A proposal for a massive Seattle apartment development initially pitched in 2015 is showing signs of life after several years of inactivity, and nearby online retailer Amazon could be spurring demand.
In late April, Miami-based Crescent Heights and architectural firm Gensler submitted a revised application for a 963-apartment project at 1901 Minor Ave., according to records on file with the city of Seattle. The site in the Denny Triangle neighborhood is about three blocks south from Amazon's headquarters in the South Lake Union district.
The project would join a roster of multifamily developments under construction in Seattle, which is one of the top cities in the country this decade for building activity. That decade coincides with the growth of the world's largest online retailer.
"Developers are betting big on Amazon’s growth," reads a CoStar Market Analytics report about multifamily construction in the area. "Urban core neighborhoods with the most deliveries have something in common: easy access to Amazon offices.“
Like Crescent Heights' first proposal, the updated plan consists of two, 32-story towers linked by an eight-story podium, both of which will sit atop a multi-level underground parking structure with more than 600 stalls.
The new application has slightly more apartment units -- bumped up to 963 from 941 -- and slightly less parking. As before, the development is designed to have about 14,000 square feet of retail on the ground level and open-air amenity decks that form notches in the buildings' otherwise rectilinear silhouette.
Each is planned to also have a small amount of co-working space, about 2,250 square feet in all.
It is unclear why the project fell off the radar or when construction could begin should it go forward. The developer and city officials did not immediately return requests for comment. Gensler declined to comment.
Crescent Heights made a splash four years ago, when it entered the Seattle area with an even more ambitious development in mind: a 101-story, 1.2-million-square-foot tower at 719 4th Ave. in downtown standing 1,029 feet high, which would have made it the tallest building on the West Coast.
Like the Denny Triangle project, that development, known as 4/C, went quiet. However, no new movement on 4/C appears to be in the works. The only documentation on file with the city concerning its intended address involves a complaint about a trash pile at the site.
