We wrote earlier this month that McGuire would be spared, then ran a correction: the lawyers for all the parties had reached a settlement on who was going to pay for the demolition, but demolished it will be. So Belltown's 9-year-old, 25-story McGuire is coming down after all. The building was evacuated earlier this year after the city belatedly determined that there were intractable safety issues due to corroded "post-tensioning" cables in the floors.
So here's what's going to happen, according to Lease Crutcher Lewis, the general contractor for the jinxed building's demolition. Ironic note: Lease Crutcher's website is "LewisBuilds.com," but this marks the first time the company has demolished a building that wasn't part of a new construction project.
First off, they'll take down the garage. Piece of cake. It's a classic, four-level concrete spiral atop the offices of the building's owner, the Carpenters Union. Next, they'll take out the elevators, so that the shafts become giant garbage chutes. Then, by hand, they'll start taking the building apart, starting (duh) at the top, and shoving the debris down through the elevator shafts.
There's no basement, so they'll use the garage footprint as the staging area for a parade of dump trucks. Seattle's Department of Planning and Development (DPD) will issue the permit, but Seattle's Department of Transportation (SDOT) will mandate the traffic patterns: where the trucks will wait until it's their turn, how many trips per day, what route they'll follow out of Belltown. All "to be determined."
When does it all start? Lease Crutcher wants to get going by the first of February. That may be optimistic, since there's no Master Use Permit yet, without which there can be no Demolition Permit, no State Enviornmental Policy Act impact statement (any downtown residential building with more than 80 units is subject to the SEPA). And when will it all end? Lease Crutcher's permitting consultant for the project, Larry Allen, says that the actual tear-down (once the permitting process is complete) could take nine months.
With the handwriting literally on the wall, the FedEx office at the corner of Second & Wall has finally decamped, to Fourth & Cedar, where it occupies the old Alphagraphics site. All that's left in the building now is a gym; its days are numbered.
Ironically, while the McGuire is coming down, sink by sink, shower by shower, ">a 19-story project is going up just a block away (on the Musicians Union site at 3rd and Cedar), and there's a request in the hopper to allow a 25-story project across the street (on the Washington Lung Association property). Won't be long until a developer puts together something for the Rite-Aid site at 3rd and Vine, by which time the McGuire site will be all graded and pristine, ready for its own second chance at high-rise glory.
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