The Pike Pine Triangle
The Pike Pine Triangle
It’s funny how things change over time… Back in the late 70’s and early 80’s I was a student at Cornish College of the Arts, then known as Cornish Institute. I lived on Capitol Hill just a few blocks from the school and studied music composition and performance. During that time I worked for And/Or, a Seattle nonprofit arts organization.
I was very involved in the music program Soundwork . We built an electronic music studio in a loft on the 2nd floor of the Odd Fellows building at 915 E Pine St. Soundwork Studio was a public access studio and a performance hall for area composers. We gave classes, produced concerts, and I hosted a radio show on the now defunct KRAB FM.
Soundwork Studio, February 1982
Capitol Hill was (and still is) a great place to live with its close proximity to downtown. I enjoyed many a walk down Broadway from Cornish to And/Or on Pike Street. I fondly remember those days as a kind of Gothic / Renaissance Period (a lot of young people in black with boots, Mohawks, pink purple and orange hair with a lot of chain-like bling) and writers, painters, dancers, poets, musicians, and theater people everywhere.
There was always something going on and it all needed to be talked about. We frequented the Comet Tavern back then… cheap beer, free peanuts, and a communal can of Top Tobacco and papers on the bar. Life was good.
Fast forward to 2010 and behold, The Pike Pine Triangle, a vibrant neighborhood full of shops, cafés, restaurants, boutiques, and a newer hotel. Now there’s a high demand to live here and my agents are calling me to help them look for condos. They have buyers who want to live in this neighborhood.
The challenge is inventory to fill the demand. Most everyone I’m working with who has clients that want into this born again hotspot neighborhood really want 3+ bedrooms and at least 1600 (preferably more) square feet. I find it interesting that the new client demographic is so different from the single young urban professionals who were buying here over the past several years. Now they’re a little older, married, and many with kids.
I looked into the Pike Pine Triangle and found 40 studio units averaging a little over 600 square feet, 143 1 bedroom units around 800 square feet, and only 14 units with 2 bedrooms from 900 to 1200 square feet. Sounds ripe for further development, but until then condos that fit the need are elsewhere on the hill or downtown.
2 years ago