A proposal: Combine South Lake Union with the University District
Amazon and Vulcan are ensnared in a familiar mayor-City Council tussle over developer concessions. One way to resolve these problems would be to enlarge South Lake Union and the University District into a large, vibrant, research-based area with its own distinctive flavor and zoning rules.
What's been holding up the expected announcement that Amazon is going to build a new campus for itself in South Lake Union? This mega-deal, reported earlier by Crosscut, has turned into a tug of war between Peter Steinbrueck on the City Council and the mayor's office over how much money the developer, Vulcan, should be required to contribute for affordable housing, in exchange for permission to move forward with the large, multi-block project. Steinbrueck also wants to turn the screws a bit more for green-building aspects of the project. "It's the single biggest project by Vulcan," Steinbrueck says. "It will set a precedent for the rest of the area."
This project has been bedeviled by the Vulcan factor. The Paul Allen real estate development company is so big, and Allen is so awkward publicly, that Vulcan has become an all-purpose pinata for populists and various people uneasy about the way great wealth is transforming the Seattle region, for good and ill. Yet from what I can glean, Amazon and Vulcan have been quite responsive to city suggestions for good urban design, lots of streetlife along the streetcar route on Terry Avenue North, and using three architectural firms to create a less monolithic feel to the multi-block development. It's the worst-kept secret in town that Amazon would be the tenant, even though the company still has not signed the deal with Vulcan, according to a well-placed source.
Mayor Greg Nickels and Vulcan chose to negotiate in super-stealth mode, keeping the council out of negotiations and breeding more suspicion and opposition. Nickels' method is not surprising, given the potential for leaks from the council, a chaos of different proposals, and scaring off big tenants. (Eek! The Commons!) Now the negotiations are at endgame, with Steinbrueck and the developer playing brinksmanship, as detailed in an excellent Seattle Times story by Bob Young.
The underlying problem is that the city has declared that South Lake Union is to take large amounts of housing and commercial growth, yet the industrial zoning in the area has still not been changed. That means ad hoc solutions to allow serious density, which critics then define as "spot zoning" or special favors to the mighty. Meanwhile, construction costs keep going up, and even Amazon is probably not willing to just watch the rents soar. Early next month, Steinbrueck retires from his key land use committee chair (Sally Clark is his likely successor), so if the final deal is put off from this week, it gets bucked over to a newly organized City Council, which could mean considerably more delay.
Vulcan says it needs to get started on design work in early 2008 if it's going to have the buildings ready for an Amazon move in 2011. The key City Council meeting is Wednesday, Dec. 12, at 2 p.m., when Steinbrueck's committee will try to work out the final deal. Given the high stakes, a deal seems likely.
Is there a better way to handle the explosive growth in South Lake Union? Here's my proposal. Treat the South Lake Union district, with its mix of biotech, plain tech, University of Washington research overflow, and funky reminders of yore as an enlargement of the University District. In effect, join the two, with Eastlake as the linkage corridor, into a new kind of university-research district. The result is a big sub-city within Seattle, with its own kind of zoning guidelines. Call it SLU-Dub.
An obvious model is Cambridge, Mass. Like my hypothetical SLU-Dub, Cambridge has two nodes, Harvard to the west and MIT to the east. It has a body of water providing some linkage (the Charles River Basin), just as Lake Union does for SLU-Dub. Stanford has an adjoining Stanford Research Park. Philadelphia has a large district around the University of Pennsylvania. Southern Cal in Los Angeles and Arizona State in Phoenix are two other examples of blending universities with urban zones.
Unlike Seattle's present University District, SLU-Dub would be large enough that it is not overwhelmed by one monoculture, the university. It could sustain a rich blend of residences, non-university businesses, and culture – the works. Most university districts are so dominated by a large university that they are mostly just good places for students and university staff. But great university districts, particularly in Europe, are desirable places to live, good places to work (even if not for the UW), and places to consume culture, off campus. They are anchored by a mighty U, but they have a whole lot more. And of course they are economic dynamos in the research economy.
A distinct advantage of an enlarged University District is that it could become a very desirable urban neighborhood. (Everybody in Boston wants to live in Cambridge, with its good schools and vibrant community life, but when was the last time you heard someone in Seattle say how much they wanted to live in the U District?)
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Comments:
Posted Tue, Dec 11, 12:19 p.m. inappropriate
Huh?: I don't get it, David.
It sounds like simply changing names on a map.
What would be different? i.e. what is wrong with the zoning and regs we have in place now? What is the point? Yes I agree that we should try out "some more advanced ideas for urbanism" (whatever those are) but how does renaming three neighborhoods do that? The politics, for example, become far more complicated. What is the benefit you see?
Posted Tue, Dec 11, 4:01 p.m. inappropriate
Nail in the coffin: "Welcome to the Linkage Corridor, formerly the neighborhood of Eastlake."
Posted Wed, Dec 12, 12:48 p.m. inappropriate
Halt the Upzones: The last 25 years of techies and dot.coms and the biotechs seem to prefer sprawling squat complexes as opposed to highrises yet Amazon will be used as a South Lake Union zone breaker in order to go up to 12-15-20 stories. Seattle would be better off if Amazon moved out to Kent and the UW sent 1/3 of its students and support bureaucracy out to branch campuses and left Eastlake alone. Any news on who moves into the stolen Pac Med property on Beacon Hill? More converted housing for displaced Yesler Terrace folks as YT becomes Holly Park Central?? All in the named effort to pack in density and 'get people out of their cars', yet already some of Seattle's toughest traffic jams are vehicles snarling into garages at REI and Trader Joes and this will only get worse. The 'Mercer Mess' has morphed into the quirky quagmire known as the 'Metronaturalsensualsexual Mess'. Pomeroy, Washington, looks better every day.
Posted Wed, Dec 12, 2:12 p.m. inappropriate
Let's hear from Eastlake: To a fair degree, the South Lake union, Eastlake, University District, Fremont and Westlake are already an integrated economic zone, increasingly related to the UW, and unfortunately, increasingly unaffordable. But it doesn't need any official recognition, or worse, grandiose plan.
And we should be very skeptical about the idea of extending the streetcar along Eastlake to the UW. Eastlake is already congested, whatwith only one lane in each direction, heavy bicycle usage, and trucks often using the middle land for loading and unloading. I suspect an honest traffic evaluation would find that traffic would be vastly slower and more congested. Do folks remember that an elevated rail or monorail along Eastlake was one of the much cheaper alternatives to the super-expensive tunnel to the U.
The Eastlake community may well be doomed, because of its location between downtown and the U, but I'd like to hear what they think about all of this.
Posted Thu, Dec 13, 11:27 a.m. inappropriate
Ditto: This piece does definitely take credit for discovering something that is quite obvious to any observer of Real Estate patterns.
South Lake Union has been zoned for high tech since the 80's - the exact path by which this was realized was not forseen, but the direction is nothing new.
Connecting the UW to Downtown is a part of this same dynamic. Eastlake was studied as a Sound Transit corridor and it has definite limitations that Eastlake neighbors accurately pointed out.
Eastlake is Eastlake, and it is all good. As is Fremont and Westlake.
That said, how about a Portland style tram from South Lake Union to the peaks of Queen Anne and Capitol Hill (say at the defunded N. Capitol Hill Station???)
Posted Thu, Dec 13, 11:46 p.m. inappropriate
A Voice From the “Linkage Corridor” called Eastlake: I wish to give my personal viewpoint as an advocate for Eastlake, the little neighborhood in which I live, and that you so warmly referred to as a “linkage corridor.” I read your proposal with interest, but not surprise. While Eastlake is treated as almost an afterthought in your proposal, you give the very real preexisting pressures that are bearing down on our neighborhood the beginnings of a shape for explicit policy. I will try to address a few of the many issues your piece raised, but I honestly have more questions than answers. I hope that my neighbors in Eastlake might join me in continuing theses discussions here on Crosscut and through future public forums presented by the Eastlake Community Council I would like hear how their thoughts on how our neighborhood should manage the significant change while maintaining our unique charm in the face of these massive pressures.
All neighborhoods think they are special. Eastlake has unique geographic realities that literally divide it from the rest. Most neighborhoods diffuse into other neighborhoods along long shared borders. Bounded by the water and I5 our neighborhood effectively has 3 entrance points such that the University District, Southlake Union and I5/520 effectively funnel rather, than diffuse into our neighborhood. For that reason, one who has primarily transited our neighborhood might gloss over our existence as a linkage corridor. However this view from behind the wheel, or on a bus, fails to notice our existing vibrant community that already features many of the attractions that you seek to develop through your proposal. The questions that beg answering are; how would a change in zoning and a more explicit linkage to our northern and southern neighbors improve management of our increasing density. How would your uber-neighborhood improve transit both to and through our very constrained space. Most importantly how would this proposal improve Eastlake for its residents, beyond the focus of increasing its throughput capacity as a “linkage corridor”.
The march of progress from both the north and the south are very real and is already changing the face of our neighborhood. We have new developments such as Ruby, and Equinox, bringing 100Â’s of new units to the north and south end of our neighborhood in the next couple years. New bio tech facilities have more than rounded the corner on Eastlake Avenue and Fairview and are now continuing their development march, north of the current Gates Foundation location. The reality is our neighborhood already faces, what you propose to codify, one development at a time.
You state that South Lake Union and the University have a “clear model of what it wants to be, what belongs, and what doesn't”. Well I contend so does Eastlake. Through an extensive neighborhood planning process it defined, much like every other neighborhood, what it wanted to be when it grew up. Eastlake has grown much since that vision was put to paper. What I have seen is that the vision for our neighborhood is far from fixed. It evolves with the development around us and with the preferences expressed by both its longtime and new residents. I advocate that Eastlake resident’s views are given significant weight and not simply bulldozed in the rush to express our love for all that is new and shiny in South Lake Union.
I contend that EastlakeÂ’'s continued success in maintaining its unique qualities, character and identity will better serve the interests of all three neighborhoods. A vibrant interconnected city will not be reached by succumbing to the pressure trying to squish Eastlake into the prescribed box of SLUW.
Eastlake is a neighborhood, not a linkage corridor.
Matthew is resident of Eastlake and, President of the Eastlake Community Council.
Posted Sat, Dec 15, 12:08 p.m. inappropriate
Ain't gonna happen: Wow -- no where in David Brewster's article is the Eastlake neighborhood even mentioned except as a "linkage cooridor." You'd think there was practically nothing between South Lake Union and the U. District. When in fact what we have is an urban village. Compare Eastlake with Westlake and its towering condos and virtual freeway barrelling through it, and you'll know what Eastlake could have looked like without the conserted neighborhood activisim that has quietly kept Eastlake livable and desirable.
What Brewster suggests for the area will likely happen in Eastlake. More low-rise density. More urban amenities of walkable shops and restaurants. Maybe even a streetcar. But on Eastlake's terms.
Without sounding like an Eastlake snob (alright maybe I am one) but it's hard for me to fathom why the the city should consider allowing the dysfunctional U. District with its overbearing University doing little for its neighborhood on the one hand and an upstart neighborhood that hasn't yet proven itself on the other to pillage the successfull village between them.
Ain't gonna happen.
Posted Wed, Dec 26, 11:38 p.m. inappropriate
convenience...: I don't think simply making Eastlake a linkage corridor makes sense. One neighborhood is already displaced (anyone remember Cascade?). Development and progress is good, but just a cookie-cutter proposal of joining 3 parts of town? Eastlake has a strong linkage of community in and of itself and won't enjoy becoming just a pass-through part of town.