine Street principal and managing partner Matt Griffin told us when we interviewed him back in February. One of the building's amenities will be a bike shop and storage for 200 bikes.

Tim Rice Architectural Photography provided this of the towers earlier this week. Via6 may be topped out, but the Seattle apartment market is nowhere near tapped out. More grist for builders: On Tuesday, Mayor Mike McGinn announced his proposal for a South Lake Union rezone that would allow for 400 feet apartment and condo buildings in some areas of South Lake Union, as well as office towers up to 250 feet. Current zoning restricts heights in the district to 85 to 160 feet, depending on location and building type.

Apartment Boom

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