Belltown Messenger

The Dec. 12 Belltown Housing and Land Use Subcommittee meeting was attended by many heavy hitters including condo marketing guy Dean Jones, omnipresent Ewing and Clark retail genius Tom Graff, Plymouth Housing guru Tom English, and special guest Joe Strobele, owner of real estate conglomerate Lexas Companies. Lexas is building a 300-foot high, 240-unit megacondo at Fourth and Virginia. Now, I'm all for "building high" downtown, as Mayor Greg "Allen-wrench" Nickels puts it-but this massive new condo, as depicted in the architectural drawings shown by Strobele, is huge in a crass sort of way.

Strobele made it be known that he had spent a great deal of time touring condos in Miami and "Vegas," two cities with downtowns so dissimilar from Seattle's that they may as well be on another planet. His selling point was that they had put parking underground, which supposedly makes the site more attractive.

Strobele, in an expensive-looking hand tailored suit and no tie, was accompanied by two attarctive young women who didn't do anything and some other guy with a briefcase. They all left after giving their presentation, perhaps too busy to stick around and hear about some of the projects going forward in the ultra-hot downtown high rise scene.