Comments on: Developer to show off Sunset Bowl replacement

By: mousefx

mousefx — Tue, 09 Mar 2010 16:11:00 +0000

SEE??? I told you that Sunset was forced to close!

GADS that new building is UUUUGGLY!! No creative juices what so ever, not even a paty on the patio... what patios! It's another "BOX"

"Hey honey let's go buy a BOX to live in Ballard"

Yes folks the new BOX in Ballard is a new spacious BOX with retail stores on the ground floor, cost is another good reason the buy a "Ballrad BOX"

Just the cost of the united states debt, can move you into this new BOX, come in today, or just call "Lutefisk 800 666-6666" and order your BOX today!

WOuldn't you rather live in a Ballard BOX!

It's a nice BOX!

SOMEone said that the family that "HE" knew sold the property because the cost was too high, wel.. they did not buy the building the owners under them "cashed out"

Now look what we have..... A "Hole" for now.... let's hope it won't be like the GRENNLAKE HOLE or the STONEWAY HOLE!

And now for some thing completly different.... A BUILDING THAT LOOKS JUST LIKE THE NEW Qfc ONE ON 24th!! (only a little closer to the old neighborhood)

Break 19 ballard boy you gotta copy on this here Mouse FX, Tiger two mobile, hot rod? *click*

ok Ballard Cb gang is gone and now Ballrd is turning into the new "Little Bellevue"

I know I know bitching about it does no good. Im just gonna sit back eat my Lutfisk and drink my Late' and watch what unfolds, with a "I told you so" on my lips, but I won't say a word.

So long last of the cool neighborhoods, it was fun!

By: lu'smom

lu'smom — Tue, 14 Apr 2009 21:05:42 +0000

Chopper and Jenn:
The developer could develop the building with a bowling alley if there someone who wanted to own a bowling business in Ballard. There isn't. Secondly, would you live above a bowling alley? The developer could spend millions extra to install the bowling alley and the sound insulation needed to keep the noisy operations from devaluing the surrounding residences and business and still it would turn off potential buyers.

By: Actuallybeenthroughtheprocess

Actuallybeenthroughtheprocess — Tue, 14 Apr 2009 21:02:53 +0000

There is a design review process that provides an excellent forum to air any and all grievances with any proposed multifamily development. Things end up looking the same because any unique features get stripped in the three cumbersome rounds of public comment. No one can agree on anything, so the result is a meet in the middle compromise.
Growth is inevitable unless you want to sterilize everyone, and even if you did urban concentration is increasing without the aid of population growth.
I agree that this building is a little bland, but it is restrictions and limitations placed by the public and DPD that made it this way.

By: lu'smom

lu'smom — Tue, 14 Apr 2009 20:58:04 +0000

Thank you both for allowing me to observe and intelligent conversation in this comment stream. While most comments are opinion-based complaints, your dialog was fact-based and informative.

By: lu'smom

lu'smom — Tue, 14 Apr 2009 20:50:45 +0000

As with any client-based business person, an architect must base their design on the client's requirements. Developers want to spend as little as necessary on architecture, cutting costs wherever possible, but still producing a building that their customers will use/buy. I'd rather see something like this than the ridiculous attempt to make a pedistrian scale facade you see on Stone Way and 45th in Wallingford. Keeping the design simple allows for it to be timeless, not gimicky, regardless of how much of the space is used.

From my experience, Ballard has become increasingly busy, with non-residents frequenting our businesses, be them in an older building or a new one. Busy shops and restaurants are good for our community. Obviously, if nobody went to Starbucks or Tullys downtown, they wouldn't be there. The fact is that they ARE there and small businesses keep closing up shop.

Maybe instead of complaining online about this, you should be out and about in Ballard, buying from the little guy and attending community design meetings (04/27) to give your opinions to those who can apply them...the developer and the design review board.

By: S. Ballard

S. Ballard — Mon, 13 Apr 2009 21:21:36 +0000

Yes why can't this building be more attractive? There has got to be a way to build a new building with character and style. I like Ballard's “old charm” but none of these new buildings go with it. Not that I want Ballard to look like Levenworth or anything but they have standards and any building built in Levenworth has to conform to the style and character of the town…even the McDonalds looks Bavarian. Why can't Ballard has some sort of building standards like that? I don't mean we need to look like a Disney town but let's have some style please!

By: chopper_74

chopper_74 — Mon, 13 Apr 2009 10:20:51 +0000

I read that in the Ballard News Tribune last year, the developer intending to smooth out some ruffled feathers over the loss of our bowling alley, said that they would take a serious look at including a bowling alley within the new development.
I guess it didn't 'pencil out' for them…no big surprise.

By: Jenn

Jenn — Mon, 13 Apr 2009 09:18:31 +0000

I heard at one point last year that there were talks of putting a bowling in the bottom section of the apartment complex…I'm sure it wasn't true but my goodness, don't you people realize how much it's missed…do we really need more apartments and condos? Come on…enough already. I agree, it's getting a little boring…keep it happening and put another bowling alley in there…please!!!

By: jm

jm — Sat, 11 Apr 2009 05:54:22 +0000

What different does it make? It's going up next to a fast food joint, a grocery store both north and south and a paint store on the east. Who cares? Do you spend hours walking your dog around that block?

By: Sweet Rose

Sweet Rose — Sat, 11 Apr 2009 05:45:56 +0000

I think this recent panic will cause drastic changes in our society. I can’t quite decide yet which direction we will head. American value systems are a real SNAFU right now but I am not sure where this will lead. I avoid predicting the future.

By: Sweet Rose

Sweet Rose — Sat, 11 Apr 2009 05:41:22 +0000

Never! I love dogs and also kids. Well I love my kids, tolerate and am amused by a few others and abhor most. Thing is, we make our choices and we pay the price. Once in awhile we get burned such as you have being a lane lover. Who knows, maybe the next folded up Ballard business will be one that I frequent. That’s the modern world. Do I like it? Sometimes yes sometimes no. I can only control the choices I make. It’s why I find the self righteous laments here to be absurd.

By: ABtm

ABtm — Sat, 11 Apr 2009 04:33:58 +0000

Hey! I'm a DINK! You saying my three dogs are worse for the community than the the three rug rats down the street? :-)

By: ABtm

ABtm — Sat, 11 Apr 2009 04:29:04 +0000

Again, I couldn't agree more. We are all complicit for the reasons you say and so much more. I earned my BS in business just as the MBA was becoming popular (1975) and I remember thinking at the time that another couple of years in school was not a good idea, as opposed to starting to get some actual experience. Concurrently, business education started focusing more on "shareholder value" as the prime goal of business enterprise. We have gotten exactly what we have been headed toward for thirty years.

Utopians of the mid-to-late 19th Century envisioned the technological future as a place where people had to work only a few hours a week, and spent their ample leisure time in uplifting pursuits, such as art, community service, scientific research, and the like. They couldn't foresee that 100 years later real income would decline, people would work longer hours, and spend their shrinking discretionary income on an endless stream of disposable gadgets.

Sometimes I think the best thing that could happen to the world would be for the stock market to be seriously overhauled to be more a securities exchange and less a casino. Disclosure: I do own stocks, but most of them pay dividends and I very rarely sell or buy, other than automatic reinvestment of mutual fund distributions. I've missed a lot of fast gains (and losses) with this practice, and I regret not one bit of it.

By: Sweet Rose

Sweet Rose — Sat, 11 Apr 2009 03:31:07 +0000

I have spent many evenings in Sunset Bowl, just not for about 35 years. I agree with your distaste for the people sitting in coffee shops staring at computer screens but we have to assume they are VERY important and cannot even get as minute to relax without being in touch with ‘their people.’ : )

AB Americans in general and neo-Seattlites in particular don’t like being surprised. The generic nature of what has been successful business for a long time surely has not escaped your attention. From Starbucks to Nordstrom, it all looks exactly alike.

By: Sweet Rose

Sweet Rose — Sat, 11 Apr 2009 03:21:26 +0000

That’s sounds real nice AB but the nature of business is to make profits not to benefit the community. We have allowed this and actually reveled in it now for 30 years and few of us are innocent. We either vote for it with our pocketbooks/usage choices or do the same when we look to make the maximum profit from the sale of our own assets. Anyone here willing to sell his Craftsman for $150,000 to a nice young couple with three kids starting out because it will be more of a benefit to the community to have families living here instead of DINKS? Of course not. So many hate corporations but they whine when their 401Ks go down because corporate profits are down. It all ties together and we end up with exactly what we ask for.

By: E!

E! — Sat, 11 Apr 2009 00:21:38 +0000

UGH! It might as well be a Jail building – why do developers in Seattle go for the drabbest, ugliest designs that can be found??

By: ABtm

ABtm — Fri, 10 Apr 2009 23:50:39 +0000

I did a little checking, and I had my facts wrong, sorry. Sunset Bowling and Recreation is a family-owned corporation (with about 29 shareholders) that owned and operated Leilani Lanes and the Sunset Bowl. They decided to get out of the bowling business and sell the properties because the financial return of selling was much higher than continuing to operate the business. Not to mention lower risk. The driving force here is rising land values.

Sunset Bowl was profitable, just not enough so. There was interest in resurrecting it somewhere, but bowling just doesn't pencil out as well as it used to. Blame all the other things that compete for our leisure time and money. Sad to say, no matter how busy one bowling alley is, it really can't survive unless the the whole industry is healthy. The startup and maintenance costs are just too high.

I really hate to see it go. Bowling on a Wii just isn't the same.

By: ABtm

ABtm — Fri, 10 Apr 2009 23:39:25 +0000

The family corporation that owned Sunset Bowl decided they'd rather have the $13 million than the revenue from the bowling alley. It's a shame, but inevitable when land prices soar.

By: SPG

SPG — Fri, 10 Apr 2009 23:34:43 +0000

That would be the land owner, not the bowling alley.

By: Sizzle

Sizzle — Fri, 10 Apr 2009 23:32:31 +0000

super….

By: SPG

SPG — Fri, 10 Apr 2009 23:29:29 +0000

Can't vouch if this is completely accurate, but one time in the Sunset I overheard a sales rep refer to the place as “the highest grossing bowling alley in the US” and yet they couldn't compete with the developer's profit potential.
Ever try to get a lane on a Friday or Saturday night? At least an hour wait. Bowling might not be your thing, but it was for a lot of other people.

By: jm

jm — Fri, 10 Apr 2009 22:01:27 +0000

Well don't blame the developer. Blame the people that gave up and sold out.

By: f_vballard

f_vballard — Fri, 10 Apr 2009 21:17:11 +0000

Good point, Kevin – but the French have a word for comments like this – “snob”. You can make the same point without sounding pompous… Also, the context of your comment is way off. No one is seizing private property here, especially to leverage the force of an emperor. Great example.

I was not trying to show off a deep understanding of French history and Haussmannian architecture, I was just pointing out that one can do a lot with 6 stories. Do you like the condo design? That is what this news story is about.

By: ABtm

ABtm — Fri, 10 Apr 2009 20:58:25 +0000

Well, the building is. All the stuff that made it a bowling alley has gone away.

By: ABtm

ABtm — Fri, 10 Apr 2009 20:56:50 +0000

Well said! I couldn't agree more. This is yet another reason we should step back, take a breath, and think before sacrificing any more of our neighborhood's past to a quick buck and market trends that have already lost their momentum. Viable businesses (as Denny's and the Sunset Bowl were) generate a lot more benefit to the community than the vacant lots that replace them.

By: jm

jm — Fri, 10 Apr 2009 20:52:53 +0000

The bowling alley is still there.

By: Tomas

Tomas — Fri, 10 Apr 2009 20:03:01 +0000

Oh great, less ground floor retail space, and less parking with basically the same number of Apartments.

Way to go……. I'm so F___ing angry with this developer for tearing down the bowling ally

By: jm

jm — Fri, 10 Apr 2009 19:37:53 +0000

Ballard whiners: Why couldn't it look more like University Village?

By: chopper_74

chopper_74 — Fri, 10 Apr 2009 12:32:24 +0000

there's the door…I'm not leaving, this is my home.

By: chopper_74

chopper_74 — Fri, 10 Apr 2009 11:23:57 +0000

yup. it's gotta fit in their little box, or it won't happen.