U Village area garage to become 61 housing units, and more parking

Back in 2005, Jonathan “Skip” Slavin and partners bought the Lakeview Medical Dental Building at the Five Corners intersection near Laurelhurst and University Village.

They paid $5.5 million for the building and two adjacent parcels, including the garage at 4516 Union Bay Place N.E.

Now that garage is being redeveloped as Burke + Union, a 61-unit market-rate apartment building over a two-level garage with 115 spaces for both residents and visitors to the buildings on both sides of the new structure. (Slavin and partners also own the Union Bay Plaza office-retail complex to the west.)

Construction began this spring, and completion is expected next summer.

The old garage, built in 1974, had 58 spaces. The Lakeview building also has some parking of its own.

The new five-story building will have parking entrances on both Union Bay Place and the alley to the north. There will be about 2,500 square feet of restaurant or cafe space facing Union Bay Place, where the tenant entrance is also located.

Unit sizes will be generous, not student-oriented, ranging from 534 to over 900 square feet. Layouts will go from open one-bedroom to two-bedroom units. The average unit size is over 700 square feet.

A 750-square-foot roof deck and a bike room for 17 bicycles are planned.

A 3,347-square-foot landscaped courtyard and barbecue area on the third-floor level will face northeast to the Burke-Gilman Trail.

Total project size, including the parking, is about 85,000 square feet.

The Burke + Union team also includes Encore Architects; W.G. Clark, general contractor; G.H.A. Landscape Architects; Blueline Group, civil engineer; and Swenson Say Faget, structural engineer.

Burke + Union was submitted to the city under existing zoning, though that area surrounding U Village is being considered for a HALA upzone. Several properties are now being eyed for residential redevelopment, including the Trailside Apartments and the Travelodge block, either with contract rezones or the future upzone in mind.

To the west across the street from Burke + Union, the Chinese-backed developers of U Place, at 4609 Union Bay Place, are going to build a six-story, 244-unit condominium under current zoning. And just to east, the six-story, 137-unit Aegis Five Corners is being planned on the former Baskin-Robbins site. The property for that senior housing project sold last month for $13.2 million, including one of the parcels that Slavin and partners bought in 2005 as part of the Lakeview deal.

By far the biggest redevelopment prize in the area is the four acres owned by Safeway, which includes the Burgermaster site. It’s now zoned to 65 feet. Safeway recently filed plans to redevelop its Upper Queen Anne location with 250 apartments above a new store and underground parking.

Burke + Union

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