Category All Art Classes Classical Music Concerts DANCE Etc Exhibits Families Farmers Markets Film Happenings Holiday Holiday Lectures Music (non-classical) Theater

Submit events

IMAGE COURTESY OF BCRA

CHANGING MARKET. Revised designs for Prium’s project on Foss Waterway call for more office space and fewer residential units.

Prium unveils revised design for Foss project

By John Larson

Tacoma-based Prium Company is one of many developers in the region facing difficulty with residential projects.

Selected to build a mixed-use project on Thea Foss Waterway on a parcel just south of Albers Mill, Prium is moving ahead – but with fewer condominiums than it originally planned. Foss Waterway Development Authority’s (FWDA) Urban Design Review Committee heard an update June 16.

Matt Sweeney, an attorney representing Prium, told the committee the plans had to change because of a downturn in the housing market. Prium has drastically scaled back the number of residential units from what it had planned two years ago, while increasing the amount of office space. “This reflects the realities we see today,” he said.

Gayle Merth, an architect and project design manager with local architectural firm BCRA, gave the committee a detailed report on the changes to the building. It now has one floor of residential instead of three. The first floor is not at grade, which eliminates a flight of stairs to the entrance it had before. The building now has some work/live spaces that will face Dock Street, a change Merth feels “improves the project substantially.”

The revised design has more glass along Dock Street. “It is more sophisticated and exciting,” Merth remarked.

Committee members pondered the changes. Frank Jacobs favored the previous version, in which residential accounted for around 70 percent of the project. “It is important we realize this is now an office project,” he said.

He feels allowing a developer to make such a dramatic change “will set a precedent for the remainder of the waterway.”

“Times have changed,” said Keith Stone, another member. Other developers in Prium’s position likely would have done the same thing, he added.

Stone thinks the additional office space will bring in employees who will shop and dine on the waterway on their lunch hour or before heading home for the day. On a recent visit to Woody’s, a restaurant on the waterway, Stone saw 40 people inside, the majority of them office workers. “It will be a good thing for the Foss.”

“The problem we have had is retail is dying,” said FWDA Executive Director Don Meyer. Several shops have failed in recent years along the waterway. One developer was rejected for this site because its project was almost entirely retail and offices. “This is closer to what we had in mind,” he said of Prium’s new plan. “It is a substantially improved project.”

“The greater the mix, the more vitality on the street,” offered Gene Grulich, an architect who serves on the committee.

However, Grulich disagreed with Merth on the live/work spaces on Dock Street.

“That is a miserable place to be,” he remarked. “My fear is they would be un-rentable and it would become dead space.”

Story Tools