By BILL VIRGIN
SEATTLE POST-INTELLIGENCER REPORTER

Gloria Urban can count the many practical things she likes about living downtown.

She can walk to many of the showrooms she needs to visit in her job as an interior designer, she can walk to the Pike Place Market to buy food, and in fact she can walk to so many things that her car leaves the garage only about once a week.

Then there are the intangibles such as the stimulation and diversity of people that come with living downtown.

"It gave me a renewal of spirit" to move there, says the transplanted Eastside resident.

That sort of allure has long attracted urban pioneers and adventurers, but the practicalities of living in downtown Seattle are bringing more people the city's core -- and encouraging further construction of apartments and condominiums.

"Downtown is now a cool place to live, unlike five or 10 years ago," says Steve Smith, chief executive of apartment developer The Fortune Group.

That should cheer downtown's visionaries, who have said that while Seattle is becoming a more vibrant city with its mix of offices, restaurants, stores and cultural venues, the transformation will not be complete unless all those office workers, shoppers, diners and consumers of culture stay downtown instead of getting in their cars, heading for the freeway and going home.

More of them will be staying. The city estimates that in downtown -- an area roughly defined as the International District, Pioneer Square, the commercial core, the Denny Regrade and the Denny Triangle -- there were about 9,600 units of housing in 1994. That had grown to 12,600 by 1997. And at slightly more than one person per unit, the city now figures there are about 15,000 people living downtown.

By 2014, the city estimates, downtown will have added another 15,400 units -- which would more than double the present housing stock.

Developers are getting a good head start on that projection. The city says 4,293 housing units are under construction or in the permit application process.

There's always the danger that developers will overestimate demand and overbuild. Those who have studied the market say demand, if anything, may be understated. They frequently say that downtown has reached a "critical mass," so that as more people live there, more consider it a realistic alternative.

"Thus far, there's been no problem in terms of absorption" of new units added to the market, says Phil Pinkstaff, who operates a Federal Way condominium appraisal service.

"In fact, there's almost more demand than product coming on the market. . . . People are putting money down on (condos) before they've even been finished."

"There is a structural demand change," adds The Fortune Group's Smith. "The future is not the

past."

The demand change to which Smith refers is the increasing number of people who, as they get older and their kids grow up, are ready to give up large houses and the hassles of home maintenance and commuting.

In other words, people like Urban, who was eager to move to the Harbor Steps project downtown. Her husband was a little skeptical at first, she says, but two weeks later he was sitting on the terrace, sipping a glass of wine, reading the paper and saying, "You know, this is almost perfect."

Adds Urban, "He adapted very quickly."

While downtown living wasn't discovered in the 1990s, what has fueled the current spurt of interest is the increased faith people have that downtown has a future. The decision by Nordstrom to commit to a new downtown Seattle store was "monumental," says Steve Fina of Harbor Properties Inc., one of the biggest developers of downtown housing.

Urban also credits members of the Seattle Art Museum board for "having the courage and foresight to bring the museum downtown."

Those amenities, the proximity to the waterfront and the chance to avoid Interstate 5 by walking to work are all helping attract residents, although interestingly enough, Fina says 25 percent to 30 percent of Harbor Properties' tenants work outside the downtown area, driving to such far-flung work sites as the Eastside.

What's lacking? A supermarket is at the top of everyone's list. Development firm Intracorp has proposed putting one in a condo-apartment project it wants to build at 2801 First Ave.

Urban also suggests a downtown system of small buses that people could use to hop on and off for quick trips around the core area. She also supports continuing the efforts of property owners and merchants to supplement police protection with their own security personnel to make people feel more safe.

Fina says more housing for those earning $20,000 to $30,000 a year is needed, but he conceded the rising cost of building downtown will make providing housing for that income range difficult.