Neighbors of the new Ballard on the Park apartments have been complaining for the past several months about QFC’s noisy HVAC (heating, ventilation, air conditioning) system on top of the building. “I live nearby and the sound permeates the walls of my apartment with my doors and windows closed. It sounds like an airplane is constantly hovering over the top of my building,” Schaaster wrote in the forum back in January.
Today, QFC and developers are responding to the noise complaints. A crane (above right) offloaded the base and steel required to build a solid enclosed structure around the noisy system, Jeanne Muir, a spokesperson for the developer tells us. “QFC has been very anxious to do the right thing with the neighborhood,” she says. Kristin Maas, a spokesperson for QFC tells us that putting a damper over the system needed to be done, “We understand that it’s impacting our neighbors,” she tells us, “It’s an expensive thing to do, but it’s the right thing to do.”
Muir expects the structure will make a noticeable difference because the company hired to engineer it specializes in noise dampening. She tells us the project should be completed around the end of the month.