Urban Condo Tour 2007

When I heard about Urban Condo Tour 2007, I decided to treat it like a seminar on downtown Seattle development. Saturday offerings included a presentation called Seattle 2011, "an in-depth look at the supply and demand trends affecting the downtown housing market with an exclusive look at the future skyline," offered by Dean Jones, a marketing strategist and one of the guiding lights behind Seattle's current condo boom. Jones was one of Seattle Magazine's 'Most Influential People" in 2004.

It was the word "exclusive" that really drew me in. I'm a total whore for that sort of thing.

I arrived at Fischer Plaza just in time for his presentation. He stood with a laser-pointer in front of an animated birds-eye rendering of Seattle's future skyline. It was like riding a weather copter on acid through the tall and skinniness that will soon radiate from the Denny Triangle outward. Around 50 people in jeans, khakies, sweaters, and comfortable shoes fought motion sickness as they quietly listened to his pitch.

People are snapping up new condos 2-3 years before they're ready for occupancy because that's how you get the best deals, he said. If you wait, you'll either get stuck buying in the more expensive secondary market of owner-sold units, or getting in line again later for the next round. The boom is on, and the units are selling now.

The inventory now coming on-line will increase what's presently available by a factor of five. We're looking at 1,500 new units a year for the next five years, he said. The trend is toward buildings with 500-600 units each. This is smart "amenity infused" housing, and draws upon third party vendors to add value without increasing cost. The median price is $750,000.

While over 2005 and 2006, just three new developments came on line, this year alone we have twelve. There will be nine more in 2008. And so forth.

Jones offered many reassurances that the Seattle housing market will continue to appreciate, and that buying ahead won't mean getting locked into a declining and overbuilt market. Given that there's a crane on every third block or so, this particular bit of salesmanship was inevitable. While the days of double digit annual appreciation are probably over, said Jones, we can still look forward to a good 5-8% a year for many years to come.

Why? Well, there's the famous jobs projection. 10,000 new jobs downtown in the next four years. Many of those people will want housing near their work, and be attracted by the urban living boom. Also, while it may look like we're overbuilding, we're not. The current boom will create less inventory than was delivered in Portland over the last 4-5 years, and they're doing just fine.

While some markets, like Miami and San Diego, are undergoing "corrections" with sitting inventories of 20,000 unsold units, that won't happen here because we've controlled the sort of speculation that distorts the demand picture and leads to overbuilding. Buyers agree that profits from condos sold in the first year will revert to the developer, and this, apparently, is enough to keep the flippers at bay. Besides, he said, "many of us feel that we're just in the first half of our growth period, while other markets are in their second."

And finally, he said that whole credit crunch slowing the market thing shouldn't get us too concerned. That's mostly a problem for the entry level of the market, and not the "well-heeled and very qualified buyers for most of these condos."

I didn't find all of this especially convincing, but apparently others do. "We have demand arriving well before pre-sales," he said. "People want to be the first person on the preview list."

Here's how it works. A development is announced, and even before the details such as final pricing and architecture are worked out, private presentations are held by the architects and developer representatives. A vision and a price range is offered. If one finds this presentation suitably intriguing, a $10,000 refundable deposit is placed that says, "I want to be the first to buy that house in that price range." These exclusive preview events precede the public offering by 2-3 months, and can help shape the outcome of the project.

At the launch of the Fifteen Twenty-One for example — the Second Avenue luxury development a few blocks from Pike Place Market that was one of the first to launch once height restrictions were lifted — the vision was to build 200 units at that site. But the preview sessions revealed that everyone wanted the larger penthouse designs. So they "took that design all the way down to the ground" and reduced the plan to 143 units. Ninety-five percent of these, he said, are pre-sold.

The Fifteen Twenty-One (a downtown home for the confident few), he said, is part of what developers refer to as Seattle's "Gold Coast." This also includes 1 Hotel at 2nd and Pike (unsurpassed luxury with a conscience), The Four Seasons at 1st and Union (Seattle's signature address), and the Escala at 4th and Virginia (Anticipate perfection, Embrace elegance, Experience grandeur). Between these four addresses, 505 new luxury condos will arrive near the Market and the Seattle Art Museum over the next two to three years, at an average price of over $2 million. More than half of these are already sold.

Some of these, said Jones, and forty percent of all condo sales nationwide, were bought by what he called "portfolio buyers." These are people who will outfit their home and have it as one of the options for where they might live. A portfolio buyer might have a home in London, New York, Seattle, and, oh, I don't know, maybe Rome. And they'll actually live in these homes some of the time. But they're also an investment. We're talking housing as wealth management strategy.

Thus informed, I was ready to embark on Urban Condo Tour 2007. Armed with my map of twenty represented properties (only some of the condos now under development), I set out toward the Gold Coast. For the first time, I noticed all the little sidewalk sandwich boards on every corner, directing the urban condo hunter to the various marketing offices that have sprung up around town. The first development I saw was Gallery, pictured at the top of this post. The crane at 2nd and Broad was visible from near the Space Needle. The sales office was, cleverly enough, located in a former art gallery at 1st and Wall. I signed in as Jack Mehoff, jmo@yahoo.com. I'm just a big kid.

Various kitchens, baths, living rooms, and bedrooms had been constructed in the space to allow the prospective buyer the illusion of actually experiencing the thing in itself. This struck me as extremely modern. A scale model of the finished building dominated the sales floor. Scheduled to open in 2008, the Gallery will be one of the first of the new buildings up and running, and offers units that range from a 600 sq. ft. box for $300,000, to penthouses that go for more that $2 million.

The impression I got was that of a fully dimensional IKEA catalogue. A tiny balcony with a frighteningly flimsy aluminum railing set against a faux sunset painted on the wall made me thirsty for a virtual margarita, but I instead pressed onward. My idea was to check out the Gold Coast developments and then hit a few others in the Denny Triangle on the way back to my car at Seattle Center.

At First and Blanchard was Plymouth Housing Group's three story high Building Hope One Building at a Time sign, advertising their good work and promoting their capital campaign. I wondered how much hope it would take to counter what I was seeing.

I saw Real Change vendor Michael Wiggins at 1st and Lenora. "What's going on," he asked? "Until noon it was dead, and now there's all of these people. And you're all dressed up and you have a camera." I was dressed in my best approximation of moderately affluent weekend casual. I wasn't even wearing a baseball cap. My wife advised me that it ruined the effect.

I told Michael what I was up to, and who all these people were with their little urban condo guides. "Cool," said Michael. "Got any more maps? I'll sell them to them!" I think that, as the condo owners fill the downtown, Michael will do just fine.

1 Hotel and the Fifteen Twenty-One are little more than very expensive holes in the ground at this point. There wasn't much to see. My digital camera battery went dead, thus ending my aspirations as a photojournalist for the afternoon.

As I walked past 2nd and Pine, there was a pair of used shoes balanced on the rim of a garbage can. Someone had bought a new pair at Nordstrom's Rack, and instead of throwing the old ones away, paused to consider the less fortunate. To someone, these comfortable looking castoffs would be an upgrade. It was a thoughtful act of human kindness, but it was also a metaphor. If only housing, I thought, were this simple.

A Seattle Manifesto

Manifesto: Italian, from Latin manifestus, clear, evident. See manifest.
A public declaration of principles, policies, or intentions, especially of a political nature.

This editorial runs in this weeks Real Change, and is intended as a challenge for all of us to reconsider our approach to homelessness and poverty. Our systematic failure as homeless advocates and service providers to recognize that radical inequality and increased poverty and homelessness are linked have placed us in the position of now being part of the problem.

Call it a sign of the times. Cities throughout the Northwest and beyond are getting tough on visible poverty. Tacoma and Portland have enacted some of the most stringent “time, place, and manner” restrictions on panhandling anywhere, and Seattle has quietly adopted a “zero-tolerance” policy on homeless encampments of any size. San Francisco is an anti-homeless war zone, with homeless sweeps becoming both more frequent and brutalizing.

Even here, in liberal Seattle, the diamond-hard edge of our times is beginning to be felt.

The Downtown Seattle Association says there are more human feces on the street now than before public toilets were installed. They want this basic public amenity removed.

They say panhandling is up by thirty-eight percent this year alone, despite their new “Have a Heart” campaign to discourage direct giving. They say that outdoor meals programs, which serve some of the toughest cases, attract litter, dysfunction, and blight.

Yet, few others seem to have noticed. Business is booming. The convention center and facilities at other hotels and conference centers are fully booked. Downtown living is more popular than ever, and concerted efforts to effectively address homelessness are underway.

So why the meanness? Why here? Why now?

The answer has to do with the future of our downtown, and the hardening soul of Seattle. As those who have the means increasingly opt for in-city living, Seattle is becoming an island of affluence in a sea of growing economic and racial disparity.

One barrier to downtown living is the perception that it might not be safe. With big money committed to downtown development that is designed to attract the wealthiest one percent, the DSA's preoccupation with squelching visible poverty makes a lot more sense.

While everyone knows that the downtown has been rezoned for “tall and skinny” condo development, the upper-end of this market is the proverbial tail that wags the dog.

There’s the Escala at 4th and Virginia, slated to open in 2009. "Anticipate perfection. Embrace elegance. Experience grandeur," says their website. This 30-story glass tower at 4th and Virginia has 275 new condos going for a million dollars or more each. Nearby, at the Fifteen Twenty One Second Avenue Building ("designed exclusively for the confident few"), 143 units sell for an average of $1.8 million each. The move-in date here is December 2008.

The Four Seasons, going in at 1st and Union and scheduled to open in summer 2008, bills itself as "Seattle's Signature Address," and will feature 36 private residences above a luxury hotel. Condos are priced from $2.5 million to more than $10 million.

With all this wealth comes a vision for a downtown that is safe, secure, and sanitized, where the über-rich and the merely affluent can buy groceries at the public market and uphold high cultural standards at the SAM without ever having to confront the ugly side of inequality.

It'll be sort of like New York. But without the diversity or the people.

There is a strategy in play, and it involves both carrots and sticks. The priority for "ending homelessness," led by federal funding opportunities and eagerly adopted by government, philanthropy, and large human services institutions who stand to benefit, focuses on that ten percent or so of homeless people who constitute the visible urban poor, otherwise known as the "chronic homeless."

No matter what the issue — homelessness, education, the environment, whatever — federal funding levels are a precise calibration of maximal cooptation at minimal price. Homelessness goes for around $1.6 billion right now. Cheap.

The stick is the increased policing of the urban poor, and new legal tools designed to drive poverty from the center to the periphery.

If there is a central fact of life in America at the beginning of the twenty-first century it is this: What we don’t see doesn’t bother us.

As the Downtown Seattle Association beats their steady media drumbeat of faux-compassion and tough love for the poor, we can expect them to move from rhetoric to more explicit forms of action. We need to prepare for when this happens

Approaches to homelessness that stigmatize and criminalize poverty must be resisted. Rhetoric that legitimates fear and hatred of the poor under a threadbare cover of compassion needs to be questioned. Policies that undermine equality and democracy need to be identified and opposed.

For too long, the strategy to end homelessness has focused on charity, while questions of economic justice have received little more than useless lip service. Meanwhile, a one-sided class war has raged on right under our noses.

Don’t you think it’s time to take sides?

Quick! Hide the Poor. The Rich Are Coming.

Ask most people if public begging is a problem in Seattle and they'll say no. Compared to most cities, they'll say, the panhandlers are low key, polite, and not especially numerous. I admit to drawing from a sample of less than ten here, so this isn't exactly science, but for normal people, the panhandling "problem" isn't really a big issue.

And yet the Downtown Seattle Association can't stop talking about it. Why? While press flak Anita Woo talks about how panhandling drives away convention center business, this can't be the whole story. Business downtown is booming. Ask anyone.

So what's really going on here?

The DSA being a forward looking group of folks, I'd say the answer lies in the future. We need to look at what's being built.

As downtown Seattle becomes an enclave of urban affluence, with new developments sprouting up like forty story mushrooms beneath the biggest wettest cow pie you've ever seen, price tags range from expensive to stratospheric. And as the well-to-do discover urban living, they bring their suburban comfort zones along for the ride.

One barrier to downtown living is the perception that it might not be safe. With big money betting on the idea that the super rich — along with the merely affluent — will make the downtown their home, the DSA's preoccupation with squelching visible poverty makes a bit more sense.

A quick look at the new downtown reveals what's at stake.

There’s the Escala at 4th and Virginia, slated to open in 2009. "Anticipate perfection. Embrace elegance. Experience grandeur," says their website. This 30 story glass tower at 4th and Virginia has 275 condos for sale, going for a million dollars or more each. Amenities include a 24,000 foot members-only club, with a private theater, fitness area, restaurants, and wine caves where residents might store their private collections in convenient locked cases. The website's virtual tour seems to indicate that each unit comes with its own trophy wife at no extra charge.

The Cristalla, just a half a block down the street from our office, has units that go for over $3.5 million. In these, a column of water drops from the ceiling to fill the generously sized bath tub. When Real Change moved in back in '94, Belltown was pleasantly seedy. Now, the seedy have been priced out by the greedy, and we're hanging on by our fingernails, possessed of the sure knowledge that our very excellent deal will one day come to an end.

The Four Seasons, going in at 1st and Union, bills itself as "Seattle's Signature Address," and will feature 36 private residences above a luxury hotel. Condos are priced from $2.5 million to more than $10 million. Ironically, the proximity of the Pike Place Market, the preservation of which was considered a victory for the little guy, is listed along with the Seattle Art Museum as a key amenity for the uber-rich urban dweller.

Nearby, at the Fifteen Twenty One Second Avenue Building ("designed exclusively for the confident few"), units are selling for an average of $1.8 million each. Obscenely enough, this 143-unit development is sited where the Green Tortoise Youth Hostel once was, where bunks without amenities could be had for a few dollars a night. The "confident few" are slated to begin moving in sometime around December 2008. While most high end downtown living is mixed in with condos for the merely affluent, this project distinguishes itself as an island of extreme wealth unto itself, where only the rich need apply.

You get the idea. With all this wealth comes a vision for the sort of downtown where no one ever has to feel uncomfortable. No one who’s rich, that is.

It'll be sort of like New York. But without the diversity or the people.

While prognostication is always a tricky business, some things we know. The DSA will drive toward the criminalization of panhandling, the elimination of outdoor feeding, and the removal of public toilets. While the political will for such steps does not yet exist, they're working on it.

Meanwhile, the priority for "ending homelessness" will focus on that ten percent or so of homeless people who constitute the visible urban poor, otherwise known as the "chronic homeless." This, being the federal policy priority, is where the money is, and the "advocates" have lined up to cooperate.

No matter what the issue — homelessness, education, the environment, whatever — federal funding levels are a precise calibration of maximal cooptation at minimal price. Homelessness goes for around $1.6 billion right now. Cheap.

Sadly, the philanthropic and religious communities don't seem to have discerned that the Bush administration, with their Ten Year Plans to End Homelessness, may not simply have the best interests of poor folk in mind.

If federal policy on homelessness didn't align with the interests of wealthy real estate developers, it would be a bit surprising, wouldn't it?

But that's not a comfortable thought. Better to bask in our own righteousness than to ask who benefits. Questions like that don't sit well with the folks who hand out the money.

When the DSA inevitably makes their move to criminalize panhandling in Seattle with time, place, and manner restrictions similar to those passed in Tacoma, it'll be revealing to see which side some people are on.

Silence is complicity, and having nothing to say while poor people are being further criminalized will not be a comfortable option. Not if I can help it.