Development

What if instead of the pit where Sunset Bowl once stood, there was an all-ages street hockey rink? Or if instead of the temporary lake just east of the Ballard Bridge, there was a floating art installation?

Those are just a few of the suggestions for Seattle's vacant lots submitted to the Seattle Design Commission as part of the Holding Patterns project.

On June 22, the Design Commission released the 13 finalists out of the 83 submissions it received.

The finalists are:

• Community Rink: A space for street hockey, bike polo, dodge ball and more.
• ParkOurPark: A parkour park.
• Kaji Court: A fustal/soccer court.
• Rising-Shining: A temporal light installation.
• ViDea Video Performance: A video project project.
• Neighborhood Watch Theatre Company: A multipurpose public event space.
• Blackboard Jungle: An installation of blackboards for the public to write/draw on.

Swedish Medical Center's new five-story, 90,000-square-foot Medical Office Building on its Ballard campus is taking shape and headed for an early-November grand opening.

Construction started on the Medical Office Building in September 2009. The building, located at the intersection of Market Street and Tallman Avenue Northwest, will house an expanded emergency department and medical imaging center, primary-care clinic and specialty physicians.

The Medical Office Building is part of a movement by Swedish/Ballard to revitalize its campus and meet the healthcare needs of the growing Ballard community into the future.

"The community now has visible evidence of a long-term commitment to Ballard, which was not the case before," said Dr. Rayburn Lewis, executive director and senior medical director of Swedish/Ballard during a June 23 tour of the half-completed Medical Office Building.

Highlights of the tour included:

• A wall of windows that will light the main entry off Tallman Avenue.

Urness House, Compass Housing Alliance's 80-unit Ballard development for formerly homeless men and women, appears ready to move forward after back-to-back, standing-room only State Environmental Protection Act and Design Review meetings June 14.

The seven-story Urness House, to be located at 1753 N.W. 56th St., will offer housing for chronically homeless individuals earning less than $8,000 per year. There will also be onsite services, such as mental health clinics, substance abuse clinics and triage services. Click here to learn more about Urness House policies.

Lisa Rutzick, Seattle Department of Planning and Development project manager for Urness House, said it is unusual to have a public State Environmental Protection Act meeting, but the amount of interest raised by the project warranted one.

Ballardite's voiced concerns about negative impacts by Urness House on parking, safety and property values.

Local artists Pam Gray and Anne Baumgartner snuck in the installation of more panels for their "On the Fence" project at the Avalon Ballard site June 10 before the rains set in.

"On the Fence" is a series of collage panels, each inspired by a different letter of the alphabet, that will decorate the fence surrounding the vacant lot on the corner Market Street and 14th Avenue Northwest where the Sunset Bowl once stood.

In the first few days "On the Fence" panels have been up, Gray and Baumgartner have already learned a handful of lessons.

For example, what goes up on the fence may not stay on the fence. The beaver from the B panel was stolen soon after the panel was put up.

Also, cardboard does not withstand rain well. Baumgartner and Gray will be moving forward with waxed cardboard and plastic parts donated from a nearby sign shop to combat the weather.

The artists eventually plan to install a panel for all 26 letters of the alphabet.

Ballard artists Lina Raymond lost a beloved business once and painted to get through her pain. Now, she does the same for Ballard's lost businesses and landmarks.

From her 100-year-old apartment building, Raymond has a view of empty storefronts and ruins of once-popular businesses.

Her paintings are colorful memorials to some of them, including Denny's, the Sunset Bowl, Edith Macefield's house and Epilogue Books.

"Paving paradise to put up parking lots is personal," Raymond said on her Web site. "And, we adapt or not."

Raymond's show, "Bearing Witness/adaptation," is showing at Portalis Wine Bar, located at 5205 Ballard Ave. N.W., until Aug. 6. After that, an expanded version of the show will be at Cupcake Royale, located at 2052 N.W. Market St., until Oct. 1.

Ballard Big Picture is a column of scenes from around the neighborhood. If you would like to submit a photo for use on this site and in the Ballard News-Tribune, please send it to Michael Harthorne at michaelh@robinsonnews.com. Be sure to include your name and information about your photo.

The nomination period for the Ballard Avenue Landmark District Board elections ends at 5 p.m. on June 10.

There are two positions – one for a property owner or business person and one for a business owner – open this election cycle.

To nominate a candidate, the nominator and the nominee must be registered to vote in the district, and the nominee must also sign the nominating form.

Nominations for the Ballard Avenue Landmark District Board should be submitted to Lagerquist & Morris, 5135 Ballard Ave. N.W.

Download the attached documents for more information and the nomination form.

By John Fox and Carolee Colter

You probably don't know this because no one down at City Hall thought to tell you, let alone ask for your opinion on the matter. But quietly two weeks ago, the full Seattle City Council unanimously voted to increase the city's 20-year residential growth targets by more than 30 percent.

On top of that, they committed the city to increasing its total share of King County's anticipated residential growth from 32 to about 37 percent during the period 2006 through 2031.

Without a doubt, this will set the stage for and provide the justification for still more upzones – at the expense of the livability and affordability of our city.

Every seven years, the state's Growth Management Act requires counties and cities throughout central Puget Sound to reassess actual employment, population and housing unit figures and then if necessary readjust their 20-year targets to accommodate their assigned share of the region's growth.

For Anne Baumgartner and Pam Gray, two artists sharing a cramped and cluttered Ballard studio around the corner from Cafe Bambino with a handful of other artists, it must be hard to see good space go to waste.

On June 1, Baumgartner and Gray will be putting up the first stages of their "On the Fence" installation at the future Avalon Ballard and former Sunset Bowl site at 1400 N.W. Market St., which has sat vacant since the former bowling alley was torn down in January.

The two artists, who have shared their studio space for three years and known each other for a decade since they were Seattle Public Schools teachers, had an idea they thought would be cool for an empty lot.

After receiving one of four grants for outdoor installations from Seattle Print Arts in March, Gray and Baumgartner set out to look for a usable lot in Ballard.

Baumgartner said they didn't think the project would happen at first because coordinating with property representatives and liability issues were proving to be difficult.

The Seattle Department of Planning and Development is hosting back-to-back meetings June 14 to review the environmental impacts and design of Compass Housing Alliance's 80-unit low-income housing development Urness House.

Urness House, to be located at 1753 N.W. 56th St., will house formerly homeless men and women and provide onsite treatment facilities for physical and medical conditions. It is being operated by the nonprofit Compass Housing Alliance.

The environmental review meeting will take place from 6:30 p.m. to 8 p.m. on June 14 at Ballard High School. During the meeting, the public will be able to comment on potential environmental impacts of the project, including traffic, parking and public safety.

The design review meeting for the project will take place immediately after the environmental review meeting, at 8 p.m. The meeting is a follow up to the Feb. 8 design meeting.

Visual and audio dampening components were installed on the roof of the Ballard on the Park/QFC development April 29 in an attempt to make the rooftop HVAC (heating, ventilating and air conditioning) units less audibly and visibly noticeable from the adjacent Ballard Commons Park and nearby residences.

The HVAC system could be heard humming from the park since it was turned on in January, and some residents complained that the large metal units were unsightly and not represented in plans for the development.

The supports for the dampening components were installed two weeks ago.

Ballard on the Park's 268 units at 5700 24th Ave. N.W. opened for leasing in February. The QFC below the apartments opened in January.