A lot of people are talking about the City’s second endorsement of this massive Dearborn-Goodwill site development. HugeAssCity hates it, Dominic Holden of the Stranger stays objective, and there are various opponents and proponents duking it out online. The last step for the project to go forward is for the City Council to approve an up-zone, and in my opinion they absolutely should.
The most of the main problems with the site are it’s size: 565 residential units, 675,000 sq ft or retail and 2307 parking spots. 565 units on that site would be great, especially since a couple hundred of them will be affordable housing, so I don’t think a lot of people are arguing against that. The retail is massive, a little bigger than the “Northgate-North” project from a few years ago, but at least one of the anchor tenants will be Goodwill, an admirable organization, and the rumor I’ve heard is that another of the tenants will be Fry’s, a computer retailer. So it’s not exactly like it’s a Home Depot and an Office Max going in.
Sure 2307 parking spots is a ton, but is it really better that city dwellers drive to Renton for Fry’s or Northgate for Target (or whatever else goes in)? That area will be well served by transit, especially if ST2 passes there will be a light station on I-90 and Rainer, about five blocks away, and a streetcar will run on Jackson, about three blocks away. If a streetcar expansion takes flight, one of the secondary lines was an extension down Rainer from Jackson, meaning a streetcar would literally run next to this project.
The other main argument against the project is that it’s out of character with the rest of the neighborhood, Little Saigon to the north, the south CD to the East and the northern tip of the Rainer Valley to the south. I concede it is out of character with the size of the buildings, but how is the current, massive Goodwill parking-lot and warehouse in character?
The last argument is that the city is giving up right-of-way to the developer. If you actually go down to the road, Lane St is wholey within the Goodwill Site’s parking lot. The city is really not losing much.
Here’s the real question: What is the best use of this land about a mile from downtown? 565 housing units, 230 of which are affordable, is a good start. Sure, I’d get rid of the parking and make the individual retail sites smaller, but wouldn’t you rather have the big-boxes built on top of each other than next to each other across parking lots? Generally, this project will save a lot of people from having to drive long distances to Northgate or the Eastside, is a much better use of the 10 acres near downtown than parking lots, and a project of this size would take up maybe 50~100 acres somewhere on the Snohomish Plateau. I say go for it, City Council.
Don’t you mean Samamish plateau?
I can see now that your ultimate goal really is gentrification.
I agree.
In transit nirvana, we might not need the parking, but the fact is people will want to drive (even if it’s a Zipcar) when they’re picking up a pallet of stuff at Target. Hell, even Pacific Place — literally on top of a light rail station — has parking.
The important thing is that it’s mostly underground, rather than paving over other space that could be used for more development.
To me the best use would be to turn build streets through the land that would create an old-fashioned grid, partition the resulting blocks into residential and commercial zoned lots, and then sell them to individual builders For whatever they see fit. In other words, turn into a real neighborhood, not a monolithic development that will be separated both physically and culturally from it’s neighbors.
Isn’t there significant existing transit service near this development site as it is? Why don’t you mention it when discussing the transit access of this site?
I didn’t mention it because the 7 route is pretty much at capacity now, or near it.
Yeah, there’s not much to mention here. You have routes 7 and 42, already packed during peak hours. When light rail opens, pressure on both routes may lessen, though.
WTF? I thought when traffic grew you just “add more buses”.
Yes, that development is out of character with the neighborhood- a neighborhood which has been obsolete and derelict for about 40 years, waiting for the economic tide to lift all boats.
I think its okay. I really don’t mind the parking as long as its not at street level. My only complaint is the style. I would prefer it to have a more unique architecture that would fit in with the near by neighborhoods like the international district.
serial catowner:
You can’t add more buses to the 7 during peak hours – they already have minimum 6 minute headways in a few places. Traffic already causes clustering at those headways – a bus hung up by a wheelchair user or a rowdy group of kids ends up getting passed by the one after it, causing empty buses and overcrowded buses. It’s a matter of diminishing returns.
Now, I’m not one to say development lifts all boats. It doesn’t – we have to make provisions for affordable housing both for low-income and workforce. In the long term, though, larger residential buildings last longer and end up costing less – this came up at the meetup last night, and I think the topic is worthy of a post on its own. There are scattered few chapters in books I need to reread before I write that.
Hmmm…so I guess the guys who always show up on the streetcar threads saying you can “just add more buses” aren’t entirely right. Whoda thunkit.
My comment about the rising tide was about the amount of prosperity it took to bring development to that little patch, which as long as I’ve known it has been remarkably unprosperous. I personally can’t think of a better place to put some high-rises, but I think that mainly because nobody else seemed to have a better idea.
Looks like a well thought out plan. Let’s remember that this is a property very near 2 freeways and along some very busy surface roads. If you wanted a single family home in the area you would go further up the hill.
I’m not opposed to the development but city could have put a little more pressure to make it progressive instead of a little-too-late Northgate.
My suggestions would be that:
(a) the city maintain the right-of-way and force the development of public space (like the harbor steps).
(b) the site should be more transit and neighborhood friendly, by which I mean opening up to the rest of the area and inviting people in.
(c) I would suggest that they minimize parking as much as possible and, in that way, save some money for cheaper rents, which could entice more mom and pop shops to come in.
I understand from riding the bus the problem when buses cluster or bunch up and is a good reason you can’t have too many. But wouldn’t that also be true of streetcars?
This development is FAR from perfect, sure. But should we just accept “good enough”, especially when the city has to make these sort of concessions (upzoning) to make it happen?
Serial Catowner may be right, it may just be that buses aren’t good enough. Then, hello, why not make them pay into a streetcar fund as SLU did?
Michael pretty much nails it. New development in this country has to help pay for the problems and costs it creates. In this case, every parking spot= one more car on streets that are already gridlocked several times a day.
In a better world, the developers wouldn’t get their permits without a ‘pre-nup’ that includes their vote for an LID for a streetcar and a station stop for that streetcar.
This #7 bus pretty well illustrates that light rail is not a substitute for streetcars. The LINK comes close, or possibly transfers to, the #7 at one or two points. But it really doesn’t go where the #7 goes, and couldn’t, because the LINK needs to go to the stadiums, and it can’t make numerous stops.
From the descriptions in this thread, the #7 is a line that should be made into a streetcar now. This, of course, would be entirely consonant with the fact that Rainier Ave S was originally a streetcar line. There is plenty of good old stuff on Rainier S that should be buttressed by streetcar service, and plenty of opportunity for more development. (For your readership convenience, there is a map of the #7 here, and a map of the LINK here.)
From all of this we can see that what Seattle needs is definite direction that streetcars will eventually be built, and that until they are, every new project on the coming line must pay into an amelioration fund that will eventually help pay for the line when it is built. It’s not really that hard to see that eventually streetcars should run out Rainier S to Rainier Beach.
SDOT did a pretty good job of coming up with some potential streetcar routes on short notice, but we can see from the Rainier Ave S situation that they didn’t think hard enough, and, just possibly, there may still be some institutional blindness denying services south of Dearborn.
By the way, to answer anonymous’s question of whether streetcars would bunch like buses: it seems to me like they’d be less prone to it. With low floors, more doors, wider aisles and a proof-of-payment fare system (assuming the SLUT model), they seem much more able to handle crowds without slowing down. And because slowness from crowding is the primary cause of bunching (I think), I wouldn’t expect bunching for streetcars.
(I believe crowding is the key factor causing bunching because in other cases of slowness (traffic, etc.) you’d expect the trailing vehicle to encounter approximately the same issues the leading vehicle did. Whereas with crowding, the lead vehicle gets slower and slower and the trailing vehicle has nothing to slow it down.)
By the way, I’m for this. To Michael’s point, we should accept good enough when the cost for trying for something better is potentially losing out on the good.
That said, I may be missing something overall, because I just don’t see how this project as is is all that bad for Little Saigon. The proposed businesses don’t seem to be competing with Little Saigon businesses, the traffic is relevant but coming at non-peak times, and it’s unclear to me this project would have any affect on nearby rents. At the same time, the project brings more residents and tax revenue to the city. How is this a bad thing?
One thing Seattle ultimately lacks, is building for permanence. I think we all agree that this project is pretty good, and better than what is, but if we look 20 or 30 years down the line, then we think this development is essentially, obsolete.
We should analyze this as if what goes up now, stays forever. Then would we really want 2300 parking spaces and little or no attachment to public transportation, as well as a whole host of big box stores? Certainly not. Thus, settling is not the answer. We need to build the best now, so we dont have to waste money, time, and resources doing it better next time.
To everyone on this comment thread: The project is generally a good idea, and will bring density to an area that is ripe for growth, while keeping a “diverse” neighborhood with subsidized housing.
The Up-zone was inevitable anyway, look at the Mayor’s proposal last year regarding areas that have different uses than they are zoned.
The developer who is doing this project is a retail developer (who normally develops just retail.) I spoke to him in person. The city is essentially forcing him to put in housing, which he has “penciled” into the budget. We are getting lots of units when we would have had none, AND Goodwill is getting a new store.
Nearly ALL retail developments are “obsolete” in 30 years around here. When was the last time you chose Westlake Center over Pacific Place to find a gift for someone? (although that Japanese dollar store is cool…)
Basically, overall I like the project. I do wish that Seattle would let us build skyscrapers there, and I wish it was connected to a subway… but otherwise it is pretty good.
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