A Zoning Departure Leads to a Lobby That Activates the Street

Activating lobbies — whether in office, hotel or multifamily buildings — is a concept that’s been evolving over the past decade. Developers have worked to turn these formerly staid spaces into functional and fun areas for building residents, enabling people to hang out instead of simply pass through.

At The Waverly in Seattle, a multifamily tower with 374 units, developer Greystar progressed the concept further by literally and figuratively opening the lobby to the street. This was accomplished by utilizing folding glass doors and making the space available to individuals and organizations beyond the building residents.

The idea was to bring vibrancy to the ground floor and “give back to the community” by becoming “a mixing space to host different kinds of community events,” said Kimberly Frank, a managing principal at GGLO that oversaw the interior design for the project.

Project architect Aaron Swain, a senior associate with Weber Thompson, noted that along 8th Avenue, where the front of the building is situated, “the base zoning requires street-facing, grade-accessed residential units, which often result in very little activation at the ground level,” a requirement that can also “compromise privacy along the street.”

Swain added that The Waverly “sought and received a departure from this requirement, proposing a shared ‘Living Room’ and ‘Front Porch’ design to improve activation and safety, and create an opportunity to include the broader neighborhood in select events.”

To be clear about who can access the space, Aaron Keeler, a managing director at Greystar overseeing development in Washington and Oregon, noted that “the goal was never to have the lobby be a place where people would come in without our authorization, because security is such a big priority for any community.” But they knew they wanted a lively space and “people activate spaces,” the team concluded.

“We do provide access to our event space to non-residents, but this is through agreements that protect the property,” Keeler said. If an outside entity is interested in holding an event “we would be more than happy to host it, if it complements the resident's interests,” or those of the building owner.

Envisioning the ground floor as public space “was a big driver with the design review board in terms of making sure the ground floor has public visibility and activation,” Frank said. She added that “anybody that's walking along the street gets the sense of activity and life going on inside.”

Keeler said that the building’s energy was on full display during its grand opening party. “We opened the front door, which is a very large sliding glass wall, and people were able to come into the living room gallery through those doors, and then go up to the roof for music and food.”

“Activating your ground floor is design 101,” Keeler said. But sometimes a design that works on paper doesn’t translate to real life.

For this project, Keeler said they started with a lot of different functions that broke up the lobby and created numerous spaces that all ended up feeling small. “So, I pressed the design team to make it feel as big as possible.”

This led them to make changes during the design phase that included moving stairs and creating one multi-gender bathroom instead of two. Keeler said that changes like those resulted in openness and transparency and the ability to accommodate coworking, social events, art exhibits, music concerts, a communal kitchen, a grab-and-go-café, a fireplace, the leasing offices and other uses in the lobby.

Frank noted that this variety of activities makes the space feel vibrant.

Part of the concept of the ground floor was to think about 18-hour activation of the space, Frank said, which tends to accommodate business activity during the day and social events in the evening. A lot of thought went into creating flexible space that can be changed, she said. She added that they “even looked at different furniture arrangements for different kinds of functions” throughout the day, reinforcing the lobby’s role as a multifunctional space.

To help the transition from day to night, a set of drapes were installed in front of the leasing office that are drawn in the evening. This change reinforces the idea that the business part of the day has concluded, and the lobby has now transitioned into its role as the building’s living room, Keeler said.

There's also a large screen and a projector that come down from the ceiling when the leasing offices are closed. “Whether it’s a Seattle Seahawks game or something like Planet Earth playing, it creates a little bit of ambiance,” Keeler said. It also can serve to “bring people down there to watch something together.”

To design a space that people actually wanted to use, Greystar began by looking at activities in other buildings in South Lake Union, which Keeler said were “typically tech offices with food courts and lots of space and amenities for their employees.”

At The Waverly, they focused on doing something similar but refining it further. Keeler said they explored ideas that ranged from pragmatic to comforting, that would solve for someone needing a toothbrush to wanting a cup of tea. Keeler said there is not a lot of quick retail on the block, so providing items through an honor-based, grab-and-go area helps residents access a range of sundries they may run out of.

To keep people lingering, the team created a gallery-type space as part of the living room concept that could feature rotating art exhibits. Different artists come and sell their art on the wall, adding interest to the space, Keeler said. “We integrated a display rail as part of the detailing,” Frank added, that allows management to easily change out artwork and facilitate rotating art exhibits.

A large communal kitchen also keeps people in the space, especially those that are coworking from home, Frank said. She noted that there are a variety of furniture groupings, and everything is movable. A decision to limit the number of built-in pieces was intentional, based mostly on the notion that the way we work seems to be changing rapidly. “It gave the developer future flexibility to add different furniture in a few years, if needed,” Frank said.

The Greystar operations team initiates and oversees a series of events at the property throughout the year, including monthly yoga classes, both indoor and outdoor depending on weather, cooking classes and paint and sip nights.

A concert — hosted by SoFar Sounds, a music events company that hosts live music in intimate venues around the world — was recently held. The concert drew 75 people — a solid turnout for a function of that type.

The operations team works hard to connect people, Keeler said. “We have a lot of people that move in from out of state and they really appreciate that social engagement.” Their appreciation seems to be borne out by the property’s “resident score,” a metric the firm uses to measure resident satisfaction, which Keeler says, “is one of the highest in the country at that property.”