Construction in Juanita is beginning to ramp up again as two projects, which were first proposed during the middle of the last decade, are taking shape.
The Juanita Village 5 and the Weidner apartment building will add nearly 300 new residential dwellings to the Juanita Village area of Kirkland.
The two sites will also contain the only two cranes in Kirkland in just a few weeks.
“The Juanita Village construction is the final piece left in the development of the Juanita Village Master Plan,” said City of Kirkland senior planner Angela Ruggeri. “It will contain a mix of commercial and residential uses similar to the other development in Juanita Village to the north and east of this piece.”
Both are mixed use and will contain underground parking. The Weidner building will be located on 98th Ave. N.E., across the street from the Wells Fargo Bank.
“I can actually see it from my office,” said the project’s architect Mike Ivancic.
There is another Weidner building in the Juanita neighborhood of Kirkland next to Michaels.
“We currently have not leased any of the mixed-use space yet,” said Ivancic.
The three-story buildings will house over 4,000 square feet of retail and 102 apartment rental units from one to two bedrooms and three commercial spaces on the ground floor. It will also have two floors of underground parking.
“We have limited parking so we can’t put in doctors offices or a Starbucks,” said Ivancic, of the project that was approved by the City of Kirkland Design Review Board in 2006.
The project is set to be two buildings.
“We will be done with the south (building) in early summer and then the other one will follow,” said Ivancic. “We bought the project because it was permit-ready.”
Weidner owns property in five separate states.
MM Properties of Houston, which purchased the Juanita Village 5 project from Avalon Bay, began construction a few weeks ago. The site is located between Spuds and Starbucks and across the street from Juanita Beach Park, inside Juanita Village.
“We were excited about the opportunity to quickly deliver high-end residential units in a submarket that has great amenities, such as the park and the vibrant village retail environment,” said Vice President of MM Properties Dan Shieder. “Additionally, we will be at the leading edge of new apartment deliveries for the Eastside, which is a significant advantage for the project.”
The project will complete the Juanita Village complex that began in 2000. Shieder said that Juanita Village 5 will see first occupancy during the summer of 2013 and final completion will be the following November. All units will be rentals.
“Juanita Village was always intended to be built in phases, but the difficult market and financing conditions of the past few years slowed down the delivery,” said Shieder.
The mixed-use project is slated to have approximately 189 residential dwellings, according to city officials.
Juanita Village 5, which the city approved in 2004, will contain 7,500 square feet of street-level retail and other commercial uses. That 7,500 square feet will be broken up into between three and six units.
It will also add more parking to the complex with an underground parking garage and sub-grade parking. Some 37,700 square feet of outdoor gathering places will also be a part of the project, according to the city.
“The project has been very smooth so far,” said Shieder. “Financing is usually the most difficult hurdle for a new development these days, but that process was made much easier by the excellent collaboration we had from the project team, including GGLO, Compass Construction, the City of Kirkland and numerous others.”
