Located on Capitol Hill, just steps from E Olive Way & Broadway, this is another conversion project. They had their grand opening over Labor Day weekend and sold 25% of their units in the first few days. The project consists of 42 studio, one- and two-bedroom condo homes that include parking & storage while some of them offer great views of the Seattle skyline & Space Needle.


Generally speaking, buying in this neighborhood is usually going to get you a small space for the money and often without parking on the lower end of the price point. I was pleasantly surprised when I took my client to see the units at Belmont Lofts. Most of the units offered good floor-plans along with a parking space and storage and a bonus in the price range was that there are actually some units with really nice city/skyline views. To find a 2 bedroom, 2 bathroom with views of the city and parking and storage for under $400K on the hill in a good location (not overlooking I-5) is hard to come by so I was intrigued by the low price points that they came on the market with. We had previously looked at another unit just 2 blocks away (which my client actually had put in an offer on that didn’t come together) that was not as good of a floor-plan and was a 1 bedroom plus den rather then 2 bedrooms. That unit was listed at $439K and at Belmont Lofts he can get an actual 2 bedroom for about 40-60K less. Not a bad deal.

The big question with conversions is what has the developer done with the building (if anything) in the way of proactive problem solving or rather is everything just a cosmetic “gloss” on some crappy building that is going to start showing problems 5 years after the owners move in. With the new Condominium Act, developers are required to have a 3rd party inspect the building and they are required to make that inspection of the building structure and envelope publicly available to interested buyers. The buyer (and the buyers agent) can then go over the inspection report and see what was recommended by the inspector to be fixed and/or addressed. Depending upon the project and the developer, some or none or all of the problems could be addressed or fixed in the conversion. Often buyers of conversion projects know nothing of this report and buy into a building “blindly” accepting whatever the developer sells on the sales floor with their site agents. Without scrutinizing what the developer does with the conversion project you don’t know if you are really getting a good deal or not.

According to the inspection at Belmont Lofts, the building had extensive water penetration problems in the building envelope (siding, decks, roof) and draining issues with the terrace. The developer rather then just do “cosmetic glossing” of the interior has taken on a 2+ million dollar repair job that is requiring them to rip off most of the building envelope and replace all siding, windows, decks, doors, roofing and terrace structure. If you stop by the building you can see the ominous scaffolding surrounding the structure providing a less then inviting picture of the building in it’s “selling stage”. My thoughts are that it’s always a good sign with a developer decides to “expose” the problems readily and is proactive in dealing with them. It’s costing them a lot of money to restore this building and with other projects under their belt they are obviously concerned with their reputation in town as a “credible” developer of projects that are desirable. While we live in an unfortunate climate where no building is 100% waterproof it does look like this developer is taking tactics to make sure their conversion project has a fighting chance at becoming a long-term place that owners are happy to have purchased in.

While time will tell on the overall success of the project, for the money I have to put my thumbs up and say I would recommend this project as something worth considering a purchase in. You can’t beat the combination of price-location-layout-views in Capitol Hill.