Could this truly be the end of the Stone Way pit?

[randy_byers]

Following up on an earlier story, My Wallingford reports that construction at the Stone Way pit is set to begin this month. The project is being called Stone Way Village and will have "154 housing units and some retail". That's a lot of units. I think in the previous story the retail was referred to as a convenience store. Anyway, it'll be nice to get rid of that mud pit.

Comments

[holyoutlaw.livejournal.com]

That'd be nice. It's been a pit for quite ... (realizes he can click the link and FIND OUT) ... a while.

[randy-byers.livejournal.com]

Long enough, at the very least.

[kim-huett.livejournal.com]

Assuming there is enough space 154 isn't really so many dwellings given the context. Assuming the situation in the US is similar to Australia, and I think it would be, developers are aiming for maximum density these days. The thing is well situated residential land (that tasty stuff close to work and the shops etc) has become very expensive as demand for it grows. On the other hand building materials have, in relative terms, become quite cheap so it doesn't add much to the overall cost to increase the number of dwellings by 5%, 10% etc to ensure a large overall profit.

[randy-byers.livejournal.com]

It certainly is in line with other developments in this neighborhood in the past five or so years. It's true that density is the goal these days. The previous mayor set a goal of getting the population of Seattle proper up to a million by 2030, or maybe it was 2050. The 2010 census has it at 630,000, although the entire metro area is over three million.

The city recently approved row (a.k.a. terraced) housing in certain neighborhoods, although I haven't heard of any being constructed yet. That follows a wave of town houses in the past decade.

[kim-huett.livejournal.com]

As far as I can tell the driving force remains location, location, location. Even in Australia, where there is a lot of space in comparison to the size of the population, density is the word. A large portion of the population don't want to live too far from where they work and play. This makes a relatively small portion of the suburbs in a city like Sydney highly desirable. Live out on the edges and you can still buy something decent for 300K. If you want an inner suburb however, well the prices there are going to start at a million and quickly double. I've no doubt the same is true in Seattle with there being two or more cashed up buyers for every inner city property.