The Cosmopolitan on 9th and Virginia is on track to be open for occupancy early 2007. With few units other than penthouses remaining, the $100 Million project is aimed at sophisticated urbanites. The first 9 of the 33 floors of the tour will house retail space and 8 floors of parking with 270 spaces.
The 250 condos will start on the tenth floor, above one floor of amenities, which will include luxuries such as a fully equipped gym complete with Yoga and Sauna, spa, guest suite, and a business center and lounge. Cosmopolitan is designed by Mithun Architects who is also involve in Domaine and Mosler Lofts condos.
Although currently there are only Penthouses and a 2 bedroom and 2 bathroom floor plan available, the majority of the units are comprised of studios, 1 and 2 bedroom homes. The remaining 2 bedroom floor plan is priced at just over $700,000 with the penthouses selling for $950,000 to $1.9 Million. The building units boast city, mountain and lake views, stone countertops and stainless steel appliances with gas cooktops.
Pros
– Lowest residential unit starts from the tenth floor, insulating residents from the street noise.
Cons
-Further away from the downtown core area.
SCR Scorecard (Updated 04/19/07)
Exterior Good
Interior Good
Location Average
Amenities Average
Value Good
Overall Good
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Technorati Tags: Cosmopolitan condos, Seattle condos, Downtown Seattle Condos, Miller Marketing, Mithun Architects, Seattle downtown condos
I just wanted to say, I have seen the construction since the early stages, when it was just a parking lot, until now, great job it is a nice tall building. I work across the street and me and my colegues are always wandering how does it look inside, we are just curious. I even took pictures of it during the excavation and send the pictures to my dad down in Mexico, he is an architect and I like showing him the technology and the fast they build stuff around here, it seems like it was just yesterday when I saw the beginning of it, every day coming to work I will see new things, just unbelievable!. Anyway I just thought I will comment on that and if you have an open house or a tour just for the neighbors please let us know. If not possible, that is o.k. we understand, we are all for safety. Thank you.
Claudia, they just started closing on some of the homes in the building. Homes will be available for viewing sometime in April.
Hi Claudia & all the people in connection,
I have just read your memo off the website regarding this building in Seattle. I am impressed. Very good!
My husband worked on this project. Very exciting & challenge to be part of it. Yeah, would be nice to tour it. If you hear something, please do not hesitate to contact me.
Mortenson Construction main folks! I appreciate your time & attention.
Best Regards,
Melissa Turner
[email protected]
Moved in there about a month ago, and can’t say enough of good things about it. All the crew that works there is very helpful providing the best customer service. The roof top is absolutely worth millions!! View is magnificent from every direction, could be enjoyed while BBQ-ing, tanning, or reading a book. Amenities such as Guest room, Owners Lounge, Computer room, Conference room, Workout room, Jacuzzi and Sauna all with the view, designed with a taste. Walk to Pike Place Market is only 7 minutes away. The Mall is in a two blocks walk, Whole Foods is two blocks in opposite direction. The Units themselves are quality made and thoroughly inspected, providing good insulation from the outside as well as between the units. Seller provided with very fair pricing.
Agree the views are great and pricing was fair. Nice solid building with great amenities like roof top deck, club room, office, meeting room, gym, etc.
Some nits: the intercom system is incredibly hard to use, the elevator screams the floor in a very, very annoying voice, the lobby is nice but the fireplace sitting area doesn’t have that Cristalla or Concorde grand feel, and there doesn’t seem to be much retail activity in the immediate one block radius.
I just moved in last week and, like the above posters, can’t say enough good things about my unit and the staff. Everyone is exceedingly kind and willing to help. The unit is well constructed and has very high quality appliances even though I chose not to upgrade those beyond the basic package. All in all, the only slight complaint I can think of is that there is not nearly enough closet space in the unit, but this can be overcome by using a dresser, etc. I am completely enamored with the building and feel very much at home here.
FYI, there are a handful of units for sale now by owners who purchased solely as an investment. They listed their units as soon as they closed escrow.
so how many of the above posters are actually sellers?
I am an owner of the Cosmopolitan. All the realtors representing owners who are reselling are holding an open house this weekend the 19th I believe. there should be newspaper ads about this.
It looks like there are a couple of developments just to the NW of the Cosmopolitan (8th & Virginia, and 7th & Virginia). Do you know anything about these and how much impact they will have on views from the Cosmopolitan? I’m considering purchasing there, and right now views are great, but am curious about those other buildings.
I’ve heard that the views will be totally blocked and that it’s a reason that some people are trying to sell now.
Well, I just walked by the block tonight and it looks like there are 2 proposed developments on the same block as the Cosmopolitan, 33 and 35 stories. They are to the W and SW of the building, right across an alley. So looking for something on the N or E side might be a better bet.
Will views of both the Needle and Lake Union be blocked?
I recently posted some info on the development projects to the west of Cosmo:
http://cosmoseattle.blogspot.com/2007/05/cosmo-interrupted.html
hope this helps.
My husband and I moved into the building in late June and so far only have wonderful things to report. We’ve found the storage space within our unit to be more than adequate and have really enjoyed the rooftop deck and grills. The only complaint so far is that the elevators are too slow. I’m sure they will fix that issue soon, however.
Is the developer still selling units or have they all sold out???
They still have some penthouses available.
http://cosmopolitanseattle.com/
Why are there so many condos for sale in that building? There are currently 14 units for sale, seems like people are running away from there. Any idea why? Is that just a coincidence?
I would think that this property has prime growth opportunity in the current market.
There are 240 units there. 14 on the market does not seem like a huge number. Having said that, I am sure there are still some “flippers” needing to unload who have been slow to adjust to the market price. Also, look west across the alley and look at the office building 16 ft away that blocks out the sunlight for much of the day. It is a great building and a great location, but zoning changes screwed a bunch of people there.
@Kent – Zoning changes did not screw a bunch of people there. The zoning in place at the time of the Cosmo presale allowed for a 300-foot highrise immediately across the alley from Cosmo, essentially the same as the Cosmo itself. Planning for an office building on the site had been underway for nearly 1 1/2 years at the time of the Cosmo presale (DPD #2401880), and the application was formally filed 9 months earlier. This is a matter of public record; the information was and still is on the Seattle DPD website, readily available to any potential pre-sale buyer who bothered to check. (I’ve posted more details in another thread)
There was a *proposed* zoning change for that area that would have added some tower spacing rules, but plans already in progress were grandfathered in, and ultimately that *proposed* change was never made. The decision to not enact a tower spacing rule has been misrepresented as a zoning change (and the grandfather clause isn’t usually mentioned in such misrepresentations).
The zoning change that did pass for that block bumped the maximum height up from 300′ to 500′, but did not change the tower spacing requirement. The developer did take advantage of that increase to build significantly higher than Cosmo.
The lesson from the Cosmo situation is that if views are important to you, do your due diligence before signing anything. Cosmo pre-sale buyers who ignored the fact that the property across the alley was zoned for a 300′ building only have themselves to blame.
Thanks for the update Mark. This is different than other blogs I have read, but your explanation sounds complete and accurate. You are right about due diligence and making sure that you know what is going to go on next door. I can see why people are trying to get out of Cosmo and existing units are difficult to move. That new large building next door ruins the look and feel of Cosmo, IMHO. Also, losing your view is one thing, but looking 16 feet across the alley into an office building would be horrible. I would not want to live there.
I see the same thing ultimately happening at Escala. The beautiful east facing units with large covered outdoor spaces are going to be looking across the alley at a new 40 story condo tower when they decide to move forward with that project.
One project (currently on hold of course) that looks promising down the road is the Insignia, where they control the entire block. This is a large block between 5th and 6th, around Battery or Blanchard I believe. The initial drawings of these twin towers looks good with nice setback and outdoor spaces for residents and lots of commercial space at street level. It will be interesting to see how this looks when it is ultimately built. Hope I live long enough to see it.
I didn’t use my own agent when I bought my unit but I did work with an agent from the sales center. Are they not legally obligated to disclose this info?
@unrepresented – I’m no lawyer, but I’m guessing that they’re not required to provide such information about other properties. Besides, for a project that takes a couple years, things can easily change between the presale and closings.
I’m a renter 2 blocks away at Met Tower, and liked the location and concept of Cosmo – and still like the building and floor plans – but I was concerned about what would go in around it before the presale and without representation. There had been large signs with related information posted on the cross-alley property (a parking lot at the time) and the DPD website is available to anyone.
@Kent – One alley-facing Cosmo buyer was very good at getting his comments broadcast. But he seemed to portray the decision not to add a tower-spacing rule to the neighborhood zoning as a loss of tower spacing. And thus the Cosmo lost views… story started spreading.
I agree re looking out across an alley into an office. My view is of the Westin, and I’ve got a McDonalds separating us even further, and that’s about as close as I’d want to be. But there are a lot of 5-over-1 downtown apartments and condos that look out across an alley at other buildings, and these units do fill up, so there is some market for them (even some Cosmo buyers in other threads have said that they don’t mind). Sure, 5/1s are shorter buildings, but once your view is of a wall or windows, it doesn’t really matter what floor you’re on.
I also agree with you on both Escala and Insignia.
But I’ll also note my own apt building – Met Tower here. We’ve got parking floors 2-7, units 8-32 with an 8th floor deck. Although our building fills the space between the street (7th) and alley, the residential floors are much more narrow than the base, and the 8th floor deck is on the alley side, which would have added some buffer from a cross-alley building (our odd-shaped block prevents cross-alley building for most of the length of the building.) I haven’t seen this approach much in other buildings though(Olivian seems to, Olive 8 and Escala don’t).
So sad. Your name says it all. Never buy a condo from the sales center without your own agent or if you really want to do it yourself, don’t assume the sales center agent is looking out for you.