GlobeSt.com UPDATE: Downtown Emergency Housing Proposal Challenged

SEATTLE-The non-profit Downtown Emergency Service Center was expecting an appeal to its low-income housing project for alcoholics, and it’s just what they got.

The project, to be located a couple of blocks south of REI’s flagship store and across an alley from a new Marriott hotel, calls for 49 studio apartments on the upper floors and a dorm-like setting on the ground floor with 26 beds. The Downtown Emergency Service Center plans to use the facility to provide “long-term affordable shelter and supportive services for pre-recovery chronic public inebriates.”

The appeal questions the city’s determination that a full-fledged environmental impact statement is not necessary for the project. An appeal hearing is scheduled for Oct. 7. Prior to the appeal, a letter to the city by an adjacent property and business owners alleges that allowing this project “will significantly reduce the value of our property and make it inordinately difficult to sell it to anyone.”

The property is located on a triangular shaped, 10,700-sf site on Eastlake Avenue at Denny Way, just to the west of Interstate 5 in the northeast corner of Downtown. The Denny Way overpass, connecting downtown to First Hill and Capitol Hill, abuts the site on its north side. The approach to the actual bridge structure of the overpass forms a continuous concrete wall from 6 to 20 feet in height just a few feet north of the site’s northern boundary.

The architect on the project, John Woodworth of Stickney Murphy Romine tells GlobeSt.com, is seeking approvals for the estimated $4-million construction project on behalf of the nonprofit. The project would include the demolition of an existing one-and-a-half-story commercial building on site.

The agency hopes is to start construction