I like these and while they may be "fake", I don't see them being nearly common as most other types of townhomes and in my opinion, they can be a welcome addition where one can't find loft like spaces in older buildings for a variety of reasons.

Even I had an idea similar to this for an apartment style building for more modest prices years ago myself and it was loosely based on several other places I'd seen, but were more conventional living areas repurposed as new lofts.

like the stairs

Always lovely to have it pointed out how terribly provincial we are out here in Seattle MrGreen. ;)

That said, it's been terribly amusing to be in the middle of the current condo boom here (as I work for an architecture firm with a large residential studio) and watch the architects mimicking trends that are already years old in Europe etc.

Sadly, living in a city as new as Seattle almost means having to construct our own loft spaces from scratch, I wouldn't wish an old Boeing hangar on anyone. Though, there are a lot of really interesting conversions happening right now of old church or school spaces like Queen Anne High School (http://www.queenannehigh.com/) or that Christian Science Church up on Capitol Hill.

I think a distinction can be drawn between the "soft lofts" described in the article mrgreen referenced and the town homes that are the topic of this post. while new construction, these homes are in seattle's industrial area. they are surrounded by scrap steel suppliers, a concrete plant, lumber yards, warehouses, shipping terminals, train yards, a crane rental outfit and so on. it is Gatsby's "sea of ashes". in this context, they are appropriate and responsive to their location in a way the loft-style tract homes covered in the Times article are not. accordingly, the comparsion is weak and uninformed.

I agree with both graphxgrrl and ursamajor. As a Seattle resident it's both frustrating and heartbreaking to watch neighborhoods being infiltrated by the condo/townhome virus. There has been construction on 2 separate quads on my street in Ballard in the last 6 months alone.

That said, I would much rather have high density urban centers much like I've seen in Europe rather than suburban sprawl. My only wish is that the urban architecture springing up here would be 1) more interesting and 2) much, much better built then they currently are.

i will admit that these townhomes are not high end. they make no claim to be. they are entry-level homes located in area of town where the "craftsman" and "san francisco" style townhomes so prevalent in seattle would be utterly out of place. in other words, they are anything, but "cookie cutter." These townhomes are sensitive to their surroundings. They are responsive to the area they are located in. i have been by them, and they do not stand out in an unseemly way. they seem to draw inspiration from some of the 1960s - 1970s commercial spaces adjacent to them. i think the developers should be applauded for this effort.
these circumstances are a world apart from the "loft" homes built in the middle of the desert outside of las vegas pictured in the article. the developers of these loft mcmansions appear to have simply cashed in on a trend without regard context. this distinction is entirely relevant and is where your claim of similarity is weak.
[In point of fact, Georgetown is hardly a neighborhood without services. i imagine many people are attracted to the area b/c it is so close to downtown (15min by bus) and near to so many places of employment: boeing, amazon.com, starbucks HQ, are all located in 3-5 miles. it is also within walking distance to Seattle's Safeco Field and Qwest Field, as well concert venues. it is on this point that mrgreen is uninformed.]

I will once again back up ursamajor's take on the issue. The townhouse/condo's I mentioned being built on my street *are* cookie-cutter in that you can hardly tell one from the other and they stick out like sore thumbs amongst the bungalow's, cottages and ranch-style homes of the neighborhood. That the architect's of the loft spaces in the piece took the time to observe the neighborhood in which they were erected and attempted to place them within an existing esthetic seems, imo, organic rather than cookie cutter.

Thankfully Maryja, there are some architects in Seattle that are paying attention to context and are building relationships with developers that are VERY slowing turning the tide towards having more responsibility towards the neighborhoods they're building in. It seriously depends on the firm though, and the kind of respect they do or don't have for the neighborhoods they're designing in.

There are sadly so many things wrong with the current state of development in this city, from insane luxury condos like Escala and Olive8 to projects like Mosler Lofts which are super "green" but view getting up to that certain LEED level as a justification for a high price rather than necessarily being the right thing to do (not that there aren't huge issues with the LEED system), context usually gets lost.