As you may have gathered from the guys spinning signs around at Denny and Aurora, the new Taylor 28 apartments are now leasing. Being a total sucker for spinning signs, I stopped by and checked them out.
The first thing that struck me about the project was the attention paid to the street, namely Taylor Ave. It's a lot narrower than your average city street. 20 feet narrower in fact, as that's the amount of under-utilized roadway that was reclaimed to create a public plaza (pictured below).
The nice crosswalk treatment on Taylor Ave at the mid-block and to the north at John St (pictured below) promotes walkability to and from Seattle Center to the west. To the east, pedestrians still must deal with Aurora: The Great Divide.
Inside are 197 market-rate apartments and all the common area amenities you've come to expect in new buildings: fitness center, business center, outdoor deck with bbq and indoor clubhouse. Photos of the interior can be found on Taylor 28's website.
The apartments have pretty nice faux finishes for the floors, counters and cabinets. Floor plans were relatively standard in layout and square footage, but they seemed to have a good number of closets. The move-in special is a historically generous 2 months free due to the economy and over-supply, and even more competition came online just a few blocks away with today's announcement that Rollin Street would become apartments.
Complimentary Sunday breakfasts in the clubhouse add a nice community-building touch.
For the retail spaces they're looking for a restaurant and a small market/deli, but that could take awhile.
