The condos at Thornton Place that have been vacant since the development opened a year ago are about to begin filling up, but instead of with buyers, they’re quickly being doled out to renters seeking more upscale living arrangements.
“We just decided that this would be a different route to go … as we’re waiting for the market to correct,” said Aleisha Hicks, the leasing manger for Lorig Management Services.
As of Wednesday afternoon, nine of the 44 available units had been spoken for after less than a week on the market, she said. The units range in monthly rent from $1,295 for a studio, to $2,950 for a 1,300-square-foot, two-bedroom, 2.5-bath townhouse that originally was priced at $535,000.
And each of the former condos also comes with all of the high-end amenities you would expect with new construction built during the boom years: hardwood floors, stainless steel appliances and granite countertops, not to mention floor-to-ceiling windows, many boasting views of the newly daylighted portion of Thornton Creek that runs from the southwest corner of the development to its northeast end.
In all, Thornton Place had developed 109 condos for its mixed-use community, and Lorig expects the remaining 65 also will be available to rent in the next five to six months after construction finishes to repair a settling issue discovered in winter.
According to our news partner The Seattle Times, that problem is what in part led the development’s initial 18 buyers to back out of their contracts earlier this year.
But Hicks said the settling issue, which left cracks and gaps in about 20 units, will be fixed by the end of summer, and that Thornton Place is taking a proactive approach by also improving the structure underneath many of the units neighboring those affected by the settling problems.
In the meantime, Hicks said condos-turned-apartments are such a hot commodity that the perks galore they’d previously offered to their renters have been reduced to just one month’s free rent.
Interested? Give Lorig a call at 206-523-1119 or stop by the leasing office at 301 N.E. 103rd St.
Simon, good points. I agree, I too use the area in my regular dog/kid walks. I think the day lighted creek is a gem and with a maturing of the vegetation it will become more and more park like. My family has enjoyed the new plaza area and restaurants. I think there are many who would love the modern style of the condos (window coverings can solve privacy issues), but the structural integrity is a serious concern for any buyers. It is much better than the old parking lot that was there.
Thornton Place has a lot of things going for it: I absolutely love what they’ve done to reexpose the creek, and the new plantings which (when mature in a few years) will be lush and stunning. I go through there on walks routinely already. I also love the courtyard, including the fire pit on cooler days and the fountain/splash pad for kids on hot days. When all the commercial spaces are filled, the complex will have a vibrant, urban quality. It’s close to shopping and transit, as well, so it has lots of pluses.
The development has some serious drawbacks, however. The movie theater has poor architectural integration at street level: cafe visitors in the courtyard see a sky-high monolithic corrugated wall, for instance, with lots of echos. The architect of that building should be scolded extreme myopia if not outright laziness.
The “fishbowl” problem of the condos may abate over time as the plantings mature and grow larger, but the property’s designers did not seem to have privacy particularly in mind. The property would feel more natural on Capitol Hill or First Hill, but up around here density is still low enough that Thornton Place feels a bit out of place. Perhaps in 20 years Thornton Place will fit in more as Northgate gets more built-up, but right now TP stands out a bit.
The construction/settling issues that they discovered last year mean that you’d have to be quite foolish to actually buy a condo there: whether the designers, the city, or the contractors made mistakes I can’t say, but the problems undermine any confidence in the structural integrity of the building. You simply can’t buy property there until it’s lived through several winters and an earthquake or two.
Changing the condos to rentals is a good move, then, but I agree with the previous commenter that pricing is out of whack. For $1200 you can let a whole house in the vicinity of Maple Leaf–a house with more privacy and quieter surroundings than Thornton Place, but with equal proximity to shopping and transit. They could fill every rentable unit fairly fast if they lowered prices about 20%.
Wait a minute; $1,295 for a studio during the worst economic turndown in America since the 1930s, and the worst economic turndown in Seattle, since the early 1970s. How f—king dumb are these people?
Look, those places have languished because it’s a bad design. I’ve heard people ask, “Who wants to live in a fishbowl.”
Drop the prices for the apartments – way down. Try $850 for a studio and $900 for a two bedroom. Give the working people of Seattle a break.