Upcoming 'amazing' era of construction could make Seattle truly sleepless
By CONSTANCE SOMMER 
SEATTLE POST-INTELLIGENCER REPORTER
Planners and builders are looking to downtown's outskirts as they plot this city's next round of explosive growth.
Don't expect more gold-plated malls like Pacific Place, though, or flagship stores like the new Nordstrom.
Instead, all the development that hibernated while downtown's corporate retail rejuvenated -- things such as office buildings, housing, neighborhood shops and, of course, a football stadium -- is sceduled to blossom into construction over the next five years.
The next generation of projects will permanently alter the landscapes of what are now some sleepy areas. The Mariners' new Safeco Field, deep into construction and already recognizable as a baseball park, is ample evidence of the impact to come.
"It's going to be amazing," said Seattle Mayor Paul Schell. "I don't think we've ever experienced a five-year period in the past like we will in the future."
The last time Seattle witnessed such a building crush was during the office tower boom of the 1980s, he said.
"But that was about all that happened," he said. "This time, there's a whole array of things that are happening that will make us an 18-hour if not a 24-hour city."
The projects that seemed destined to transform their neighborhoods and downtown include:
- A new $425 million Seahawks football stadium and an exhibition hall near where the Kingdome now stands, just north of the $417 million Mariners baseball stadium and south of Pioneer Square.
- A $250 million renovation and redevelopment of Union Station -- the train station just northeast of the Kingdome -- which includes construction of five new office towers.
- The creation, on the Kingdome's north parking lot, of a new community replete with retail stores (possibly a supermarket), 400 apartment units and a European-style, boutique hotel.
- A nearly $100 million renovation of 10 old Pioneer Square hotels, warehouses and office buildings, including the 82-year-old Smith Tower skyscraper.
- A nearly complete transformation of Seattle's central waterfront, begun 21/2 years ago which includes a two-building World Trade Center complex, the Odyssey/Maritime Discovery Center (already open), a Marriott hotel, a nearly 50,000-square-foot conference center adjoining the newly opened Bell Street Pier Marina, plus footbridges linking downtown and the waterfront, and hundreds of new condominiums.
- A $160 million expansion of the Washington State Convention and Trade Center, on the eastern edge of the retail core, more than doubling the size of the center and adding a 460-room luxury hotel, a 22-story office tower, a restaurant and an unspecified "entertainment retailer."
- A $220 million overhaul of the Seattle Center neighborhood, including a new, $60 million rock 'n' roll museum called the Experience Music Project (under construction), $29.1 million worth of additions and improvements to the Pacific Science Center and a $95 million facelift for the Opera House.
But even such an impressive listing tells only half the story -- the flashier half.
Four million square feet of new and renovated office space is already scheduled for or under construction in the area roughly bounded by Denny Way on the north, the Kingdome on the south, the waterfront on the west and Interstate 5 on the east, according to the Downtown Seattle Association.
At least another 600,000 square feet of office space is proposed for the same area.
That's a total of about 18,000 more workers downtown, a 12 percent increase from the 150,000 people that work downtown today.
About 1,600 new apartment and condominium units are also scheduled for or under construction downtown, with another roughly 1,600 units proposed, the DSA reports.
The residential and office development mean more retail stores as well, since city building codes require street-level retail shops in many downtown buildings.
Local officials and builders are also keeping an eye on South Lake Union, where billionaire investor Paul Allen owns 11 acres of property. A spokeswoman for Allen says he intends to develop the Lake Union properties within the next few years, but could not give more details or a time frame.
Allen also owns the Seahawks, is financing the Experience Music Project, is helping to pay for the mostly public-financed football stadium and is a major investor in Union Station.
In addition, the Clise family, one of Seattle's oldest clans, may finally be ready to start developing the multitude of properties it owns in the "Denny Triangle," the area bounded by Fifth Avenue on the west, Olive Way on the south and Denny Way on the north.
"We are excited about all the growth in the city and we think we can be a part of that," said Al Clise, president of Clise Properties.
Clise said he hopes to eventually clear out some of that area's low-rise buildings and surface parking lots, replacing them with high-rise apartment buildings and office towers.
"We've got to accommodate more growth in the downtown area," he said, adding that "low-rise, campus-style development" does not make sense when land prices have climbed as high as they have in downtown Seattle.
Such a building spree could transform what is now a pokey backwater on the outskirts of the saturated downtown core into a vibrant urban community capable of satisfying the overflow demand for housing and office space.
All this building could mean that, five years from today, downtown Seattle will be rife with new residents and office workers -- maybe even enough to complete its transformation into a bustling neighborhood that runs -- like San Francisco or Manhattan -- 24 hours a day, seven days a week.
Of course, in the rush toward progress, some groups fear getting left behind.
Manufacturers and other industrial businesses worry that the push to beautify the south downtown area for residents and retailers could force their businesses out of longtime homes.
Advocates for the homeless hope the down-and-out are still tolerated in a yuppified Pioneer Square, while others fear that land price pressures and the trend toward upscale retail will drive the middle class out of downtown's homes and shops.
And much of this planning and plotting assumes that the economy will stay, if not as eye-poppingly buoyant as today, then at least in good enough shape to make the development worthwhile.
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