Some of you may remember this site location. In 2007 it was slated to be 1 Hotel & Residences. And at that time this project was quite unique. It was going to be a boutique hotel with condos above. However, it was also going to be the first of its kind in our market to offer homeowners fully furnished units with the ability to participate in a rental program managed by the hotel. That was only going to be available on certain floors while the rest of the units would be your traditional condos. This is what is known as a true "condotel". The site location was excavated but later filled back in and the project halted due to the recession. Since the project was put on hold, it has changed hands several times.
Now in the present, the lot will become a 40 story 398 unit apartment building featuring studios, 1 and 2 bedrooms. This luxury building will offer its residents condo grade amenities, will have 1st level retail and is scheduled to be completed in 2017.
This article will likely serve as the last chatter of the once promising 1 Hotel & Residences project. And in terms of "condotels", this may be the last we hear about those types of projects as well since they present mortgage loan restrictions for buyers that still exist today. It might have been a good thing that the original project set for this site was not built as it was planned with the shared managed hotel/condo units since buying and selling those units would be quite a challenge in today's lending environment.
We will continue to update you on what is happening with condo projects that were announced pre-recession as some of them will become apartments like this one, some likely will become hotels or office buildings and others will actually become condos after all (like Daola).
By Marco Kronen with Seattle Condo Review: A guide to Seattle downtown condos.
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