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Quadrant is working with the City to develop "Business District" property at the intersection of NE 124th Street and Willows Road on the Southwest corner. The Planning Commission was very involved.
Here goes.
The Applicant (Fred Proctor) is proposing a mixed-use development consisting of approximately 370 residential units with a variety of housing types that would include for-sale townhomes, triplex and traditional for-rent apartment style dwellings. The development would also include a minimum of 20,000 sq. ft. of ground-level or stand-alone retail or commercial space, to include neighborhood-scale commercial uses, office, and/or day care center uses.
Willows Road is already congested and traffic is poor here; and will be more challenged when Facebook moves in. Council member Myers calls this development "a ten minute community" where many of the residents can work nearby, keeping cars off the road (with some shopping at Totem Lake.) A necessary signal on 124th is sure to slow traffic. The development is virtually it's own neighborhood.
To mitigate traffic the City will try to work with Metro for all day service. Right now it's AM / PM. Whenever possible, I won't be driving through this corner. A new sidewalk is planned on 124th is to connect a northern and western trail, I assume for pedestrian and bicycle mobility.
The range of housing types creates needed flexibility to integrate with the site and creates more variation in housing affordability:
>10% of the townhomes will be at 80% of average monthly income.
>10% of the apartments will be at 70% of average monthly income.
The development will include open space tracts, landscaped active and passive recreation, a trail network, and potentially, a gateway/bike rest stop feature on the northeast corner of the site. Open space is 20% of the site.
Green development incentives specific to the site are 1) electric vehicle charging, 2) green roofs, 3) solar panels on townhomes, 4) solar panels on community buildings. Quadrant is required to use two of the four options. Council member Myers said solar is a poor choice for our region since "there is a -500% rate of return."
What's your opinion?
For development diagrams, plans and mapping click this link.
https://redmond.legistar.com/View.ashx?M=F&ID=6991868&GUID=8B0CADAE-4CB4-498E-B110-FFD3C43BA5D7
-- Bob Yoder, opinion
Source: 1/27/2019 Council study session & memo
I don't understand how people living around the area can afford to buy town-homes in this community. I am guessing the prices will start from around $600K-$700K.
ReplyDeleteI am never going to drive on 124th again!
Facebook/Oculus is going everywhere. They’ve leased or bought everything available on willows, and has offers out to all other tenants. Their presence will only continue to grow in that area. 1500 new jobs on Willows. -- Facebook comment.
ReplyDeleteI say we go ahead: let's take Proctor and Gamble!
ReplyDeleteSouthwest corner, right?
ReplyDeleteWould you prefer people who work at Microsoft instead live in Monroe, drive from there, and then have a similar traffic impact within the immediate Redmond area?
ReplyDelete"minimum of 20,000 sq. ft. of ground-level or stand-alone retail or commercial space"
ReplyDeleteYeah. 124th access to 405 will be screwed. Traffic now is a nightmare.
Developers are now working on removing farm zoning for Sammanish valley so you can have microapodments after they remove all the farm land.
Have they noticed that all locally owned businesses that are dying? All they are interested in is helping developers and looking after their future career paths in Seattle government, not real planned growth.
This weekend I was just doing errands in Redmond and there are so many small businesses just quitting Redmond in their "mixed use" downtown area and around. If you have a business, you need parking. Just to let you know, most of the single story small business buildings are already slated for removal. If you liked some of the small bakeries - goodbye. If you like some of the small beauty salons and eclectic store - they will be gone in 2 years. The bike stores are now following. They will not go into these new "mixed use" buildings. There is little success for businesses except for a Subway and a supercuts chain. The rent's too high and there is no parking for in and out customers. If you have disabled customers or customer who can't walk well, forget it. Even the dentists and doctors have an issue now. There is little required parking for new development and even deliveries and drop off zones are nonexistent - because we'll all ride the bus. Right? Wait, the transit center parking fills before 7am now. No plans to expand. I fully expect to see our Mayor with a future hookup of a job with some special interest.
Redmond is blessed with the lowest number of eligible voters per residents. It's the soft punching bag on the Eastside for greedy developers, because so many people aren't citizens and can't vote, and then you have the usual fraction of eligible voters who do vote. They have sold out. You'll notice that Redmond government was alone on the Eastside to come out against free Heroin injection sites, so no doubt, they are the likely hosts of the mobile injection vans or a site if King county has its way.
In May 2017, Quadrant introduced its own amendment to the City's Comprehensive Plan and requested that the 16-acre parcel on the southwest corner of Willows & NE 124th Street be rezoned from BP (Business Park) to Residential. Without this amendment, no housing could be built on the corner since BP specifically prohibits residential dwellings.
ReplyDeleteThe "Quadrant" amendment was reviewed and then quietly ushered through a series of Planning Commission meetings and hearings by the City's planners - and then sent to the Redmond City Council for final approval. There was no discussion of the grinding, deadlocked Willows/124th St traffic that already existed in 2017 - just an acknowledgement that there would be an additional traffic light on the downhill section of NE 124th St.* It should have been obvious that the roads were already too congested to add more traffic so this rezone should never have been approved.
We have to recognize that planners in the City of Redmond are paid to plan and their sole mission is to get these projects approved, and not to actually consider the long-term consequences of the projects. The planners should have said, "Traffic is already awful. No residential rezone until traffic congestion improves - whether it is accomplished by additional bus service or by adding road capacity." Planners are tasked with providing increased density for all the people moving here and will up-zone to meet their quotas that are dictated to the City by the Puget Sound Regional Council (psrc.org)
The fatal flaw is the unchecked authority that planners have in approving projects no matter what consequences, both immediate and cumulative, that will occur. As we have seen, the traffic just gets worse and worse as each new development is completed. Where were the Mayor and City Council Members when this project was being approved?
*(Remember that Redmond uses "Mobility Units" that allow construction to occur no matter how bad traffic already is so Quadrant will pay some fees for Mobility Units and this money is supposed to somehow offset any additional traffic. It's just the cost of doing business for Quadrant, but they can walk away and leave us mired in traffic when their project is completed and all the units are sold.)
Will they be bringing in a grocery store or will there be traffic to and from Redmond to stop at the grocery store
ReplyDelete