By MARK HIGGINS
SEATTLE POST-INTELLIGENCER REPORTER

People and businesses aren't always best of neighbors

While some residents worry that the city, county and business communities are trying to drive them out, business owners say it is the residents who threaten to ruin one of Seattle's most important manufacturing and industrial centers.

"The residents are asking to do something that is not possible -- to go back in time," says Mike Roberts, who grew up on Beacon Hill, attended Georgetown Elementary School and graduated from Cleveland High School. He now is vice president of marketing and development for Rainier Cold Storage & Ice.

"They want it to go back to the way it was in 1960 and before, when it was a good community and there were a lot of homes. But those times are past us," says Roberts.

There is no getting around Georgetown's prevailing land-use or its role in Seattle: It supports an estimated 700 businesses and 11,000 jobs, which pay an average yearly salary of just under $30,000, according to neighborhood planners.

Many small businesses come to Georgetown because it has good freeway access, is close to downtown and has a lot of small, affordable spaces, says Rob Adamson, chairman of Georgetown's neighborhood planning committee and co-owner of Salvin Drapery Manufacturing, which employs 11 full-time workers.

Georgetown also has been home to Seattle's marine transportation industry, which has parked its equipment, barges and tugs along the banks of the murky Duwamish River for years.

Many of the businesses increasingly are concerned about getting their trucks and equipment in and out of Georgetown, says Adamson. At the request of residents, the city closed I-5 access from Carleton Avenue South, a route favored by truckers. Trucks now have to negotiate a more circuitous route to the freeway that requires difficult turns through narrow streets.

While he understands the desire of residents not to have trucks rumbling by their homes, Adamson says the city may need to make an investment in Georgetown to improve traffic circulation.

Continued:

• It's quirky, funky and feisty -- with a world of possibilities
• Residents hold ground against some advances
• Artists' colony blossoms amid industrial grime
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