By Erica C. Barnett
Jon Scholes, head of the Downtown Seattle Association, had a lot to say about the present and future of downtown when he came on Seattle Nice late last week—most of it surprisingly positive.
Yes, the DSA is still focused on filling up vacant office space with people who may prefer working from home, a goal that seems at odds with the group’s stated commitment to reducing climate change. (The most recent Commute Seattle survey found that drive-alone commutes into downtown grew at twice the rate of trips by transit.) According to the State of Downtown economic report, 32 percent of the office vacancies in the central business district remains vacant six years after the start of the pandemic, suggesting a long-term trend.
And yes, Scholes had plenty to say about how taxes are supposedly driving companies out of Seattle and into Bellevue, where employment has grown 12 percent.
But there were parts of our conversation that may surprise some listeners—starting with Scholes’ apparent optimism that at least some existing office buildings could still be converted into housing . “I think there’s great public good to be gained from more of us living more closely together,” Scholes said.”And if we care about climate change and protecting the environment and driving down carbon emission, we need to live more closely together, and we need to live close to transit, and we need to live where we’re maximizing the investment we’ve already made in utilities and sidewalks and parks.”
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Scholes isn’t wide-eyed about the potential for new housing downtown, however. In fact, I was amused to hear the skepticism in Scholes’ voice when we talked about former county executive Dow Constantine’s big plan to create a whole new office and residential district centered around Sound Transit’s future light rail station two blocks west of the King County Courthouse. (Current County Executive Girmay Zahilay briefly mentioned the plan in his remarks at the DSA’s State of Downtown event last week).
“The reality,” Scholes said, is that despite decades of robust development downtown, “we somehow still have a hole in the ground” across the street from City Hall and the county courthouse. “But I commend the executive for continuing to advance it and to figure out what is possible, what can be phased, what might be more incremental. It’s the right thing to do.”
We were wrapping things up when Scholes told us we were being too polite, and asked if we were going to talk about the city’s police surveillance cameras—an issue Mayor Katie Wilson has hedged on after expressing strong opposition during her campaign. Unless Wilson reverses course, the city will install many more cameras in the downtown stadium district for the World Cup games in June.
We will not be a “right to work” “trickle down” city.
If they want to leave? Buh bye!
You folks do good work and speaking of density, I want to give you all a head’s up on a possible super-sized tiny village in North Seattle. 12800 Aurora Avenue on the corner of 130th with the round car showroom. Only issue is that there is already a large tiny village next door with 90 tiny homes. So, 250 tiny homes and 90 tiny homes on a single block seem way too dense. If possible, this should spread out to another area or district. It seems the 5th district is becoming a convenient dumping ground for the homeless. If this is the case, then the 5th district should get future funding for a new north precinct police station, which ironically was the proposed location for this tiny village.
I lived across from the moving transfer company 128th and Freemont decades ago. That place is easily developed.
I live on Capitol Hill. We are jam packed. The NYMBY’s want to pile everything onto the smallest pile possible and have it in stone for future development. They misread the work from home era. Now they want to offload the bloated property. Shifting the burden on tax payers to foot the bill. Get bleeding hearts to fund office building transformations to residential.
When in fact? They could have done that from he beginning. Live on the top floors and work on the bottom floors. But that was not profitable. Office-fulls of people is profitable. They screwed themselves. Overinvestment and now wants a bailout. Just like the banks. They also want bailouts etc…Always is the argument. “If we do not cow to the power? We will have no power!”
As far as a new North Precinct? Have you seen the East Precinct? Makes the North look live the Beverly Hills PD. Also? a 46% raise means the budget is bloated. And plans to add another 500+ cops more! We simply can’t afford it. Then the pensions are the other half. That budget will explode.
Threaten to move is as old a trick in the book.
I say go! Leave today! People WANT to live in Seattle and the tech boom caused ridiculous inflation. This notion Seattle will fall into a hole w/o investor vultures inflated their worth on the backs of the rest of us.
It’s about no income taxes. Then build wealth. Then move with the wealth to some hillbilly town in the middle of nowhere to live like land barons or something. The wealthy need to deal with it. The time has come to pay it forward. Because the wealthy don’t simply fund the govt. as a duty.