Dockside

2023 Winner – AIA Seattle Award of Merit

A prominent corner overlooking Green Lake Park began a new chapter when the owner of Spud Fish and Chips partnered with Cone Architecture and a development team to create a new mixed-use building – providing both a new space for a beloved restaurant, and needed apartments for the sought-after neighborhood of Green Lake. For the restaurant, the primary objective was to provide a modernized space that better responded to the park and pedestrian patterns, while also paying homage to the original 1950s structure. For the apartments, the setting of this project presented a unique opportunity to provide new homes for an under-served population in one of the most coveted locations in Seattle. Therefore, the housing objective for this project was to create the maximum number of new and affordable apartments for the neighborhood, specifically for low income, homeless, or formerly homeless people.

Dockside contains 98 affordable housing units – including 75 permanent supportive housing units, 22 minimum wage service industry worker units, and 1 unit for a live-in staff member. The ground floor is home to the new Spud Fish and Chips restaurant, the interiors of which Cone also had the opportunity to design. The building is organized to strengthen relationships with its immediate block, but also to the neighborhood and city at large. The pedestrian environment is prioritized by removing surface parking and anchoring the corner with a shared outdoor space, seating for the restaurant, private patios for ground level units, and a main entrance for tenants. The apartments above are oriented to the park, taking advantage of the views toward the lake as well as the sound and Olympic Mountains beyond. A local artist was commissioned to the design the mural on the west facade, paying homage to the history of Spud. Taken as a whole, the organization of the building aims to bring an urban vitality to the street-level, and promote a calm and supportive refuge for the residents.