Unfortunately for bowling fans in Ballard, Sunset Bowl was not built in the Googie architectural style. It’s scheduled for demolition this year to make way for new condos, but Sunset’s regulars are trying to figure out how to keep on bowling:
Jim Bristow knows he can’t save Sunset from the wrecking ball but he’s hoping to pick up a spare. Bristow is collecting signatures on a petition in hopes of convincing the developers to build a bowling alley on the first floor of their new condo project.
It’s a solution that allows for the builders to move forward while keeping the ball rolling too.
“We are allowing more and more buildings and thousands of people to come into the neighborhoods but there is less and less for us to do,” said Bristow.
The developer, Avalon Bay, recently had a meeting with the Save Sunset Bowl group. They are considering the proposal and looking into the feasibility of incorporating a bowling alley into the condo project. However, they aren’t making any promises.
I think it makes sense to put cafes, coffeehouses, boutiques, small grocers, bowling alleys, and rabbit food stores on the ground floor of high-rise condo buildings. It not only invigorates the whole neighborhood, it also attracts buyers to the condos, some of whom hopefully will adopt cute cuddly Easter bunnies.
http://www.mainetoday.com/pets....._bunny.jpg
Jim Bristow should open a bowling alley if he really wants one. If it’s a money maker, all the better!
Honest to God, I lived 8 years in Ballard, and Sunset Bowl kinda sucks.
I mean, there are people for whom a bowling alley is a sacred kind of place, but I am not one of them. It sucked; tear it down and put something else in there, and I won’t care. Good for those of you who do.
By the way, we are idiots to remain In Iraq to protect the Iranian-backed Shi’ite majority from the former Baathist Sunni minority and preserving the Kurdish hold in Iraqi oil against the wishes of the Iraqi majority and, of course, as an irritiant for the Turks who have already invaded Iraq once to retaliate.
Then again, we could wait for the (who knows if they will happen) elections to install Moqtada al-Sadr as the most powerful man in the country.
I’m just saying, no nation could offer the USA a more inviting recipe for success, right?
What I am really saying is: Go McCain!
Go where?
I think McCain is in Iraq just for the taxpayer-financed fact-finding trips to beautiful downtown Baghdad.
um, if people want to bowl, they can:
pay more to bowl. Then someone will voluntarily build and maintain a bowling alley and be able to pay the higher rent the land now commands and make a profit.
What happened with Sunset is, they couldn’t raise the prices enough to buy the space or carry the curent rental value of land in Ballard — because bowlers don’t want to or can’t pay that much. Hey I dislike bowling and I dislike tanning salons, but if enough people want to pay $25 an hour to lie in a tanning bed and only a few people want to pay $10 an hour to take up a whole bowling lane of high-value space in downtown Ballard, then the space is going to be tanning salons. Why should the rest of us intervene in the market dynamics?
@7 Montana
WADR
This is the same issue I keep raising in re SLU.
Urban development does NOT come free. The ebst estimates I have seen say that Seattles explosive growth will raise, not lower taxes. In other words, the taxpayers are subsdizing the developers. As such, WE have a right to a say on what is developed.
Suburban developers are required to put resources into retail areas, schools and other amenities. We should have a similar say. High rise housing is a very good thing and condoes near Greenlake make a lot of sense. What a great place to live! BUT, it is in the interests of the future residents and the rest of the city for Greenlake to be as great a neighborhood as possible and that, Roger the Wise Bunny says, means a LOT of creativity needs to go into the projects.
That crrstivity ought not to be only at gorund level. It is easy to imagine some creative uses of roof tops amd public spaces. However, current plans for SLU look as much like a barracks or a Soviet Era housing Block as anything else.
There are examples of this sort of instant housing elsewhere in the US .. in culturally sterile areas of Southern California as well as in the infamous projects of East Coast cities.
I am not sure what the answer is, buit one thing seems clear. All the capitalist hand wringing about private poperty infirngement by zoning laws dopes not seem to slow construction in Seattle. I suspect a little more pressure toward community involvement would not drive Vulcan away.
@2, @7
Despite the title of this post, I agree with you guys. A market solution needs to exist for this. But I hope that the new condo owner decides to put a bowling alley in. I don’t see why it can’t be profitable.
@9 Lee
I suspect the effective reason it is not profitable is that the profit structure of the property reflects the city requirements.
First, this is going to be condoes. In other words the profit to the builder will be made and gone once the effin units are sold. I suspect taht a bowling alley is not going to attract a real estate buyer!
Simialrly, the profitability w=of a bowling alley, book store, theatre, or any other gathering place will reflect amenities such as parking, access, etc. If the city doe snot require such amenties, why shuold the builder create them?
A second issue is the problem of compunded loans. It is likley that the builder here is leveragng the construction oin a series of loans form lenders who may themselves be leveraged. This may compare to a present owner who owns the property outright. The difference is in the margin that must be made to cover the investment.
It seems to me that there IS a free market solution here and that is for the city to make developers pay their own way. If you want to develop something in Seattle, you should either create enough taxes to offset the added costs to the city or provide the equivalent in sunsidized services/amenities.
One idea I have for neighborhoods like Green lake is to require developers to maintain or replace in kind any amenities. Ijn this case, the builder might choose to sell the new space to the alley a=t a reasonable price (for an alley) or create some new amenity of comparable value to the community … e.g. an athletic club, food court, small store mall, cinema, or public theatre space.
The situation is worse in Bell Town and SLU, esp. the latter. Vulcan is building a high priced version fo a Soviet Era Moscow (actually the housing units for high end Korean Corporation in Seoul many be a more apt example). Even the choo choo train, which IS an amenity, should have been paid for by Vulcan.
I actually love the idea of Seattle developing SLU as a Manhattanesque area, but doing so quickly and on the cheap … no matter what exporbitant rents are intially charged, is bad logn time policy.
Daddy LOve: Sometimes your stupidity astounds me
I posted the whole article before on HorsesASSholes, but your simple retrograde mind forgot this cuz it’s 24 hours old…
“I have failed to liberate Iraq, and transform its society into an Islamic society.” — Moqtada al-Sadr, Asharq Al Awsat newspaper, March 8, 2008
Now how cum Puddy remembers these PuddyFacts and DaddyLoveBullshit (no facts supporting your position) flows from the fingers of Daddy Love.
@4
We’re in Iraq to help build a global American empire. I doubt anyone cares about the Shi’ite’s or the Sunni’s.
Hey wingnuts,
Who spent more time in a military uniform St. Ronnie or Jimmy Carter?
@10
I suspect the effective reason it is not profitable is that the profit structure of the property reflects the city requirements.
Actually, Sunset Bowl was profitable. Selling it to developers was just more profitable.
First, this is going to be condoes. In other words the profit to the builder will be made and gone once the effin units are sold. I suspect taht a bowling alley is not going to attract a real estate buyer!
I don’t know about this. You may be right. It’s possible that having a bowling alley in the basement of the condo makes it more difficult to sell the units.
Simialrly, the profitability w=of a bowling alley, book store, theatre, or any other gathering place will reflect amenities such as parking, access, etc. If the city doe snot require such amenties, why shuold the builder create them?
This will probably be the major point here. If the builder has to add extra parking in order to make a bowling alley feasible, he probably will decide it’s not worth it.
One idea I have for neighborhoods like Green lake is to require developers to maintain or replace in kind any amenities. Ijn this case, the builder might choose to sell the new space to the alley a=t a reasonable price (for an alley) or create some new amenity of comparable value to the community … e.g. an athletic club, food court, small store mall, cinema, or public theatre space.
I thought about this when I was reading this article. It’s an interesting idea, but I’m not sure a bowling alley is an important enough amenity.
I actually love the idea of Seattle developing SLU as a Manhattanesque area, but doing so quickly and on the cheap … no matter what exporbitant rents are intially charged, is bad logn time policy.
Doing anything on the cheap is almost always a bad idea. I’m excited about SLU being transformed into a commercial center for Seattle that pulls some of the high-tech jobs across the lake. Many of us young techies are drooling over the prospect of working for Microsoft or Amazon in that area. :)
I’m all for keeping Ballard, Ballard as it builds out and that means bowling alleys and the like.
Ballard’s one of the few places in Seattle I actually like.
@14
One more thing. The need to create extra parking lessens as transit in this city improves. In many ways, I think Seattle does better by improving transit than by creating regulations that force developers to add more parking.
@ 11
Now how cum Puddy remembers these PuddyFacts
Dementia?
Inability to process reality?
A gift for remembering self penned complete bat shit crazy idiocy?
We may never now.
@ 17 Mr. Ultimate Irony meant to use “know” instead of “now”
Mr. Ultimate Irony regrets any unfortunate confusion caused by his error.
@7 What market dynamics? There’s no market anymore. Everyone is too busy gaming the system to do any real investing or competing. Why screw around with a bowling alley when they can play oil futures or set up a shell corporation and rip off Medicare.
Bush just spent 7 years and trillions of dollars proving unregulated markets don’t work. Of course, we already knew that. For an encore, he’s going to reinvent the wheel.
http://www.americandigest.org/.....wheels.jpg
@17 Because his skull is filled with pudding.
@16 Parking
I know that this is the usual wisdom but I am not so sure that transit replaces parking. It might even increase the need! if one thinks not only about the parking needs of locals but the needs of customers for the local retailers.
Retail success depends both on local population and attracting outside folks to your neighborhood. For the forseeable future destinations like the zoo, ID, downtown theaters and museums, the waterfront, pioneer square, all depend … I think .. on access for cars coming from outside the immediate community. Most of these will be using cars for a long time.
Let me give you a local example. 19th Ave in my neighborhood has two restaurants ranked near the top of the city feeding chain. These are local places but the clientelle obviously drive there from everywhere.
One bad example, in my ignorant opinion, is the new transit station panned for Broadway .. with no local parking! A planner I met at DL claims it will work because most use will be for folks living in Cap Hill to get downtown. Maybe. But I suspect a lot of use will be to and from Seatac. For most folks that will mean we need parking. Moreover, the station COULD help attract retail traffic if it offered something like the downtown airtransport stations in Europe. People getting off the train are likely to meet family and have a meal, etc. All good for the Broadway retail scene if there is place to park.
Oh well what do I know?
Roger …
Who let the cat in here? Is someone feeding her? Whis is emptying her cat box. Whewww…..
Last year a friend of mine who’s a developer bought Lynnwood Bowl & Skate, no doubt with the intention of redeveloping the property into something else.
Turns out he and his wife discovered they really like bowling.
Maybe some of the folks from Avalon Bay are having the same experience.
As for Ballard…yeah, my Dad had a business there for half a century, so I’ve known about it for a long time. The Ballard Art Walk (second Saturday of every month) is about as much fun we’ve had with our clothes on in an awful long time.
With all the condo projects that are on hold or converting to apartments, I can’t imagine that building condos anytime soon would be remotely profitable for any developer.
True, it’s sort of a prime piece of ballard, but part of what makes it prime is the stuff that is *there* already.
11 Pud
Moqtada al-Sadr stands to do very well in the elections, if and when they ever hold them. Moqtada himself is studying to become an ayatollah, which will greatly increase his influence.
http://www.economist.com/Print.....d=10697982
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/02.....ghdad.html
22 SJ
Hey, we used to live at 19th and Roy! Crappy building, but what a great neighborhood.
Lee
Intersting thought that SLU could be a magnet for sft tech. I have wondered about that.
My first thought is to ask whether this is realistic. To my knowledge there are no downtown SW firms anywhere. No? I assume that this is because SW seems to require flexible space at low rates .. i.e. suburbs.
Can SLU provide this??? What would the effect be on the area between SLU and the Needle .. this is pretty much of peri-freeway dump right now.
Another question ..
what would the city and develppers have to do to make this area attractive? Part of my ocncern is that Vulcan’s low balling the amenities would make the place less attractive than a camous like facility in Redmond.
One guess ta oyur answer is sluts. Having the downtown integrated into a big ondo with sluts everyehere (grin) ?
If this is the idea, wouldn’t the obvious follow on be to develop the circumference of Lake Union with step one being the cirumscribe the Lake with sluts? (nuff of that!)
Do you think the housing co0sts and lack of schools in SLU will prevent this from happening?
BTW .. you gonna be at DL morrow?
@28
From what I understand, Amazon is moving everything to SLU, and Microsoft will be getting some office space there.
@28
Yeah, I should be at DL.
25 We were talking about this over Easter dinner with my brother, who’s a construction estimator by day and a musician by night.
He pointed out what ain’t too surprising. Most of these projects take a year or two from the original gleam in some developer’s eye to when the place is ready for people to move in. So, the condo blocks going up now are being pushed by the momentum of the process–the capital’s already been borrowed, the land acquired, the plans drawn up, the permits issued and the deals signed with the subs. A lot of these entrepreneurs are in so deep they’re between a rock and a hard place–they’re up to their butts in hock but if they shut their projects down it’ll be even worse. The lucky ones, who have enough of their own cash or can swing some long-term credit, will simply take down the “for sale” signs and put up ones that say “for rent”, and adjust their thinking to making a little money over the next ten years, instead of making a lot in a much shorter time.
Given the current time, though, expect the “crane count” in our fair city to decrease significantly over the next year or so. If things get significantly worse, we might see some developers go bust and their projects left as abandoned, half-built hulks. Or, maybe there’ll be some “successful fires”.
@31 AF
I tend to worry more about the long term. Say 20 years from now when the next downturn has been goping on for say five years.
Will SLU be a competitive environment? Will folks really want to spend as much on a condo in SLU as they would for a minimansion in the burbs?
It seems to me that some answers to this question will depend on how well the buildings themselves hold up .. that is on quality of construction and enduring power of the design/architecture. So far, however, NOTHING beong built down here strikes me a s memorable and the materials being used, inside and outside are nto all that different from a low income housing project.
A further issue is cultural. The builders of SLU seem to prioritize three types of people .. singletons, retireds, and the ultra rich who want a pied a terre. That does nto strike me as a stable mix. Retirement communities in other parts of the US have the obvious problem of turnover as folks age. This is likely to be more so in an intown location without the usual retirement community amenities for alte kachers to socialize. Singletons are also a transient community and it would be naive to imagine that the current no children, temporary alliances between the sexes, “family” will be in fashion in twenty years.
One thing for sure, the housing in SLU is VERY child unfriendly!
The other issue is what kinds of business communities will grow here and still be here in 2o years?
I like Lee’s comments about Amazon IF the city is smart enought to create an environment that will attract related businesses. I know they have failed to do this in biotech. I do not know what it takes to be friendly to business but I would guess that amenities like street side shopping, etc are crucial.
Back at the bowling alley, I never did enjoy bowling but I am not the target nor is bowling the only amenity of its type. It seems to me that any development, whether town houses, dispersed ranches, or high rise ought to be required to have a plan to create the amenities needed to support a community.
Some such amenities are civic .. schools, libraries, community colleges, etc. The developers should be required to bear the costs of such amenties. Other amenities, however, are profit making IF the zoning provides the right protection. Some I have thought of for SLU:
Athletic clubs. These can be a lot nicer than just gyms, providing a socially attractive in city equivalent of the country club. How about an SLU “YMCA?”
Food courts. Low priced food courts work awfully well in malls, why not in an urban setting?
Theater districts. Arts groups have major problems finding affordable venues.
Art districts. Gallery space gets very expensive if it is not zoned. One intriguing idea is branches of local museums .. rental galleries.
Public meeting spaces .. like TownHall.
Micro parks
Sculpture gardens .. why not mimic the 1% for art in ANY large construction. Think how vlauable waiting for the interurban is?
Streetcars … PAID BY THE EFFIN DEVELOPERS!
sure mandate everything. but don’t pretend that’s a market.
@7 “There’s no market anymore” is hyperbole. Real estate is one area that does have features of a market — thousands or millions of buyers or sellers businesses lots of small developers not on great big expensive phone cmpany taking over, etc.
and certainly the consumer choices that mean that consumers don’t want to pay $75 an hour for bowling are market choices. The consumers do seem to want to pay $75 an hour at a spa salon or places like that. or to dine in a yuppie restaurant. or a group sucking down cocktails.
if that’s what people are voting for with their dollars, who are we to mandate something else?
why is bowling objectively or socially better than cocktails at balmar??????
and it it’s so great, how come the parties actually involved don’t want to provide it — only folks who aren’t paying for keeping it going are complaining.
“Looking into the feasibility” is Developer-Speak for “not a chance in hell.”
How could you leave out the best word in that article?
Someone I know who was involved in the bowling alley biz here said the people who invested in Sunset (and Lelani Lanes, etc) are old, retired, and want to see a return on their investment now. That’s why they sold out.
SB sold for about 30 million. That’s a hefty return for the shareholders. That will buy plenty of Airstream trailers and cemetery plots for the original shareholders.