Apartment Development Explosion

Here's another anecdotal example of the explosion of new apartments and condos being built in Seattle:

Already across the street from Deano's they have brought an apartment building with a Safeway and Starbucks on the ground floor.
...
Another building across the street -- the site of the former Oscar's II nightclub across East Madison Street at 20th Avenue East -- has a sign, "For Sale: 75-unit mixed use development." And nearby, there's another of those mixed-use developments with offices above a Curves fitness center.
By next spring, Dean Falls, the owner and the Dean in Deano's Bar & Grill, said he's planning to tear down the structure and put up apartments or condos over stores. "It's a matter of economic trends and the physical obsolescence. It's the highest and best use for the land."

That's hundreds of new units cropping up in just a few years in the span of just a few blocks. This kind of development pace keeps rents from rising a lot faster than they are.

(Kery Murakami, Seattle P-I, 08.26.2005)