Pinnacle condos take shape in West Seattle

A new condo building is coming up at the northernmost tip of West Seattle. Unlike the condo buildings popping up around the city’s core, the project is staying pretty small, with just six floors and 11 total units.

Still, it adds some additional condo inventory to a multifamily market that’s largely dominated by rentals—no new condo units even came online in 2017.

The Pinnacle, Realogics Sotheby’s International Realty (RSIR) CEO Dean Jones tells us, is “an alternative to penthouse living in downtown Seattle.”

While it’s a smaller building, the views, apparently, are big. “You just get the iconic skyline all the way across the bay and all the way to the Olympics,” said Jones. So it mimics the views of the water you’d get in a high-rise near the waterfront, but along the northernmost part of Alki Beach.

Courtesy of Realogics Sotheby’s International Realty

For context: It’s just below Hamilton Viewpoint, the North Admiral spot that looks over a cliff to downtown.

The price point is high: Units will range from below $900,000 to more than $2.3 million. The least expensive is a one-bedroom on the first floor; the rest of the units have three bedrooms and start at $1.5 million.

The three-bedroom is something that’s not especially common in the Seattle multifamily landscape, with more than 75 percent of new units having one bedroom or fewer—and barely over 1 percent being three-bedrooms.

Interior renderings are still forthcoming, but Jones said the look is “kind of a coastal contemporary” with hardwood floors and floor-to-ceiling windows. “We’re really having fun with the interiors.”

All of the homes will have terraces (the ground-floor unit has a patio), plus access to a shared roof deck “with killer views of course,” said Jones.

Amenities besides the deck are pretty light—there aren’t many units in the building and the homes are larger than many, with the three-bedrooms ranging from 1806 to 2128 square feet. RSIR is anticipating HOA dues to be around 35 to 40 cents per square foot.

The units aren’t officially for sale yet, but they’re doing what Jones calls “kind of a presale to a presale,” with $5,000 deposits for first right of opportunity. “All the typical stresses associated with the buyer today, we’re just trying to be more sympathetic.”

He said that one buyer so far is “a well-known athlete,” although he wouldn’t specify further.

The Pinnacle should be ready for residency in 2018.