Seattle

Looking to get an apartment in Seattle.. Any suggestions where is a reasonable place to live for a single guy?
Where is the nightlife and clubs? I remember a few places downtown by Key Arena.
Is downtown a decent area to live? or do you need to live farther out?
Is "international district" synonymous with "high crime area" or is it actually decent? There seems to be some cheap apartments there..
I would like a reasonably safe area so I don't have to constantly worry about my 2000 F-250. Safe enough for jogging would be good too.
I looked at apartments.com and found places between 800 to 1000 that seemed reasonable, but I have no idea about the neighborhoods. Broadband is essential.
Anyone with nothing better to do, feel free to mark up the map and re-post it with whatever stuff you know about. TIA..

 

You are going to have a hard time finding a bad area in Seattle, crime wise. Anywhere you live will be crowded and full of hippies and gay people.

 

Well, alot of it depends on some pretty subjective tastes I guess. What type of clubs do you like to go out to? What type of music interests you? What type of people would you like to meet? Do you plan on having a job too that might involve commuting?

I have been in and out of Seattle for a couple of years now, so I've lived in a few different parts of town. When I moved here in 2000, I lived in Belltown, at 1st and Wall. I paid about $1100 for a 500 sq foot place at the top of the building with a great view of the sound and the mountains, with garage parking and broadband. The rental market was very hot then, and now you can probably get the same apartment for $100/month less, maybe even better than that. Belltown was, and is, really great...good bars, restaurants and clubs...nice people around, really cool. I'd move back there in a heartbeat. Mostly late 20s to 30s, job and career people, and alot of singles. Belltown Pizza and the Cyclops are great places.

I left for awhile, came back, and moved into a place on Capitol Hill, near 15th. Paid $750 for a 400 sq foot studio, no parking, no view...older "quaint" building. Capitol Hill has a reputation for being gay friendly, but it has alot more straight clubs and bars than otherwise. It used to be Sesame Street Seattle with everyone living happily in a classic liberal "I *love* your diversity" sort of world...but with Seattle's economic downturn, it's undergone some significant changes in the last couple of years, including a dramatic increase in crime, drugs, street hoodlums, and panhandlers. I left Capitol Hill and was none too sad for it. Doesn't come recommended, unless the unemployment rate drops back down again and the social services are funded again.

However, with the demise of Capitol Hill, some other neighborhoods have become pretty cool over the last year or so. Ballard used to be just retirees and small 1940's cottage houses, but now it has lots of great bars and bands...alot of my friends live over in that area now. Rent is lower than Belltown or Capitol Hill too. Also, Fremont, next door to Ballard, is pretty cool, just too many hippies for me. Only downside to living in Ballard is that it isn't walking distance to downtown.

The area around Key Arena is known as "Lower Queen Anne" and is changing really quickly. It was kind of sucking, but now they are building a bunch more high-end condos and apartments. It's walkable to downtown, but I don't know...there's no scene as of yet. The top of Queen Anne is nice, but a little quiet I guess, and a long walk to downtown. Expensive too.

The international district is still not great in terms of crime, but it's nothing compared to alot of other cities. I would be worried about my car there, if it was parked on the street. Parts of it are projects, parts of it are infested with huge herds of nomadic bums, and other parts are just your normal, enterprising chinese and vietnamese and their excellent restaurants.

So I guess my recommendation, knowing nothing except that you are single, would be Belltown or Ballard.

 

"Mali" is moving from Seattle to NYC. If you have an apartment in NYC, maybe you can switch leases.

Check out this thread...

http://www.elitetrader.com/vb/showthread.php?s=&threadid=19995

 

I forgot one neighborhood too...Green Lake is decent. A smallish lake, with a jogging path around it, and some good restaurants and bars in the area. The jogging path around Green Lake has to be the #1 singles scene in Seattle. It is definitely too far out for my tastes, however, as downtown is a 15 min drive and it is a bit settled. But...you mentioned jogging and being single.

 

I won't be commuting.. as long as I have broadband I can trade from home.

You gave some excellent info, pretty much what I wanted, which is an overview of some different areas.

Since I will need to get out of the apartment often, sounds like Belltown is in first place, followed by Ballard/Green Lake. Capitol Hill is a definite no-go. I must admit when I saw Green Lake I figured it was a gay pick-up spot or high crime area like they depict on TV. But it sounds decent enough.. I'll see if I come across any apartments in the area.
Now I'm looking up apartments and plotting them on mapquest. Downtown seems the most expensive, as expected. I don't really wanna pay $130 per month for a parking spot downtown, plus the higher rent. Seems like I might as well live farther out, and drive to downtown when I want. Does that turn out to be a hassle?

As far as clubs, I generally go to whatever is popular, whether its techno, rap, alternative, dance, no headbanger/punk though. I'm pretty flexible and I fit in the professional crowd well, too.

 

Yeah, Seattle does tend to have traffic issues, so it can be a hassle depending on where you are...and I like to be able to walk home from the places I go out to, so Belltown was cool that way.

And right now, they are pretty desperate for tenants in the nicer buildings, since the dot-com fallout has resulted in a pretty significant drop in the demand for them. You can generally negotiate pretty much whatever you want. For instance...in that same building I used to be in, they had a 2 bedroom, multi-level unit, on the top floor, with views of Mt Ranier and the city. It was a very nice unit...it went for $2000 when I first moved to Seattle, and when I took a look at it in June it was at $1650 for a 6 month lease, and they were offering free parking for a 12 month lease plus they were willing to throw in another 2 weeks free. Nuts.

And it used to be a month rent for deposit and a first month's down...now they'll take $500.

 

Just moved to Vancouver, Washington (5 minutes north of Portland). No traffic like Seattle, much cleaner/safer/prettier. And best of all, no sales tax in Oregon, no income tax in Washington. This town/state should be a haven for traders (no taxes and done working at 1PM)

 

I lived at 5th and Vine next to the Monorail tracks, about three blocks from Key Arena. This is in Belltown. One night I was walking to QFC grocery on the other side of the Seattle Center and in passing Key Arena, someone handed me an Eddie Murphy ticket and I went inside and saw the show. This was 1989 or so. $365 for a first floor non-view studio in an old but interesting brick building.

Belltown was good then, and has gotten a lot better. Lots of new construction, apartments, condos, clubs etc. The annual Seafair Parade runs through there. The annual Bumbershoot and Folklife festivals at the Seattle Center are good too.

The streets were quite at night except for your occasional wandering drunk. Daytime traffic yes, but at night it's all yours. Parked on the street and never had anything broken or stolen. Few panhandlers. Near an excellent movie theater, resaurants, bars. I walked to the farmers market and Pioneer Square, or parked half-way and walked the rest. I walked alone at night to Pioneer Square several times without a hitch.

There's a bar or restaurant for every kind of ambiance you could want within walking distance, either in Belltown or Pioneer Square or at the base of Queen Anne. In that regard, Belltown is central. Food in Belltown includes Ivars (Fish & Chips), Ye Old Spaggetti Factory, & Shakeys Pizza, beside an upscale Italian place and a very popular oyster bar. Across Denny Way there's a revolving restaurant on top of the Space Needle.

Jogging: You would hop on Aurora Ave (old Hwy 99) north to get to Green Lake in ten minutes. I agree Greenlake would be the #1 place to mix singles and jogging. In Belltown, you would probably jog around the Seattle Center in the eves with not much company. Daytime you could jog down at the waterfront park that runs just north of the piers past the Post Intelligencer. It's nice there.

Single? Don't forget to check out the U-District (East 15th Ave area) off UW campus. But traffic and parking possibly untenable.

For broadband, I can't comment. I left in the days of DOS. The plentiful newer construction in Belltown would definitely do it for you though.

Belltown felt like "home" for me as a single for one year. I would not mind going back there. But for now, I find downtown Bellingham a comparable substitute.