Today’s blog post is the seventh in a series where we look at Seattle’s land use history and decades of missed opportunities for comprehensive infrastructure planning for transportation and housing.

Seattle’s 40-story residential towers may emphasize stunning views but sustainable downtown living actually begins at the ground floor.  Functional design is needed there to respond to the way we live now, starting with round-the-clock home deliveries.

E-commerce was already growing double digits before the pandemic. Two years ago, luxury tower Insignia reported receiving 200 packages a day from multiple carriers. Today, traditional retail is on life-support and homes now double as office and entertainment centers.

The world has changed and tower design hasn’t caught up.

Seeking insight, the University of Washington’s Urban Freight Lab (UFL) honed its research on the Final 50’ of the urban supply chain—that critical distance from a truck’s parking spot to the point where customers receive their goods. In downtown towers, UFL found that short journey was consumed with long elevator rides and multiple individual stops leaving trucks to linger at curbs, alleys and loading bays while others circle city blocks searching for alternate parking.

Partnering with the Seattle Department of Transportation (SDOT) in 2017, UFL studied deliveries to the 62-story Municipal Tower, home to both SDOT and the Seattle Department of Construction and Inspection (SDCI).  They found couriers spent an average of 20 minutes in the building with over 12 minutes riding elevators and delivering packages door-to-door.

The next year UFL and SDOT tested a storage locker system used by multiple carriers that resulted in a 78% reduction in delivery times. A similar storage locker test is now underway at a condo tower in Belltown.

With finite curb space and expanding numbers of delivery trucks, cars and vans, the success of urban density will rely on smart transportation and building design.  Innovations like common storage lockers to reduce truck dwell time and expedite delivery, will make a big difference.

Yet a review of seven current and planned mixed-use residential towers with access off Virginia St., show just one (*) is designed with ground floor mail and package rooms accessible from the building’s main loading area.

Each of these residential towers (#3019699, #3018037, #3026266, #3026416 (*), #3018686, #3033067, #3007605) contain commercial space and some have hotels and offices. Their estimated occupancies range up to 1,600 people. Supporting that level of density without efficient design, guarantees delays and congestion in alleys and connecting streets, like Virginia.

As Seattle continues building to the clouds, SDOT and SDCI must step forward and require new towers be designed efficiently from the ground up.

Stay tuned for future posts in this series, exploring how current Seattle development and land use policy is impacting Seattle transportation and sustainable housing.

Be sure to read additional posts in series:

Will Seattle’s 19th century transportation grid continue to survive business as usual?

We need action, not more talk

Another rubber-stamped tower is designed to fail

Demands of e-commerce won’t be met by paper band aids

Surface parking lots: A hot button issue

Tower trash in alleys doesn’t pass the smell test