Design Advice has been offered for the Dairy Apartments, a development proposed on the site of the former Sunshine Dairy in Kerns. The 7-story building is being designed by Hacker Architects for developer NBP Capital. 274 residential units are proposed, with the potential for a small amount of ground floor retail. 93 vehicular parking stalls are proposed in a below grade parking garage. 303 bicycle parking spaces would be provided, with 42 proposed in bike room and remaining spaces provided in the units.
The building will be subject to the city’s inclusionary housing rules, which require the provision of affordable housing or the payment of a fee-in-lieu.
The project site is the full block bound by NE 20th Ave, Pacific St, 21st Ave and Oregon St. The site was home to the Sunshine Dairy operation, which filed for bankruptcy in 2018. The 1928 Emergency Dispatching Center building at the intersection of NE 20th and 21st was included in the bankruptcy sale to NBP Capital, but does not form part of the site to be redeveloped.
Nearby developments include the proposed Pepsi Blocks, the first phase of which has a pending design review; the under construction Jantzen Apartments and Glisan Street Apartments; and the Hygge Apartments, completed in 2018. The TwentyTwenty Apartments, also designed by Hacker, are located on the other side of the NE 21st Ave bridge across I-84.
At the lower two floors the building is arranged in a donut shaped plan, with an interior courtyard. At levels three and above the building is massed as two parallel north-south bars. Interior amenity spaces would open onto the ground level interior courtyard. A small roof deck is proposed on top of the west bar.
The primary material for the building would be folded weathering steel, with operable exterior metal shutters.
The Dairy Apartments were presented to the Design Commission at an advisory Design Advice Request meeting on June 27th. The project was generally well received. Topics of discussion included the design of the ground floor units, and whether they are raised too high from the sidewalk level; the use of the weathering steel in an area where most of the residential buildings are stucco; and a potential adjustment to the amount of parking required, given that the site does not qualify as being close to transit, per the definition in the zoning code.
In order to gain approval the Dairy Apartments will need to go through a Type III Design Review, with public hearings in front of the Design Commission.
Drawings
Plan | Basement 
Plan | Ground 
Plan | Ground (Option 1) 
Plan | Ground (Option 2) 
Plan | Level 2 
Plan | Level 3 
Plan | Levels 4 to 7 
Plan | Roof 
Elevation | North (NE Pacific St) 
Elevation | West (NE 20th Ave) 
Elevation | South (NE Oregon St) 
Elevation | East (NE 21st Ave)
I think it looks good, and like the creative solution to ground floor residential. How about we exempt the project from all parking requirements, with the condition that they restore and incorporate the giant milk carton, and keep it rotating for 99 years.
Oh, and a brewpub in the Fire Alarm Telegraph building! Fire Alarm Brewing!
Very nice, well done
This needs more parking, it only incorporates parking for one-third of the apartments. Granted, some will use mass transit and bikes, but even with one resident per apartment, 93 parking spaces isn’t enough, especially if they offer parking to customers of the ground floor shops and employees of the apartment and/or stores. Otherwise it looks great.
If it were 200′ north or south, no parking would be required at all. It’s in a weird gap between transit streets. It’s 2019. Well past time to be building any parking.
This is a great location for a low- or no-parking building, even less than what is proposed here. Short walk to the 8, 12, 19, and 70, and not even that far to the 20 or MAX. Plus easy biking distance to downtown, inner eastside, central eastside, Lloyd district, etc.
I do wish that developers were required to build more bike parking outside of units. We had to keep our two bikes in our unit for two years because of the lack of bike parking, and since getting the outside-of-unit bike parking, we’ve been able to put that space to significantly better use.
This project could also be a great opportunity to close off one block of NE Pacific Street to make all the traffic movements here much more predictable and remove multiple points of conflict. It would make for a nice plaza and outdoor seating area for the telegraph building brewery that Doug proposed above!
There is already a parking crisis in this area, there is no way that the neighborhood can sustain having so few parking spots in this new development. The neighborhood has already struggled in this area with all of the new businesses opening, there is no way that it can handle what will come with these apartments. They need to follow the code and bring this up to 241 spots.