Ballard Construction & Permit Activity Tracker
Every building permit issued by the City of Seattle inside the Ballard boundary, mapped and refreshed nightly. Click any pin for project details.
Walk Ballard Avenue any Sunday morning and the rhythm of the neighborhood is unmistakable — boots on the brick sidewalks at the farmers market, hammers and tile saws drifting out from a half-gutted bungalow on NW 65th, the steel skeleton of another mixed-use building rising along Leary Way. Ballard has changed faster than almost any neighborhood in Seattle over the last twenty years, and the pace has not let up. Between the working-waterfront blocks along the Ship Canal, the dense cluster of restaurants and breweries spreading out from Market Street, and the deep stretches of single-family homes and Craftsman bungalows running north toward 85th, there is a steady drumbeat of new construction, additions, basement DADUs, and full remodels working through SDCI permit review every single week.
This map shows the live picture. Every building permit the City of Seattle has issued inside the Ballard boundary over the last twelve months — new construction, additions and alterations, demolitions, and everything in between — is plotted as a pin, color-coded by permit type, with project description, estimated cost, and housing units added. Data is pulled directly from the City of Seattle’s open data portal and refreshed nightly. If you live on a quiet block off 24th NW and want to know what your neighbor has filed, or you are house-hunting along 8th Ave NW and want to see whether the area is densifying, this is the same record SDCI is working from.
Use the filters above the map to narrow by new construction, additions, or the most recent ninety days. Click any pin for the full permit detail. Then scroll down or reach out — Ballard moves fast, and knowing the rhythm of what is being built next door is part of how good buying and selling decisions get made here.
Reading the Pulse of Ballard, One Permit at a Time
Building permits are the quiet leading indicator of a neighborhood. They tell you where capital is moving, which blocks are turning over, and how owners are betting on the next ten years — long before any of it shows up in a sale price.
The map above pulls every building, land-use, and trade permit issued by the City of Seattle inside Ballard over the trailing twelve months, refreshed nightly from the Seattle SDCI Open Data portal. You can filter by ground-up new construction, additions and major remodels, or just the last ninety days — useful if you’re tracking a specific street or watching how activity has shifted since the light rail extension news firmed up.
Ballard has changed faster than almost any neighborhood in Seattle, and the permit data reflects it. Activity clusters in three patterns: dense mixed-use and townhome construction along the 15th Ave NW and Market Street corridors, where zoning allows real height; bungalow additions, ADUs, and DADUs deep in the residential blocks between 24th NW and 8th NW, where owners are stretching century-old Craftsman stock to fit modern families; and view-line remodels and rebuilds up on Sunset Hill and along the Shilshole bluff. The working waterfront on Salmon Bay generates its own steady rhythm of industrial and marine permits.
For buyers, the heatmap is a way to vet a block before writing an offer — knowing the neighbor next door pulled a $1.4M renovation permit last quarter is the kind of context that rarely makes it into the listing. For sellers, it’s a read on what the market is actually rewarding right now, and where the comparable scope of work is coming in. Click any pin to see the address, project description, estimated value, issuing date, and a direct link to the official City record on the SDCI portal.
Matthew Konsmo
Associate Real Estate Broker
Coldwell Banker Danforth
Western Washington
Serving buyers and sellers with integrity and expertise. Matthew is an Associate Real Estate Broker with Coldwell Banker Danforth, helping clients navigate the Pacific Northwest market with confidence.