New Construction- Vik Condominiums in Ballard

Our clients and blog readers have been asking for new options in our inventory-starved condo market and now we finally have another option to consider.

This week we stopped by and toured the newly opened sales center of Seattle’s newest condo community to open its doors and soon to officially start its presales, the Vik Condominiums in Ballard.

The sales center, which is located on Market Street just a block away from the actual site of the condos, has fully built out one bedroom plus den model, that is to scale and includes all the finishes without any upgraded features. You can get a sense of the true size of this floor plan, its ceiling heights, and appliances, right down to the built-in wine refrigerator that Loren and I particularly liked!

Most of the floor plans are one bedroom plus dens, which tends to be the most popular floor plan I see requested by buyers, but they do have two bedroom floor plans as well as smaller junior one bedrooms. Most all of the units come with parking except for the smaller junior one bedrooms.

They broke ground earlier this month and have an estimated 18 month completion time frame, which puts them being completed in early fall of 2015.

For our clients and other readers who are thinking of buying newer construction and Ballard is on your list of considerations, this condo community might be one to consider. Additionally, for those who need to sell before they purchase, a presale condominium is a great option to consider due to the lag time of the condo being ready giving you adequate time to get your current house or condo ready for the market and prepare for a sale in early 2015 before the Vik is completed.

THE LOCATION

The Vik Condominiums will be located just north of Market Street near 20^th Ave NW and NW 56^th Street, which makes it a just a few blocks to the Ballard library, the Ballard Commons Park, and all the shops, restaurants, and activities on Ballard Avenue and NW Market Street. It's literally within 3 blocks of three different major grocery stores, two major drug stores and even Swedish Hospital is close by.

THE DETAILS

The numbers:

117 total condominium homes on 6 floors
Junior one bedrooms at 520-575 sq ft start at $254,900
One bedrooms & one plus dens at 661-812 sq ft start at $339,900
Two bedrooms & two plus dens at 1096-1202 sq ft start at $569,900

The extras:

Most of the units have either a deck or terrace area
Some north facing ground floor units have huge terraces, great for those who like outdoor space
The units have hard surface flooring in kitchen, dining, and living rooms
Most units have built-in wine refrigerators- that’s pretty cool!
Most units have USB charging stations
Kitchens have appliance garages, flex space storage, and end wrap solid surface counter tops
Bathrooms have built in vanity mirror cabinets with clever medicine cabinet built in
The 5th and 6th floor units should have some views to south and south west of the Ballard waterway

The building amenities:

Concierge staff and lobby lounge
Fitness center
Bike storage
Roof top terrace with firepit, lounge areas, views and BBQ
Dog area on the roof top (separate from the common roof top area, but close by)
Most units have parking
Storage lockers will be available for additional cost

What’s missing:
(there is always something and to most people these things won't even matter, it seems to be a great condo offering over all but these are worth noting)

No fireplaces
No gas cooking – all the kitchens have electric cooktops
No one-bedroom units with extra ½ baths for guests
No air conditioning

THE SALES INFO

5% earnest money will be required when they start writing Contracts in about a month or so. However, if you have interest now, they are informally taking names for those that have expressed serious interest in specific homes during this early preview stage of the process.