To the south of T-Cell Park in Seattle sits a storage lot, a sports activities bar and a strip membership. One thing, sometime, is more likely to take their place, however the query of what has as soon as once more roiled Seattle Metropolis Corridor, agitating two of probably the most energetic fault strains in metropolis politics: housing and trade.
A brand new invoice from Metropolis Council President Sara Nelson would rezone this space of land, making it potential — doubtless, even — for builders to assemble condominium buildings there. At the least half the properties can be required to lease for under market fee.
For sure Sodo pursuits, together with the stewards of the ballpark and a prolonged record of “mild trade” companies, including housing is a key step towards the creation of a long-desired small enterprise district close to the stadiums and a method to make the realm safer and extra energetic. It could additionally signify a small dent within the metropolis’s housing scarcity.
However for the Port of Seattle and its heavy trade employees and purchasers, housing close to the freeway onramps is a nonstarter. Because the Port works to dig itself out of a cussed pandemic hunch and negotiates with potential new tenants for its underused Terminal 46, the proposed rezone is seen as each a barrier to its instant success and a slide towards gentrification.
The combat over housing close to the stadiums has stretched on for years. Most lately, the Port of Seattle threatened to explode a 2023 settlement over land use in industrial areas if new housing was allowed within the stadium district.
Now, within the weeks since Nelson’s invoice was floated, the lobbying effort on each side has one once more been fierce, pitting unions towards unions and companies towards companies.
Return to a sticking level
The principle property in query has garnered one thing of a cursed fame. Ultrarich proprietor Chris Hansen as soon as hoped to construct a brand new area there for NHL and NBA groups, however his plan got here up one vote quick in entrance of Metropolis Council.
With a brand new area now completed at Seattle Heart, the query of what to do with Hansen’s property has festered.
It was a sticking level throughout negotiations over a broad land use coverage for town’s industrial and maritime areas, which concluded in 2023. The Port of Seattle opposed zoning Hansen’s properties for housing — regardless of town’s personal research concluding new housing would have little impression on site visitors and circulate of freight to and from the realm — and threatened to stroll away from the desk over it.
Mayor Bruce Harrell agreed to strip the housing rezone from the plan to save lots of the deal, which had been beneath negotiation since 2019.
When that settlement went to Metropolis Council, Nelson mentioned she nonetheless wished the housing included but additionally feared tanking the tenuous deal.
“I definitely didn’t wish to rock the boat at that time,” she mentioned in an interview this week.
For Joshua Curtis, government director of the Washington State Ballpark Public Amenities District, which owns T-Cell Park, the exclusion of housing was a irritating late growth. Housing close to the stadium is a precedence for him and different stadium district pursuits as a method to activate the realm and to create more room for “mild trade” corresponding to breweries, clothes producers, bakeries and different “makers,” he mentioned.
Their solace was that the mayor’s workplace informed him they might shortly revisit the query.
“It was type of like, we all know this isn’t the deal that everybody had agreed to, however you’ll be able to come again later, and it’s not a tough repair,” he mentioned.
Councilmember Dan Strauss, whose district contains maritime pursuits and who beforehand chaired the council’s land use committee, mentioned he doesn’t recall any particular promise to return to the housing query, and that maritime union representatives resent any suggestion the deal might be revisited.
“Now they wish to return on the deal they made barely a 12 months in the past — unbelievable,” mentioned Inlandboatmen’s Union of the Pacific Nationwide Secretary-Treasurer Peter Hart. “A deal’s a deal.”
Spokesperson for Harrell, Callie Craighead, mentioned the mayor’s workplace did, in a number of conversations, go away open the likelihood the ultimate settlement might be tweaked “in a 12 months or in 5 years.”
For backers of recent housing, that was taken actually.
“I used to be informed level clean, ‘we left the breadcrumbs for you,’” mentioned Monty Anderson, government secretary of the Seattle Constructing and Building Trades Council, which is lobbying in favor of Nelson’s invoice.
On the Port of Seattle, opposition has solely grown since 2023. Cargo quantity by means of Seattle in 2024 was nonetheless under its prepandemic ranges and Seattle has misplaced market share to different West Coast ports yearly since 2019, in response to inner cargo reviews. Officers there are negotiating for potential new tenants on the sparsely used Terminal 46, due west of Lumen Discipline and T-Cell Park, which might be key to its restoration.
“That complete space could be very a lot in play,” mentioned Port Commissioner Fred Felleman. “And if we wish to be attracting new tenants, having this encroachment being mentioned is completely counter to our pursuits and for the financial advantage of the area.”
Why accommodations, not housing?
Nelson mentioned she launched the invoice to perform three priorities: “I would like house for small companies, inexpensive housing and higher public security.”
Town’s complete research of the assorted impacts of zoning adjustments to the commercial space didn’t conclude that housing would have any main impression on site visitors patterns.
For Nelson, the report’s conclusion made her query why housing can be thought-about worse than different types of growth which can be allowed, corresponding to accommodations or workplaces.
“Why not do that?” she mentioned.
The Port of Seattle declined to problem the ultimate report, as was its proper, however lobbyist Sabrina Bolieu however mentioned officers suppose it’s flawed. Housing, the Port argues, would pit extra pedestrians towards freight. Resorts close to the stadium have been considered by trade representatives as OK as a result of vacationers don’t complain to town about noisy vans, simply to the entrance desk.
Strauss is equally skeptical that site visitors and the overall industrial atmosphere wouldn’t be worsened by housing within the space. “I don’t suppose that the transportation community is working at present, a lot much less with none adjustments,” he mentioned.
Strauss mentioned he was “caught off guard” by the invoice’s introduction.
“We at all times made certain to have each side of each concern engaged within the dialog,” Strauss mentioned of the 2023 negotiations. “That hasn’t occurred with this proposal.”
Though he appreciates the intent of the Nelson’s invoice, he’s a “no” for now.
Within the days since Nelson’s invoice was first heard, the council president has agreed to tour port amenities and conduct further outreach to affected organizations. She stays uncertain why housing represents an existential risk in a approach that different growth doesn’t.
“I wish to be educated,” she mentioned, “and I wish to extra totally perceive or be satisfied that the impacts to port operations can be better with housing than with a lodge.”
