Hjarta Condominiums

We’ve lived at the Hjarta for almost a year. We love how friendly our neighbors are, and especially how dog friendly they are. We feel safe and very welcome.
The building is a green building and there are low home ownership dues. Which is surprising because — in response to Seattle F — there are many useful and well kept amenities.
The rooftop is lovely, plenty of nice furnishings and still a good amount of open space, and a large BBQ. All very well kept. There is also a large pea patch with many beds. I was honestly surprised by these perks and how nice everything was kept. They layout also allows for multiple groups to be up there and still maintain their privacy.
The common room is on the 2^nd floor, and has a nice kitchen set up, sitting area, large outdoor balcony with a large ourdoor dining table, an indoor pool table, a reading room, a stretching room, and fitness machine area with a mounted TV. Again, all are of very nice quality and well kept. The stretching room and fitness machine room are on the small size, but it is never crowded.
The views, well they’re average, but that’s the location, near Downtown Ballard with the convenience of Market and 15^th doesn’t make too much room for leaving something to look at.
It’s a super convenient place to live, near everything but also just quiet enough not to feel removed from the world. I never thought I would like condo living, but I do love the Hjarta.

We have lived in the Hjarta building for almost 3 years. We love the friendly community of neighbors and the solid, well-​built green building. Our heating bills are insanely low, the units are sound-​proof from wall to wall, and the building is well-​maintained even will low monthly dues that include earthquake insurance. The only drawback is that lack of sound-​proofing from floor to ceiling. Most neighbors are pretty thoughtful, so in general, this is not a big problem.

The Hjarta building has beautiful condos with a LEED-​certified environmentally-​friendly design. Its location is very convenient, in easy walking distance to the shops and restaurants of the heart of Ballard, convenient access to bus lines, and a block from a Safeway. Prices were significantly lowered as compared to the original selling prices in 2007. The amenities room is nothing special, but it does have some exercise equipment. Superior amenities usually come with higher monthly home ownership dues, which are quite reasonable at Hjarta. These condos were definitely the most aesthetically attractive of all the condos we looked at in Seattle at this price point, and have good layouts.

Hjarta Condominiums are one of the new condo buildings in Ballard. They have brought with them Belltown prices in an area that was typically less expensive. The owner of the project has recently jacked up the selling prices of all of the condos as well.
The building is a green building with low home ownership dues. That said, it has basically 0 useful amenities. The view from the deck is no big deal. All of the other ‘amenities’ are in one room in the basement. It’s like they took some extra space they had and threw in a few things that could be a checkbox for a marketing. The gym, common room and ‘reading’ room are largely of not much use.
One side of the building faces Market. The other faces an open lot. Sounds good, right? Well you’re paying $ 300k to live across from a fire department on one side and on the other side the lot is being prepared to have another building go up. People on that side will get basically no natural light and the value of their condos will tank.
The units are ok with one huge exception. The only place you can possibly fit a TV in the living rooms is where the builder decided to put a fireplace. They didn’t put it low on the wall, but in the middle of it. It’s purely amateurish and makes me question the design of the rest of the building.
Ballard is being flooded with condos and apartments and the Seattle Times had a recent article about how all of the buildings will be driving down rent in Ballard. It’s hard to picture that these condos will be able to hold their value with all of what is being built. That said, they’re green condos with a good layout if you don’t ever watch TV and you don’t care about getting the money back out of your place.