BRIAN MILLER
Fifteen Twenty-One rises
behind a strip club and
a two-story, Samis-owned,
corner building.
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Downtown bibliophiles shed a few tears at the recent announcement that M. Coy Books will soon be closing. After 18 years on Pine Street between First and Second avenues, "We were struggling with the rent," says co-owner Michael Coy. His store will be shuttered by the end of the month. A national retailer will likely follow at twice the old rent, according to the building's property manager.
But the real issue—the real value—is the view above the four-story A.E. Doyle Building (at Second and Pine) and elsewhere around the block. One of several parcels with particularly valuable air rights, the Doyle changed hands two years ago as part of a series of transactions that ultimately led to M. Coy losing its lease, and downtown condo dwellers securing spotless vistas.
More deals may well follow. All of them literally revolve around the building known as Fifteen Twenty-One Second Avenue, whose value—units are priced from $1.5 million to $9 million—depends substantially on dwarfing its neighbors. "Designed exclusively for the confident few," according to its Web site, Fifteen Twenty-One will be the tallest condo-only tower in the city: 440 feet high, or nearly the height of the Smith Tower. Those confident few are expected to take residence this fall.
The project has a glossy Web site with simulated views from all sides that boasts, "From each of its thirty-eight floors, Fifteen Twenty-One Second Avenue offers a wide-open expanse of natural and urban views. To the west over Pike Place Market, a protected water view. In all directions, scenes of the vibrant cityscape are backed by mountain and sky."
Well, not in all directions. Though its developers own most of the short, surrounding properties on the block, certain holdout landowners have refused to sell. And now, the same recent city zoning revisions that permit the soaring condo make possible some very tall, skinny, view-blocking towers around it. If three key property owners choose to max out their lots, some condo buyers at Fifteen Twenty-One could be made very unhappy. (The condo is 95 percent presold, according to Windermere Real Estate, meaning contracts have been signed for deals to close this autumn; however, affected buyers could still walk away from their deposits.)
Whether this is a case of spite, blackmail, or defending one's property rights depends on who's talking. The city's Landmarks Preservation Board has a say, too. Also involved are nude showgirls, bird-watchers in Israel, and the bitter legacy of the monorail.
Most of the block in question was originally owned by reclusive land hoarder Sam Israel (1889–1994). Today, his legacy is the nonprofit Samis Foundation, which has preserved and redeveloped many of his neglected historic buildings, sometimes with attendant controversy, as at the Washington Shoe Building near Pioneer Square, where artists were evicted earlier this decade to make way for market-rate commercial tenants and a penthouse for Samis managing director William Justen.
The foundation says it has given more than $40 million to charity, primarily for local Jewish education, including the Seattle Hebrew Academy. Other beneficiaries are farther from Seattle, like the Latrun Migratory Bird Observation Center in Israel.
Formerly the head of Seattle's Department of Planning and Development (DPD), Justen dreamed up Fifteen Twenty-One as that department was writing the new zoning code, which took effect in 2006. Samis then sold two parcels along Second Avenue to Minneapolis developer Opus Northwest for $25 million. "I had a concept that Opus liked," says Justen, who adds that Samis also expects a bonus when the project is done.
To the north, however, lay the diminutive Doyle Building, which then housed M. Coy Books and other longtime tenants. That building was bought for $7.3 million three days after the new zoning went into effect. It's no coincidence that the buyer was a member of the Samis Foundation's board, Eli Almo.
"I told him it was available," says Justen. "We were very glad that a friendly entity bought it." Meaning that Almo removed from the chessboard a building that potentially could've been expanded into an unsightly taller tower.
In plans currently under DPD review, Almo proposes to add a fifth story to his building, but will stop there, capping the Doyle's height at a level neatly matching the blank north concrete wall of Fifteen Twenty-One (residences start at the seventh floor). Expanding and renovating the Doyle Building also gains him a better class of tenants—so long, M. Coy—and higher rents. The Boeing Employees Credit Union is taking over the ground-floor corner formerly occupied by a local clothing boutique. According to the building's leasing agent, Almo's retirement-home company, ERA Care, will occupy the top two floors of his building. He can also sell or transfer the Doyle Building's rights to build higher, says Justen.
So everyone's a winner—the condo, Samis, Opus, and the migratory birds of Latrun. Everyone except for M. Coy. Justen, who in recent years decamped from the Shoe Building, will himself be moving into one of the "sky-high international style homes" at Fifteen Twenty-One.
But the views from Fifteen Twenty-One aren't so clear to the south, facing Pike Street, and the neighbors aren't so friendly. More white DPD signs announce two very different projects on parcels Samis once coveted.
