Parents want more family-friendly downtown living

MomSeattle · DadSeattle · SPI · MySeattlePix · My account

Local

US/World

Sports

Business

A&E

Life

Comics

Photos

Opinion

Blogs

Buy Ads

NWsource

Monday, October 16, 2006

Parents want more family-friendly downtown living
Lack of schools, yards is forcing many to move

By AUBREY COHEN
P-I REPORTER

Sure, there's a way to get families to live in Seattle's urban core, but someone needs to go first -- and that seems to be the problem.

Downtown living works in Vancouver, B.C. -- but will it translate?

Parents say they need condos built with families in mind. Developers and families say they need a downtown school. And school district officials say they need to see some demand.

But many local parents leave condos -- big ones, in neighborhoods with good parks and schools -- because they feel the need for their own yard. So maybe the real problem is an intangible -- a cultural bias against raising children in condos. And observers suggest changing that might require gas to become so expensive and affordable houses with yards to be so far away that commuting takes too much time and money.


		Jim Bryant / P-I
	Debra Nagel and her son, Alden, walk across Pike Street on their way to Gameworks. "It's just an easier lifestyle," Nagel says of living in the city's urban core. "And there's more time."

The 2000 Census found that just 4 percent of households in Seattle's urban core, which includes downtown and South Lake Union, included a child, compared with 20 percent in the city as a whole and 37 percent for King County, outside of Seattle.

State statistics show that Seattle's urban core has grown much faster than the rest of the city and county since 2000, thanks to a boom in apartment and condo construction. But, while newer numbers for families with children are not available yet, those selling downtown condos say their customers tend to be young professionals and empty nesters, rather than families with kids.

Still, there are some.

And there's evidence at least some families are redefining what kind of place they call home. Despite the fact that Seattle gained few new traditional houses since 2000, the city's percentage of households with children went up between 2000 and 2005, while declining in the rest of King County, according to the Census Bureau.

What's missing?

It's a sunny afternoon and South Lake Union's big, new Cascade Playground is crowded with kids. But most are from a nearby preschool; the rest are visiting from other neighborhoods.

Vulcan Real Estate is developing South Lake Union into a center for apartments, condos, stores and offices. Moms at the playground say they'd love to live in the urban core, but ...

"My husband's from Scotland, and his family comes pretty often," said Anna McCartney, who brought her 2- and 5-year-old children in from their home in Seward Park. "We need guest rooms."

Carol Vogt, in town with her 3-year-old daughter, said she liked the urban feel of South Lake Union and would not mind moving out of Seattle's Leschi neighborhood and closer to downtown. But, she said, she'd need at least three bedrooms, and a nearby park and grocery store.

Melissa Van Flandern has a business in South Lake Union, but lives outside the area. With a 9-year-old stepdaughter, a daughter who is nearly 2, and two dogs, the co-owner of children's furnishings store Tottini needs space the new apartments and condos near her store can't provide.

"Most of them are no more than two bedrooms," she said. "Families really need three-plus bedrooms."

But Seattle Planning Director John Rahaim argued that families don't need a particular kind of home, they need a community around it. "It's having a school nearby and having kid-friendly open space nearby," he said.

Seattle Public Schools spokesman Peter Daniels said the district, however, should not be the one to take the leap of faith and build a school where there isn't demand.

"We just can't see the wisdom right now in doing something like that when we have other challenges and when the enrollment is just not there," he said.

Anyway, the district has schools near downtown, Daniels said, and families who could afford expensive downtown residences would pay for private school there.

Nearly all the students at the private Spruce Street School, a kindergarten-through-fifth-grade school in the Denny Triangle area of downtown, live outside the urban core, said Briel Schmitz, the school director.

"There is one family that lives downtown out of all of ours, and that's a new thing this year," Schmitz said. "What is more common is at least one of the parents works downtown."

Schmitz said the recent condo boom has not produced buildings that look like places where kids live.

"We're talking about numbers of bedrooms, that kind of thing," she said. "Families have different kinds of space needs."

She also noted the lack of a playground south of Cascade Playground. "If I had a kid, where would I go? We have a playground on the roof because there's no park here close enough."

Daniels suggested that one answer could be a partnership between the city and developers to make building family-friendly apartments and condos worthwhile in the future.

But for now, the size, amenities and marketing of apartments and condos tend to focus on young professionals and empty-nesters, rather than families. A Vulcan billboard across the street from the company's South Lake Union "Discovery Center," for instance, proclaims, "The patter of little feet sounds great on hardwoods."

The accompanying picture? A young man with his dog.

Ada Healey, Vulcan's vice president of real estate, acknowledged her company was not building for families with children.

"We're kind of waiting for the demand to materialize to support larger units," she said. "We would love to deliver product for families. One of the challenges families have in the center city is, where are the schools?"

Denny Onslow, chief development officer for Harbor Properties, agreed that the lack of a school was the biggest barrier to demand from families.

At one point, 70 children lived in the downtown Harbor Steps Apartments, Onslow said. But, "only about four or five of them were school-age."

House culture?

Ellen Parker and Jason Staczek love living in their three-story condo, just up the hill from the stores and restaurants of Fremont. But, with their baby daughter getting older, they're moving to 10 acres on Vashon Island.

Yes, Fremont has parks and a school. The problem, Parker said, is that her home has no yard and too many stairs.

"It's not the best place for a baby who's beginning to crawl," Parker said at an open house last month.

Anyway, most parents in the condo complex end up leaving, Parker said. "The trend is, people have a kid and they move out within a year."

"Most of our friends just move to Ballard and get a yard," she said. "We don't want to reach out our window and touch our neighbor's house anymore."

Daniels, of the Seattle Public Schools, said Seattle families just haven't accepted the idea of raising children in apartments and condos. He said the district has lost enrollment to suburbs where families can afford a house with a yard.

"I think there's a possibility that it may shift," he said. "Right now, we don't see it."

Williams Marketing President Leslie Williams, whose firm works on residential developments, said cities such as New York and Boston have fewer single-family neighborhoods close to downtown and more old buildings with three- and four-bedroom apartments. Building such large condos now would be expensive, she said.

It also may be that many head to the suburbs with their children simply because that's where they were raised.

"City living's a lot different," Harbor Properties President and Chief Executive Douglas Daley said. "If you grew up that way, I guess you're used to it."

Schmitz agreed that it might take more than parks, schools and bigger condos to get families downtown.

"I think until people really have to, they might not," she said. "There's still enough housing, I guess, that's close enough in that people are willing to commute."

The right amenities would be enough for many families, Planning Director Rahaim argued. Still, he said, "I'm not saying everybody would live that way."

Pioneers

Not everyone with kids left Parker's complex. Some have embraced living in a condo with kids.


		Jim Bryant / P-I
	Sheri Hendricks, left, and her partner, Kimberly Brandom, moved into a Fremont condo with "having a baby in mind," Brandom says. They believe their son, Cole Hendricks, will be exposed to more lifestyles.

"We actually moved into our current condo with having a baby in mind," said Kimberly Brandom, who lives with partner Sheri Hendricks and their 1- year-old son, Cole Hendricks.

"We love living in Fremont with a kid," she said. "We don't feel unsafe, but we feel he's exposed to lots of different lifestyles."

They also feel as if they have enough space and don't miss a yard since B.F. Day Playfield is nearby.

Melissa Maffei, who with Van Flandern co-owns Tottini, stocks hip, modern furnishings aimed at the kind of urban families that live in central neighborhoods in places such as New York City and San Francisco.

"We're very optimistic about families moving into this area," Maffei said, referring to Seattle's urban core. But she acknowledged that more of her current customers live in more traditional neighborhoods.

People who live in core neighborhoods with kids, or are planning to, often come from places where this is more common.


		Jim Bryant / P-I
	Alden Nagel, 7, and his mom, Debra Nagel, from Chicago, have been living in downtown Seattle since she bought a condo in The Electra three years ago. As a single parent, she says not having to commute and walking everywhere suits her lifestyle.

Debra Nagel, who shares her downtown condo with her 7-year-old son, is from Chicago. She said being able to walk to stores and other places and not having to commute suit her situation as a single parent.

"It's just an easier lifestyle," she said. "And there's more time."

Les Parrott, who is planning to move from Queen Anne into a South Lake Union condo with his wife, Leslie, and their two sons, grew up in Boston. Most friends don't really get the move to South Lake Union, he said.

"About 90 percent of them go, 'What are you thinking?' " he said. "The other 10 percent say, 'Oh, I've always wanted to do that.' "

Leslie Parrott, who grew up in suburban Kansas City, Kan., said she thought getting some families in Seattle's core would lead to more.

"Unless you've grown up in a place where you can envision community life in the city, it just feels foreign," she said. "I think it's the kind of thing that once you see it, you go, 'I get it and I want that.' "

She's also working on other steps, including a playground in Denny Park.

Downtown "doesn't just call out to families," she said. "But I think it will, and I'm committed to making it happen."

Downtown living works in Vancouver, B.C. -- but will it translate?

More headlines and info from Downtown.