-Welcome, everyone.
My name is Rico Quirindongo, and I'm the acting director
for the Office of Planning
Community Development for the City of Seattle.
To set the table, I want to say that the COVID
pandemic has changed
the way we interact and conduct our lives.
Downtowns have changed while we work from home.
We need to be innovative
and adaptive to keep our downtowns vibrant.
This contest, and all of the smiles
that you see around the room were the result
of a proposal that the mayor made
in his State of the City speech earlier
this year to generate ideas on how to build
on the vitality of downtown post-pandemic,
address the increased vacancies
of our downtown office real estate market,
and look for opportunities to increase the number
of residential units available downtown
at a time that increase housing
is very much needed for the entire city.
I'd like to make a few thank you's.
I'd like to thank everyone who submitted for the Office
and Residential Competition.
Thank you for sharing
your thoughts, your ideas, your information.
I have to be honest.
What I see around the room today
far exceeded my expectations.
I really want to see these projects happen.
Thank you to the convention center for hosting this event,
and thank you to Lyle Bicknell and Pei Pei Sung on my staff
for all the work that you did
to make both this event and exhibit happen.
Cities around the country are exploring ways
to promote office and residential conversions.
We at the City of Seattle decided
that it would make the most sense
to actually speak to people that make this work happen,
to truly understand the challenge.
Building owners, developers,
and architects, to ask them for their best ideas.
The next step, which starts tomorrow, is to translate
these ideas into meaningful code and policy changes.
Tonight, we will recognize our top three proposals.
But first, I want to introduce Mayor Harrell,
Mayor Bruce Harrell.
Mayor, thank you.,
thank you for your vision and leadership.
As we look at ways to make our downtown
more vibrant, more economically productive,
and more of a destination
neighborhood in a post-pandemic era.
-Thank you, sir.
-Thank you. Director Quirindongo.
He's a he's an architect,
he's not used to just giving these speeches on a whim.
Fun fact.
I have the awesome speech it’s only going to take two minutes.
I woke up this morning, I said ‘ChatGPT,
give me the greatest ideas
on a speech to talk to people who are interested
in converting offices to residential units.’
And it produced this. No, I’m just kidding,
I'm just messing with you.
Pretty excited about the ideas that have emanated
from the community.
We know that, together,
that our downtown area will never be the same.
It's not supposed to be the same.
The world has changed around us
and community members and leaders and designers
and architects and urban planners
and all of you developers have come together
and said ‘what can be what is possible?’
We live in a world where we're told
so often what we cannot do, what cannot be.
A world of limitations is children were taught,
you know, don't walk too fast, don't run too fast,
watch around the corners.
We learn sometimes from our limitations.
What the city is trying to do
under Director Quirindongo’s leadership
and other department leaders that we have here.
We're trying to push
the envelope on what we can do, what are the limits?
So this process by which we will continue
to engage with you will be to write the next chapter
in Seattle on what we can do and what we should do.
The fact is, is that we're not going back to the typical
nine to five tide-in-tide-out of workers.
That's not sustainable.
That's not consistent with our climate change
strategies, our urban development goals.
Right now.
We have some important things
going on with the housing levy
that I proposed to the council,
with our comprehensive plan updates.
We, together, we
are redesigning the next chapter in our city.
And for those that I have worked with closely,
either when I was on the city council,
or as mayor, you know
that my style of leadership is not one to pound my chest,
or pound the table, it’s to try to lead
by listening.
And so I think that we've done
a pretty good job of listening to the designs,
and, you know, this is a competition.
Sorry, there's there are winners and losers.
Sorry. No, I'm just kidding.
There were no losers, because (laughter)
someone saying, ‘Hey, I didn't get the award.’
There's no losers because you can't lose
when you're brainstorming.
You can't lose when you're offering ideas
and suggestions.
When I have, in our office, brainstorming sessions,
sometimes I have, some people that know
where I'm going with this,
I'll say, ‘Let's have a brainstorming session’
and I'll offer something,
And they’ll say, ‘That's a lousy idea!’
And that's not how we brainstorm.
‘Can I advocate for it first?’
and we train ourselves to listen.
So this was a listening process for the city of Seattle.
The ideas that you see in this room
sort of showcase mixed use spaces
that integrate
housing, commercial areas and community amenities
that will foster a thriving and inclusive, and
inclusive urban environment.
So what's next will take work and time
and a belief in each other and ongoing partnership.
And many of you heard me say, believe in positive intent.
I believe you're trying to reach
affordability for everyone.
I believe that you care about the high tech worker
and the high salaried person
as much as you care about the security guard
and the janitor and the teacher,
the people on fixed income, I believe that.
Our policies will drive that belief, that value system.
What's next is we will convert many of these ideas
into legislative and regulatory actions.
We will advance this, looking,
based on this vision that you are helping us form
together, future legislation and regulatory modification
to code,
and to to code changes in the permitting processes,
we’ll have new incentives,
and quite frankly, this will inform our budget.
Again, this was a competition.
And I always say for those that ever took martial arts,
as I did as a child, you know,
one of the first things you do when you're about to compete,
is you bow.
And it was part of our
tradition in martial arts, because you respect the area
in which you compete, and you respect your opponent.
And so this is a respectful process
because your ideas, even those that didn't make it to the,
to the final four, if you will, to the,
to the big dance. There were some great ideas I was hearing
during this process.
Some of the great ideas that emanated from you.
So we're putting the challenge out there, that we know
everything cannot be converted.
We never said that.
But we think there's low hanging fruit.
We think that we will push the envelope
on what our new downtown should be.
when we talk about a
downtown activation plan,
and we see people hurting out there,
people who need treatment,
people who need to be housed, people who need our help,
that the built environment will help get us there.
So when I say One Seattle, it starts with this collective
effort that you've demonstrated
in this competition.
I'm just proud as can be to be part of it,
so thank you very, very much. (Applause)
-Thank you, man.
Before we announce tonight's winning proposals,
I want to introduce Jennifer Hills, deputy
chief operating officer, King Counties Executive Office,
with important, exciting news about King County's campus
master plan. -Thank you.
Well, thank you, Mayor Harrell and Rico,
for including King County in this exciting event.
As a downtown Denny Triangle resident,
I'm really looking forward to watching the mayor's vision
and your designs for office transformation take shape.
I want to take a few minutes
and talk about
an initiative in King County
that we're working on, very much in alignment
with the mayor's vision to foster a thriving downtown.
And that's our Civic Campus Planning Initiative.
Today, King County's government is here, in Seattle,
it's our home base, and it spreads out
across eight blocks in the urban core.
We have a couple of boards just over there
and you can see the buildings as they currently exist.
And this historic area is nestled
between the Central Business District,
Pioneer Square, Chinatown-International District.
Yesler Terrace, and Sodo.
And that can remain
the core of county government, but it can be so much more.
We're thinking about a 24-hour neighborhood
where residents and visitors are, of all backgrounds
and incomes, have places to go to work and shop
and go to restaurants and public spaces,
a center that really enlivens the area around it
and invites people to join in, and exemplifies what a city
and a metropolitan global area can really become.
So as Rico said,
cities and counties
are focused on equitable pandemic recovery,
and really revitalizing
and restoring downtown areas and downtown cores.
And our Civic Campus Initiative is engaging
community members, and city leaders,
designers, and developers,
and we're going to turn
our courthouse neighborhood into a really vibrant place
to work and visit and to thrive.
We're really excited about the strong alignment
with Mayor Harrell's vision for a downtown activation,
and we feel like we have this once-in-a-generation
opportunity in front of us to really fully think through
what a, a downtown area can be, drawing on examples
from across the country and the world, and embracing
ample opportunities for green and sustainable building.
So we are really looking forward
to working with our partners at the city,
with the community we serve, with you all,
experts in the planning and urban design space,
as we create a vision that jumpstarts
a revitalized downtown and the region.
Thank you very much. (Applause)
-A quick recognition of our judges for the competition,
Patience Malaba, Housing Development Consortium,
she's planning commissioner,
Sarah Sodt, city historic preservation officer,
Department of Neighborhoods,
Patrick Taylor, Nieman Taber Architects, co-chair
of the AIA Housing Task Force,
A-P Hurd, SkipStone,
She is with Downtown Seattle Association, board member,
and Rick Mohler, chair of the UW
Department of Architecture, planning commissioner,
and Rick is with us now to share some of the judge's
observations from the competition.
-Thank you, Rico.
First, I have to say that I was delighted
to participate in this process,
and particularly happy to be able to download
all of the files
from the submission platform into my own personal files
for personal use related to housing affordability.
I also have to say,
sorry, a brief plug for the University
of Washington Department of Architecture.
More than half of the individuals
who submitted the projects on behalf of their firms
were graduates of our program. Just saying.
So, the review panel brought a diversity
of viewpoints to a thoughtful and in-depth discussion.
We were at first impressed by the number of entries,
and also impressed by their quality.
The entries divided themselves into pre-war
and postwar buildings.
This is a term that Patrick, who’s right here,
coined during our deliberations,
and we were interested
in proposals that demonstrated the following qualities:
One was feasibility,
from a spatial, technical and financial perspective.
Another one was that they employed strategies
to use space
and infrastructure efficiently and reduce costs.
They leveraged the existing building to foster
a quality of life for prospective residents,
and they enhanced the quality of the public realm,
and the pedestrian experience.
And this is especially true
for the so-called postwar examples.
It was really inspiring to see
the buildings actually made better,
in terms of their relationship to the public realm
and the city itself.
So congratulations to the Mayor's Office
and the Office of Planning and Community
Development for a successful program
that exceeded certainly my expectations, and I believe
I speak for the entire review panel.
The program
not only sparked a conversation
regarding the potential for office to housing conversion,
but it also produced an impressive catalog
of diverse projects that will both inform
city policy moving forward, and inspire
more property owners, developers and design teams
to explore opportunities for the post-pandemic
transformation of buildings,
and the revival of our downtown.
So thanks,
I'm delighted to be here.
-Thank you, Rick.
All right.
So, the competition is recognizing the top three
scoring submittals and providing honorariums.
The highest submitter receives a $10,000 honorarium.
And then the next two down receive
honorariums of $7,500 each.
Moving forward, the city will be using
all submittal proposals and key findings.
We've learned through the process
to determine what type of legislation
and regulatory modifications we might consider to support
and effectively advance future conversion projects
across the city.
As I announce the names of your teams, please do come stand,
come up and stand by your submittal
when you're, when your team is called for.
And so our two second-place winners.
One is the Gensler's Seattle Office Project team,
can we get a round of applause? (Applause)
Project team is Case Creal,
senior associate at Gensler, Marissa Brown at Gensler,
and Jeroen Teeuw,
senior associate and design director at Gensler.
Gensler proposed a building with a more modern footprint,
focused on
keeping the centralized elevator core,
and creating a variety of units,
unit mixes with great natural light
by completely changing the internal layout.
The submission highlighted code changes that would make
a stronger case for conversion.
Our second,
second place winner,
is the project team of Miller Hull Partnership and Stanley
Real Estate. (Applause)
Miller Hull and Stanley Real Estate's proposal
focused on adaptive reuse
of historic buildings, Polson and Western buildings
in Pioneer Square.
Each structural bay
converted into a residential unit
and the middle of the structure
becoming a central shared courtyard.
This allowed for airy and bright shared individual spaces.
And finally, our first place winner,
the project team Hybrid Architecture
LLC with Tom Gelsing, project architect,
Great Expectations, LLC, and Diamond Parking.
Who's winning,
well, let's get a round of applause. (Applause and laughter)
Their winning entry demonstrated both imagination
and practicality with an inventive co-living vision,
and realistic development proposal.
The team suggests the conversion of the Mutual Life
Building built in 1890 into a CO living space
that would potentially provide affordable units,
creating environmental, economic,
and socially responsible housing.
So if I could get one more
round of applause for all of our winners. (Applause)
Congratulations to all of you.
Thank you for your vision, and all of your hard work.
We really look forward to working with you
as we look forward to potential legislation
and regulatory changes
to support these types of projects in our downtown.
And Mayor Harrell, I open up to you to close.
-This could be the best closing you've ever heard.
I'm just kidding. Thank you.
Thank you for your leadership.
Thank you for your creativity.
I don't know,
is it right brain or left brain
where the creative juices...whatever,
whatever, brain you put it to work, whatever half that brain was.
We're having fun doing this work because we're
doing, it’s the right thing to do that. It's good work.
I mean, morally good.
We know that housing is going to be the crisis
that we're dealing with,
whether it was homeless, community working class folks,
anyone that needs to be sheltered here that this,
it starts with this kind of creativity.
And so I'm going to try to, you know, after 5 o’clock,
you catching, my, my morning starts really early.
So I'm sort of on, I'm on overtime right now.
My jokes are funnier earlier in the day.
But I had to be here to celebrate this with you.
Thank you.
Thank you. Thank you.
And we look forward to this ongoing partnership,
I think Michael’s all really start the clap.
See, that's a good that's a good director right there.
We look forward to this
ongoing, working relationship to create this magic together.
Thank you very much.