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25 Central Way, Kirkland, WA 98033 // 425.454.7130 // milbrandtarch.com
June 6, 2023
City of Renton Planning Division
1055 South Grady Way
Renton, WA 98057
Project Narrative for Grant Place Townhomes Site Plan Review_V2
Grants Place Townhomes is a planned 36-unit townhome condominium project that is being
resubmitted for Land Uses approval as the previous approvals have all lapsed. The project is
located at 1600 Grant Avenue South in the city of Renton and is a 2.14 parcel of land located in
the RM-F zone. Neighboring properties include the Heritage Village Condominiums complex to
the south, single family residential lots to the east, and vacant land zoned for multifamily use to
the north. The current use of our site is vacant multifamily with construction started on 8
multifamily townhome buildings, a storm water retention vault, and supporting utilities.
Current site features on site include a tree retention area on the southeast portion of the site as
well as some identified moderate soil erosion hazard areas having 6 to 15 percent slopes. No
wetlands or bodies of water are present on site. The most recent Geotechnical report has
identified the site as being primarily underlain by competent glacial till soils that would provide
adequate support for the townhomes being constructed. Soils encountered during site
development have been assumed to be highly moisture sensitive and can disturb in wet
conditions.
Our current proposal is to continue with the previously approved development with minor
modifications to bring elements up to compliance with current municipal requirements where
feasible. The Site Plan plans for a single drive aisle that enters at the Northwest corner of the site
and exits at the Southwest corner of the site. The detailing of the private access alley drive is
being modified from what was previously proposed in order to bring it in line with the current
municipal definition of an alley access. The previous 20’ wide alley access will now be broken
up into a 15’ wide asphalt paved alley travel lane with the remaining 5’ of paved surface being
done in a decorative saw cut concrete to delineate it as separate from the everyday vehicular use
travel lane. The total width of the paved surface will still meet the 20’ requirement for a fire
access lane with all surfaces still meeting the requirements for loading of fire apparatus
equipment. No parking markings will be located clearly on either side of the private drive at a
spacing no greater than 50’ apart.
Total parking on site stays the same as proposed before with there being a 2-car private garage in
each townhome unit and 7 parallel guest stalls located along the private drive. Parking stalls in
the garage are sized to accommodate parking stalls allowed under the previous code (8.5’x16’)
and are not in compliance with current municipal requirements. Modification to meet current size
requirements is not feasible as foundations for each building are already in place with some
buildings already progressing to some level of vertical wood framing. A total of 79 parking stalls
are provided on site (61 required). Bike parking space is available in the garages of every F21
and E16 unit for a total of 28 spaces (18 required).
The buildings proposed are a mix of 4 (4-plex) and 4 (5-plex) buildings running East / West
along the site. Buildings are planned to still be roughly 35’ tall from average finished grade to
the ridge on the roofs and have top plate heights around 26’ above average grade, meeting
current municipal code requirements. The total building area on site will be 68,356 s.f., and lot
June 6, 2023
Grant Place Townhomes
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coverage will be at 26.4% which are also within code compliance. The total density of the
project is 17 units per acre.
Open space on the project is provided through a mix of private front yards and a series of public
open spaces running east to west along the site. Common open spaces include a 6,685 s.f. park
fronting Grant Ave S, two smaller open spaces with seating areas between buildings 1-3 & 6-8
totaling 2,564 s.f., and another 1,657 s.f. pocket park at the east bend in the loop access drive.
Additionally, there is a small trellis covered area on the east end of the site providing 278. The
tree conservation area to the southeast is viewed as an open space amenity but can’t be counted
towards the common open space numbers. This brings the total provided common open space up
to a total of 11,184 s.f. (required 12,600 s.f.). Private open spaces are all located contiguously to
the units they serve and vary in size from 223.5 s.f. to 356.5 s.f. some of these are smaller than
the minimums required for each unit independently but the overall provided comes out to be in
excess of the code minimum. Sizes of yards can’t be increased with so much of the site already
constructed. To mitigate the lack of code minimum common open space and the smaller yard
sizes of some units, we propose providing landscaping across the site of a quality and quantity
above those that would be seen in similar developments of this size and scale.
Offsite improvements for the project still include those previously required and shown on the
civil permit drawings including the sidewalk extension in front of the site along Grant Ave S.
and the installation of two electronically operated access gates for entry and exit by an approved
method acceptable to the City of Renton Fire and Emergency Services department just south of S
10th St.
Most of the site grading has already been completed at this time. Civil anticipates 2,300 cy of cut
and 2,200 cy of fill remain to be done bring us to a net cut of 100 cy. No further trees on site will
be removed, as all of those activities have already been completed.
We can say for certain what the estimated construction cost for the remainder of the project will
be with different buildings a different levels of construction. The estimated site construction cost
is roughly $76,620. The total estimated market value of each unit will be between $650,000 and
$700,000 per unit.
Sincerely,
Jesse Hadley
Project Architect
jlh@milbrandtarch.com
425.454.7130