Selig now plans short office building near Sculpture Park

Originally published February 26, 2012 at 8:00 PM | Page modified February 26, 2012 at 10:49 PM

Longtime Seattle developer Martin Selig says he has scrapped plans for an eight-story apartment building next door to downtown Seattle's Olympic Sculpture Park, and now plans a four-story office building there.

"When I see this many apartments getting developed, it scares me," Selig said Friday.

More than 6,000 apartments are under construction in King and Snohomish counties, with thousands more planned. The region hasn't seen this much new multifamily development in 20 years, and, while most developers remain bullish, some researchers now say the apartment market could be overbuilt.

Selig's property at 3031 Western Avenue, just north of the much-praised sculpture park, now is the site of a two-story garage. Selig, who has owned it for 30 years, has floated several plans to redevelop it.

When he proposed a 14-story luxury-apartment project on the site in 2007, some neighbors and others said it would ruin views from the park and was out of scale. A city design-review board agreed in 2010 that the planned building seemed to "simply loom over the park," and should be shorter.

So Selig proposed a seven-story office building — taller than zoning allowed — and neighbors again expressed objections.

Then came a proposed eight-story, 64-unit apartment building, which complied with the city's higher height limit for residential structures.

Selig said his decision to drop that plan and build a shorter office building instead was driven entirely by the market. He said he will pursue permits now, but wait to build until tenants in two nearby office buildings he owns want to expand.

Former state Sen. Sylvia Skratek, who lives nearby and led opposition to several of Selig's previous proposals, said in an email that she isn't familiar with his new plan, but neighbors "will take a look at any submission that he puts forward and review it as we have in the past to determine if it is consistent" with the neighborhood and city guidelines.

Eric Pryne: 206-464-2231 or epryne@seattletimes.com

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Selig now plans short office building near Sculpture Park