Seattle Bubble

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39 responses so far ↓

• 1 Ben // May 29, 2008 at 12:07 pm

  Ummm… could someone maybe describe to me what a “SLUT stop away from home” means?

• 2 The Tim // May 29, 2008 at 12:11 pm

  South Lake Union Trolley = SLUT

• 3 Gill // May 29, 2008 at 12:17 pm

  Oh, thank you Seattle for naming our new transit system the South Lake Union Trolley!!!

  Much better than ‘BART’ and fun for years to come!

  Someday I’ll ride the SLUT to work myself.

• 4 brettro // May 29, 2008 at 12:19 pm

  Remember, the SLUT is not just for work- you can ride the SLUT for fun and leisure as well!

• 5 Mirtika // May 29, 2008 at 12:32 pm

  Okay, that made me snarf in a most unladylike manner.

  A SLUTtish manner, perhaps?

  Hee.
  M.

• 6 softwarengineer // May 29, 2008 at 12:59 pm

  SLUTS, BEER & WINE

  Sounds fun

• 7 AndySeattle // May 29, 2008 at 1:01 pm

  I like that us Seattleites are calling it the SLUT too… even though those silly folks who run the thing are trying their hardest to call it a Streetcar.

• 8 Rachel // May 29, 2008 at 1:35 pm

  Back to the topic - is this event an invitation only thing? Or can you (The Tim) crash it tonight if you wanted?

  What exactly is the purpose of the party anyway?

• 9 AndySeattle // May 29, 2008 at 2:33 pm

  It’s a party put on by Vulcan in order to coax the Amazonians (Amazon employees) to purchase and move into new condos in the South Lake Union/Cascade neighborhood.

  Amazon is scheduled to relocate their corporate offices to the neighborhood in 2010.

• 10 Rachel // May 29, 2008 at 3:32 pm

  Thanks Andy.

• 11 MacAttack // May 29, 2008 at 3:38 pm

  Question: Has Paul Allen made a dime in anything besides Microsoft? Just curious. Oh, buy the way, don’t worry about losing the Sonics. I’m sure Paul will bring the Trail Blazers to town soon.

• 12 Silver9 // May 29, 2008 at 3:57 pm

  One can “crash” just about any event but this one is by RSVP. It was not pitched to us as a sales event but rather as a way to learn more about our new office location. I didnt even notice the bit about condos until someone commented on it here. Amazon currently has several buildings and we will all be moving to the new Vulcan-built property in SLU.

  Vulcan Real Estate is hosting two Amazon employee happy hours at the SLU Discovery Center on May 28 and 29. This is your opportunity to hear updates on the development of our new headquarters and learn about new neighborhood retail businesses and a special condominium purchase program exclusive to Amazon employees. For more information, and to RSVP, contact ….

• 13 Grivetti // May 29, 2008 at 4:39 pm

  A buddy of mine who works for Amazon mentioned this. I asked him if he was going to go, he said “No way, why would I won’t to live that close to work?”… haha!

  I guess Amazon employees have a hard enough time separating work from their actual life.

  He also said, the prices were too high and they would have to drop significantly in order for him to bother thinking about it.

• 14 Whitney Fisher // May 29, 2008 at 5:05 pm

  Check out the website, http://www.ridetheslut.com
  The S.L.U.T. is the South Lake Union Trolley as coined by the funny people at Kapow Coffee in Seattle whose neighborhood was destoyed by Paul Allen’s crappy condo boxes and bullcrap apartments. They illuminated the rest of the world to the original name for the trolley before the developers figurede out the unfortunate acronym.

• 15 Keith // May 29, 2008 at 5:20 pm

  >> Question: Has Paul Allen made a dime in anything besides Microsoft?

  His companies are notorious money losers. A friend of mine was chief architect at one of his companies…this was about 10 years ago…and he referred to it as a “spam” job - as in Spend Paul Allen’s Money.

  To be fair, he has contributed a fair amount to the community (his foundation, the Allen library wing at the UW for his father, etc) and I appreciate that. I think the jury’s still out on his real estate ventures…I can see his Seahawk training facility from our house and - while I appreciate his taking on the lumber mill cleanup - it doesn’t fit very well into the neighborhood. And now that I think about it…we can see his Lopez island estate (the land, not the houses) from our cabin in the San Juans and he’s preserved that quite well. Now if he’s just get rid of that butt-ugly heli-pad barge in front of his house…

  http://www.jaunted.com/tag/Heli-pads

• 16 takenroad // May 29, 2008 at 6:04 pm

  Doesn’t Paul Allen own Ticketmaster? If Ticketmaster isn’t making truck loads of money it’s criminal incompetence. Who’d've thought you could add $9.50 to the cost of every concert ticket sold and avoid jail time?

• 17 Mikal // May 29, 2008 at 6:05 pm

  He seems to not care about making profits from his “hobbies”. He can afford it and it provides jobs for alot of people. Last I checked he still was a multibillionaire.

• 18 NotaBull // May 29, 2008 at 6:31 pm

  http://www.wired.com/wired/archive/2.08/allen.html

  Old article, but it just about says it all I think.

  “His wealth is a lucky trick of time and place, and particularly of his involvement with Bill Gates. While Allen was co-responsible for the early creation and early technical successes of Microsoft, his tremendous wealth came later. Gates made them both billionaires after Allen left off an active involvement with Microsoft.”

• 19 Mikal // May 29, 2008 at 6:52 pm

  So, Fullofbull, what is your point? Anyone who has been successful has had some luck.

• 20 jon // May 29, 2008 at 6:55 pm

  $3289/ sq ft?

  http://www.zillow.com/HomeDetails.htm?zprop=48806818

• 21 economist // May 29, 2008 at 7:12 pm

  Yes but it would appear we’re talking Ringo Starr magnitude luck here.

• 22 george // May 29, 2008 at 9:57 pm

  Seattle will be the “Next Housing Market To Crash” is the story on US News and World Report in an interview with the Ziprealty CEO.

  He doesn’t give a number but I think “crash” would mean at least 20 percent. Nothing you haven’t read on this blog but here’s a link:
  http://www.usnews.com/blogs/the-home-front/2008/05/29/next-housing-market-to-crash-seattle.html

• 23 Garth // May 29, 2008 at 10:30 pm

  MacAttack,

  Dreamworks worked out for him, Charter has sucked up a ton of cash, most of the more public web related failures are tiny transactions to him.

  Keith,

  Mercer Island does not allow helipads :)

• 24 shawn // May 29, 2008 at 11:26 pm

  I got my BS at the University of North Texas, UNT. We had a radio station at the college. Radio stations tend to start their call letters with “K”. I think they use KTNU, something like that, but I remember everyone still joking about it.

• 25 NotaBull // May 30, 2008 at 7:28 am

  “Yes but it would appear we’re talking Ringo Starr magnitude luck here.”

  That’s exactly the point, Mikal. Winning the lottery is lucky. Finding a suitcase full of money is lucky. Starting a good business, working hard, and then making a ton of money from it with an element of luck (right place, right time, etc) is something entirely different.

  Paul Allen was just lucky.

• 26 Garth // May 30, 2008 at 8:57 am

  He came up with the idea for Microsoft after seeing a popular electronics article.

  Then he and Gates wrote an Altair interpreter to simulate the machine they would be running on and all of their BASIC code in 8 weeks. The first time Allen loaded their code on a real Altair for their demo it worked. Call that luck if you want.

  He got sick and left the company very early.

• 27 alex // May 30, 2008 at 10:04 am

  Do a google search for “accidental billionaire” and see how many names pop up…

  However, he did make a ton of money on Ticketmaster. Something like $500mm IIRC, and I think he was pretty early into AOL as well.

• 28 Blah // May 30, 2008 at 10:19 am

  I’ve been reading this blog and HBB blog for some time.

  What do you guys think of this flip?

  http://www.4142-53rdavesw.com/

  The house across the street is the same set up but redone in the mid 90’s, trying to sell for $575K

• 29 John // May 30, 2008 at 11:24 am

  That is an audacious price. Just because it has its own website, it must be worth $200-300k more.

• 30 SLU_Renter // May 31, 2008 at 3:01 pm

  My wife bought me one of the “Ride the S.L.U.T.” t-shirts. Personally, I think the SLUT was a waste of money. ($50.5 million and only 1.3 miles?!?) People can walk that. It takes me 15 mins to walk 1 mile to work downtown from the SLU. If I catch all the lights, jay-walk/walk super fast its about 12 minutes. $3 round trip for 1 mile isn’t worth it imo. Not that I’ve written the SLUT but it probably takes just as long to ride it then to walk it. If the track was 3-4 miles that would definitely benefit more people.

  Now the newly rebuilt SLU Park is nice. They, VULACN, and Melinda Bill Gates (as well as others who donated $$) really cleaned the place up. It’s nice to see all the sailboats/boats on the water, and the green space/lawn downtown.

• 31 Jackson Wallace // Jun 1, 2008 at 1:01 am

  The condos that include the Whole Foods still have 30 lockboxes hanging at the entrance, so this neighborhood is going to get mighty interesting if the word gets out that the whole area is a sucky investment. These condos are just too high-priced and I would not buy a balcony within a block of Denny because you will be breathing traffic fumes ALL DAY EVERY DAY and much of the night. Allen is ultimately a dork. He doesnt seem to think his projects through thoroughly. He had to drop the price on his Music Museum. He’ll have to do the same on his overblown apt complexes. SLU sucks compared to Cap Hill, QA, Belltown, the Market and Ballard for entertainment value as well. You’re living in a trough. I bet all those owners at the Cosmopolitan are happy that they’re losing their expensive views, and their units are dropping in price. Better get a good room at the Westin. Escala will destroy their views as well. Hard to weep for a chain hotel, but there is no justice in development.

• 32 haveaniceday // Jun 3, 2008 at 8:06 pm

  We bought at Rollin Street and while we agree that the prices are high, there really are so many advantages to living in an up and coming neighborhood with soon to be full-amenities like new restaurants, things to do, etc… that we felt like it was worth it. We both work downtown and never have to drive. I am not trying to convince anyone(I would never be able to do that on this site anyway), but I just wanted to let you know that people might be crazy enough to buy these things. We were. While we don’t see ourselves making any money off of it anytime soon, we do see a happy life for ourselves in a neighborhood that suits our tastes and will only be getting better, cleaner, and greener. And we love the SLUT.

• 33 Matthew // Jun 3, 2008 at 8:15 pm

  Haveaniceday,

  You could have rented a comparable condo for 2-3 years, and then bought a condo at the same location for 20-30 percent less in a year or two.

• 34 [troll] // Jun 3, 2008 at 8:18 pm

  Hvncdy,

  Cngrts t y nd yrs!
  njy yr nw hm n pc fr mny mny yrs!
  Dn’t lstn t th Bbblhds, thy r jst nvs f yr nw dgs.

  Chrs!

• 35 Matthew // Jun 3, 2008 at 8:38 pm

  Enjoy your depreciating asset that you massively overpaid for that you won’t be able to sell at a profit for the next decade!

• 36 haveaniceday // Jun 4, 2008 at 10:57 am

  Thanks. I hope it doesn’t depreciate but if it does, it is what it is. We hope to live there for a long time, so it is not an “investment” for us, rather a home.

• 37 NotaBull // Jun 4, 2008 at 11:17 am

  “Enjoy your depreciating asset that you massively overpaid for that you won’t be able to sell at a profit for the next decade!”

  Matthew, why do you have to be like that? Haveaniceday wasn’t rude to you, and you don’t have to agree with his/her decisions or opinions. There’s just no need to be as objectionable as you were…

• 38 haveaniceday // Jun 5, 2008 at 4:31 pm

  Thanks, NotaBull. I appreciate it.

• 39 Matthew // Jun 5, 2008 at 4:40 pm

  Sorry Have, that was more directed toward RAL than it was you. Hopefully everything works out for you.

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