Eastlake shoreline could get a $35 million face-lift

There are no yellow stripes or sidewalks. Parking practices are liberal. Old houses on Fairview, some with grass sprouting from the roof, are flanked by flower gardens built from highway rubble.


		Karen Ducey / P-I
	Bill Weisfield, chief executive at Wards Cove Packing Co., says the development plan on the company's property at Lake Union is "a great opportunity to do something right." The project would include a "green street" ambience.

Eight of those funky homes, along with several hulking industrial buildings, would be torn down as part of a $35 million plan by Wards Cove Packing Co. to redevelop its former salmon-fishing operations base on Lake Union.

It would be one of the largest shoreline redevelopment projects on that stretch of lake, with an office building, posh houseboats, 21 luxury townhomes and moorage for superyachts.

Despite a history of waterfront land-use battles, Eastlake community representatives enthusiastically support aspects of the plan.

Still, they'd like to see more shoreline access and are lodging concerns with the city about huge fiberglass boats blocking public and private views.

In a neighborhood that's experienced more redevelopment than most in Seattle, residents' nuanced and proactive reaction to change can offer lessons as sprawl restrictions force the entire city to become more dense.

"I think people are not so much concerned about change per se, but more concerned about cheap, shortsighted development that doesn't take into account neighborhood character," said Carsten Stinn, president of the Eastlake Community Council.

Compared with bulkier apartment buildings proposed along Eastlake Avenue, the more modest scale of the Wards Cove development strikes some residents as people-friendly.

The company is fulfilling the neighborhood's long-standing desire to turn Fairview Avenue into a "green street" with walking paths, trees and traffic-calming curves.

Still, Eastlake residents are also pressuring the city to make changes as a condition of granting the project permits.

Some want to see more public access included. Many object to the placement of 100-foot yacht slips that they fear would block views from a tiny waterfront park at the end of Hamlin Street.

"A lot of people are going to be somewhat affected, and a few people will be very affected, so that some billionaires can park some boats," said Barbara McPherson, who lives in a condominium building across the street.

The city's planning department is considering the neighborhood's opinions about public access and views in its review, spokesman Alan Justad said.

Wards Cove officials say they've already scaled back the marina based on community concerns and staggered the 12 floating home moorages at the suggestion of upland neighbors so the houseboats don't create a solid wall.

They contend that public views will actually be vastly opened up when its industrial buildings and a long dock are torn down.

The company also plans to shave the corner off an existing dock that officials believe will improve sightlines from the Hamlin Street park, which already has a constrained, tunnellike view.

'Something should be done'

Wards Cove Chief Executive Bill Weisfield emphasized that point recently in front of an oversized green warehouse, machine shops with peeling paint, a propane tank, junky fences and blackberry thickets.

For decades, the industrial property was Wards Cove's support base for its salmon-fishing fleet. The company founded by Seattle's Brindle family in 1928 exited that business four years ago, though it still processes pollock, cod and crab in Alaska.

"I view this as a great opportunity to do something right," Weisfield said. "If we can't do this project, this just all stays. My comment to the community is that I think something needs to be done."

Wards Cove is ponying up $1 million to create the "green street" ambience the neighborhood wants. To meet a requirement for public access, it plans to create a beach toward the northern end of the mixed-use development.

Some also are urging the city to require more shoreline access at the property's southern tip, where they contend the public could enjoy views of the Space Needle and downtown.

It's a sensitive issue in a place where walking along Lake Union can be an exercise in frustration. Marinas, boat sheds and over-water condo buildings often block views.

Even colorful houseboat communities -- with their alluring gardens and vestigial hippie trappings -- make it clear that lookiloos aren't welcome on private docks.

Weisfield said it might be possible to slightly reorient the marina to allay fears about blocked views.

But adding public shoreline access there would jeopardize the security required for multimillion-dollar megayachts.

"We're told by manufacturers that bigger and bigger boats are being made locally," he said. "There aren't very many places in Seattle where you can moor a boat that long, and what we have in mind is to cater to that need."

Preserving quirkiness

Gentrification is nothing new in Eastlake, where activists spent decades fighting for the right for houseboats to exist and preserving the shoreline from massive office and condo complexes.

The neighborhood's eclectic architectural styles -- from swinging 1950s apartments to 1980s office behemoths -- reflect development pressure that's been strong for decades.

In a place where dry land has never been protected with single-family zoning, longtime residents say the scale of the proposed developments has reached a new and sometimes overwhelming intensity.

"This was perhaps Seattle's best-kept secret, but the neighborhood's been discovered," resident Tommy Eggleston said. His electric blue house and classic car collection will be sandwiched between Wards Cove and a large residential complex proposed on Eastlake Avenue's Bar-Mart site.

"I probably get six or seven letters a month from two-bit developers who want to buy it. Everybody's scrambling for a piece of it," he said.

Eastlake residents recently lost the beloved Hines Public Market Coffee shop and the Porta Greek Taverna to a shiny loft project under construction. Some look at iconic neighborhood businesses such as the Zoo Tavern and Daly's Drive-In and wonder how long those dated buildings will survive.

The community is doing what it can to preserve its quirky charm, with public art and sidewalk street markers with carnivorous flatworms, protozoa and other waterborne creatures. It recently celebrated the opening of an unconventional park that will soon have a mountain-biking course underneath Interstate 5 and is building a lakeside community bocce court.

When it comes to inexorable market forces and private development, residents offer design comments and encourage developers to think about the community's needs when signing up retail tenants.

"Right now is a weird period, because a lot of the good places that people like to go to ... they went away and haven't yet been replaced by something that works for the neighborhood," said Stinn of the Eastlake Community Council. "I hope that with the new development, there will be more amenities."

'Never finished building'

Stinn believes Wards Cove -- which hopes to break ground next year -- did an admirable job of taking the community's fabric into account. Few can blame a company for redeveloping prime waterfront property that no longer makes much sense to keep in industrial use.

Still, one of Eastlake's highest neighborhood priorities is to preserve the area's charming, unscripted feel. There's a limit to how much you can accomplish that with multimillion-dollar townhomes, resident Chris Leman said.

Many will be sad to see the eight irreverently funky houses go, along with their clematis-covered trellises, wind chimes, tie-dye umbrellas and lawn furniture patched with plastic garbage bags.

"I love to look at all the little houses with the darling little gardens. It's such a nice little walk, and it just sort of makes you think you're in a lazy little seaside town," said Jann McFarland, who's lived in a Lake Union houseboat since 1972.

"I'm just not for the sleek and everything-developed thing. I'd rather see blackberries," she said.

But others don't harbor such love for the unkempt properties. Keith Hall, an attorney who rents a houseboat across from Wards Cove, said he's not wild about looking out at a wall of fiberglass yachts, but he'd definitely support having more homeowners around.

"I'm kind of looking forward to the area getting nicer, because it's obviously very industrial right now," he said.

To some Eastlake activists who once worried that the northern end of the lake would lose its residential toehold to mammoth office development, the Wards Cove proposal is far preferable to what could have happened.

"Let's look at the definition of a city -- it's never finished building," said Jules James, owner of Lake Union Mail and a longtime neighborhood advocate.

"I don't want to freeze time and mourn. I want to direct it the best we can, and this is an example of this. It's coming to fruition and not perfectly -- we can't orchestrate every color of every balcony -- but good enough."

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