A really clever animation that John Leisenring (JCL Animations in Olympia), did for Friends of the Waterfront. Click picture to start animation:

Download it (It's a 3.2 MB Quicktime file, if you have a slow connection...)

Best,
Thad

After an interesting conversation with another business owner this afternoon, (who doesn't share my view on the development of downtown) I had a thought...

What are the underlying issues with the Triway development on the isthmus?

Yes, there is the view and the history and there is the luxury condo-problem and the tax breaks, ...

But, I have a view questions floating around in my head I would like to get some answers from you Olybloggers:

Is downtown good the way it is?

Should it stay the way it is?

Do we need change? Do we mean by change development?

Does development mean more housing? If housing, where and who could build it?

So, if you followed me so far, let's get down another few questions:

How much does it cost to build a multiple story building in downtown.

Who could take on a project like that, finance it, fund it, etc.

Are all developers evil?

If so, who else could build a project like that? 

Let's find a solution to those answers and we can come up with a masterplan of how we want Olympia to look like in 10 years - hey, it's Olyblog2018?!?!?

And, then write a "buisness plan" of how we can achieve that.

That's what I did when I wanted to open my business:

Answer all the questions I could think off, write the answers down, answer more questions and write them down and before you know it, you got a working business model.

If we could create some synergy (gotta love that word!), perhaps we could shop the idea to a view developers around town/state and see what they say and perhaps we can come up with an alternative plan/solution for downtown. Usually it's much easier to convince people that they should consider your voice, if you have a plan...

So, with those words I shall leave you for the night to ponder...

cheers,

mathias

Thought I would also round up some other growth that is on the table around the city. These are either priliminary submissions to the city or project discussions, or may have already begun. Like with the clearing near Division & Walnut Rd, these things can slip by with little to no fuss. Take the entire moonscaping of the development along Mud Bay & Evergreen Pkway/101 Interchange for example. That will soon be a 58-Acre development. It is slated to have 231 single-family lots, 24 duplexes, 63 triplexes, 54 sixplexes, 20 townhomes, and commercial buildings with at least 7000 sq ft of floor space. And lots of garage doors. Link to location here.

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1. Trillium Neighborhood 'Village' Master Plan

• 79-Acre Master Planned Neighborhood here.
  
• A total of 517 housing units are proposed, with 311 single-family residences,
  26 duplex units, 180 multi-family apartments, and 1 unit in a mixed use building.
  
• Also proposed is an approximately 1.4 acre commercial site, a one-acre community green, other open spaces, and associated streets, utilities, and public services.
  
  

2. Bing Apartments

• 6-Story 133-Units. Location here.
  
  

3. Prather Valley Park

Much talk about TriWay right now. Though no one seems to be talking about the Colpitts development at Columbia & 5th Ave. For this project, 88+ parking spaces will be removed and the city will spend $200,000+ on clean-up. In the spirit of taking a look at what could be, I did some (crummy) photoshopping of what a 7-story building would look like around a sea of 1 to 3 story structures surrounding it.

The 100+ units of housing will sell for "market rate" which could mean anything from about $290,000 to $400,000. The project will also have a 2 level parking area.

So why aren't we as focused on this project as being out of place, or not catering to a more affordable level? With the 'view' and alternative use argument aside, these two projects only have a difference of a few hundred-thousand dollars.

go to original

...

Friends of the Waterfront has been calling for a comprehensive community-wide visioning process to determine the shape of our waterfront area. The general public should determine how this vital area will be used to support the high quality of life we all want to continue to enjoy in Olympia.

The next step in the city's consideration of the isthmus rezone proposal is the public hearing before the Olympia Planning Commission at 6:30 p.m. on Tuesday, June 24, at the Olympia Center. Tentatively, people will be able to sign in starting at 5:30 for a slot to testify.

Meantime, we seek Letters to the Editor in support of our position. We also have yard signs, and window signs available for distribution.

Please visit our website (www.friendsofthewaterfront.org) for all the information on this proposal and links to city files and letters to the editor. See the Images section of the website for interesting commentary on the proponents' misleading graphic depictions.

360º Panorama:

Here's a more detailed 180º Panorama:

Olympia City Manager Steve Hall and Public Works Director Mike Mucha were interviewed by Christopher Swope for an article title "A Rising Tide" that was published in the US GSA magazine Governing.com. You can read the article here. This article is from December 2007 so it is pretty current.

Here are some things to consider from that interview:

Steve Hall says the Olympia community is "pretty engaged around the whole climate change issue" and Hall says that Olympia has met the Kyoto protocol standards.

It's an interesting read and focuses on the impact of rising sea level which makes sense because Olympia is a coastal community, even if the coast is the intercoastal Puget Sound. The City's planning is set around sea level rise of one foot, two feet and three feet.

Public Works Director Mike Mucha notes that planning for sea level rise in Puget Sound is not simply looking at global sea level rise, the planning has to take into account tides that can cause regular 20 foot sea level fluctuations with the tides. Mucha also notes that the rising sea level is magnified in Olympia because we are at the end of Puget Sound.

The problem is that as sea level rises, it's not going to be felt as a gently lapping body of water that creeps slowly higher, it's going to be increased flooding that occurs during specific events when high winds, heavy rains and high tides coincide and that when these three coincide we will experience increased flooding.

I've been working away on the Friends of the Waterfront website, adding stuff about how the owners of the million dollar condos Triway wants to build would be excused from paying property taxes for ten years, etc. But personally, I'm most interested in thinking about exactly what images politicians, and people on the Planning Commission and the rest of us use in deciding what the city will look like for years and years.

I'm pretty much done with commenting on Triway's images for the website. Now I'm starting to make my own versions, roughing out what the city might look like instead of having high rises down there. It's interesting — maybe we should have a virtual redevelopment contest... above-ground Moxlie Creek in Photoshop, etc.

Here's a start

For Immediate Release: June 3, 2008
Contact: Janine Gates, President, SPEECH, 360-791-7736

Community Forum, "Envision Downtown Olympia"

A public forum on Downtown Olympia's future will be held on Thursday, June 19, from 6:30 to 9 p.m. at the First United Methodist Church, 1224 Legion Way SE.

The forum, "Envision Downtown Olympia," is sponsored by the non-profit organization South Puget Environmental Education Clearinghouse (SPEECH) with support from the Community Sustaining Fund. The public is invited to envision different perspectives on what we, as a community, want for downtown Olympia. The forum will also address the Urban Waterfront Rezone proposal submitted to the city by Triway Enterprises.

Forum speakers include Rich Hoey, Water Resources Director at City of Olympia Public Works, who will give a presentation on predicted sea-level rise in downtown Olympia; Barbara Gooding, former director of the Washington State Department of Community Development and former City of Olympia planning commissioner, who will offer a brief history of Olympia's current downtown zoning issues; Steve Cooper, downtown property owner; and Bob Jacobs, former mayor of Olympia and member of Friends of the Waterfront. Eve Johnson, former president of the League of Women Voters, will be the moderator.

Audience members will actively participate in the visioning and discussion.

SPEECH can be reached at (360) 528-9158, speech.greenpages@gmail.com or www.oly-wa.us/greenpages.

One of the interesting things about working with Friends of the Waterfront against the request to rezone the space between the lake and the sound has been looking at what the planning commission and the City Council actually *see* when they're deciding what Olympia will look like in the future. I'm just starting to do some pages for the FOTW website with comparisons, like this...:

Views from the 4th Avenue bridge

The City's visualization from the public workshop March 22nd — which includes the rezone on the other side of the street, not just TriWay's imagined buildings.

TriWay's visualization — notice that the street lights on the left look about five stories high, making the buildings feel appealingly small...

http://www.nuprometheus.com/friends/comparebridge.html

Best,
Thad