Building in Madison Park, Seattle
Your plans.
Madison Park is one of the Seattle neighborhoods where we have direct project experience rather than just general familiarity. Our Madison Park Passive and Madison Park Urban custom homes are both in the portfolio, and they reflect the neighborhood's specific combination of waterfront proximity, high design expectations, and a permitting environment that rewards preparation.
Madison Park lots vary considerably in their regulatory complexity. Properties within the Lake Washington shoreline jurisdiction face setback requirements and view protection overlays that significantly affect what can be built. The Madison Park Passive project involved careful massing decisions to comply with view protection rules while achieving the indoor-outdoor kitchen connection the clients wanted — a folding wall that opens the cooking space to a cedar-clad outdoor kitchen and the lake view beyond. Getting that right required close coordination between structural, mechanical, and the permit application from the earliest stages of design.
The Madison Park Urban project was a different kind of challenge: a contemporary custom home with a bold architectural presence on a Madison Park corner lot. The design made deliberate choices about exterior cladding, fenestration, and massing that had to be evaluated against the neighborhood's design review criteria. We managed that process alongside the design team and the clients, and the permit moved faster than most projects of comparable complexity because we did the pre-application work thoroughly.
For architects bringing us Madison Park projects: we've been through the neighborhood's design review process, the shoreline permit process, and the standard DCI track multiple times. We know what each requires and can help structure the pre-application process to minimize unnecessary delays.
Madison Park's proximity to the lake means many properties have stormwater management obligations that affect site design. Green stormwater infrastructure requirements from Seattle Public Utilities apply to projects above certain impervious surface thresholds — we incorporate these into the site design early rather than retrofitting them at the end.
Share your plans or describe your project. We’ll tell you honestly what we can do, what it’s likely to cost, and what the timeline looks like.
Get a free estimate