Seattle Sun Newspaper - Vol. 7, Issue 2, February 2003

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Mayor seeks to sell vision for Northgate area

By MATTHEW PREUSCH

An infusion of federal money has given hope to the City's plans to transform the Northgate area from an entanglement of traffic-clogged streets to a more pedestrian friendly neighborhood, graced with grassy parks, tree-lined avenues and a community center.

Having secured a $1.5 million federal grant, crucial to initiating a 20-year, $5 million renovation of 5th Avenue NE, a major arterial, Mayor Greg Nickels' office is courting community groups in the Northgate area to garner support for more ambitious plans to rehabilitate the entire much-maligned commercial center.

Details are sketchy, but the plan will likely include major traffic revisions on Northgate Way, a 2-acre water retention pond and park, as well as completion of a community center and library. Those improvements would merge with a future transit-friendly housing development by King County.

"What we're trying to do is put together a package of things to really catalyze some development and bring some good things to the community," said Jackie Kirn, of the mayor's Office of Policy and Management.

Also likely are changes in city code to hasten revisions to the Northgate Mall site. That has many neighborhood activists concerned the mayor may be negotiating with Simon Property Group, the Indianapolis-based shopping center operator that owns Northgate Mall and some surrounding properties, to circumvent community concerns surrounding development of the mall.

"The mayor and his people have not been clear with us about what it is they are trying to do. There's some sort of plan that has been negotiated or developed behind closed doors that nobody knows about. The suspicion is he's just going to drop it on somebody's desk and say, 'Here it is,'" said Janice Camp, president of the Maple Leaf Community Council.

The current mayor's effort is the most recent in a series of stop and start attempts by the City to revitalize the area. The most recent chapter in Northgate's troubled history revolves around the South Lot parking area, an unused expanse of concrete under which, in a metal pipe, runs Thornton Creek.

Last year, it seemed a Seattle housing developer, Security Properties, might purchase the lot from Simon and build a mixed-use complex, complete with an unearthed Thornton Creek. But that plan fell through after a citizens group called the Thornton Creek Legal Defense Fund backed away from an agreement with Security and sued the developers over their plans. The Defense Fund wants to daylight Thornton Creek at the South Lot site.

As for the rest of the mall, a state appeals court ruled that the water running under the South Lot does not qualify as a creek, clearing the way for Simon's General Development Plan for the entire site. The GDP in its current form includes plans for a massive theater complex, hotel and multi-story parking area. The Defense Fund is challenging the appeals court ruling.

Simon's GDP also faces a challenge from the City's Critical Areas Ordinance, which exempts "riparian corridors," such as creeks, from development. "From what we understand the creek will be under that detention pond, still in the pipe, and that seems to me to be in violation of the" ordinance, said Bob Vreeland of the Defense Fund.

Kirn confirmed that the mayor is working with Simon to shepherd the developer's Northgate mall agenda through the city's permitting process, but only to win assurances that any final plan include mitigations such as better pedestrian connections to the Bon Marche department store at Northgate Mall and funding for the 5th Ave project. "We're trying to come to an agreement on the terms of a development" of the entire mall, she said.

In return, said Kirn, the City could receive a two-acre parcel of Northgate's South Lot, west of 5th Ave between NE 100th and NE 103rd streets, to house a small detention pond and swale, or grassy creek, to retain runoff from the surrounding acres of asphalt and release it slowly into Thornton Creek.

To accomplish a proposal as broad as Nickels is likely to announce, possibly including amendments to zoning laws sympathetic to Northgate's owners, would require the support of the city council. Some community members think that is why Nickels' planners are now showing up at meetings in the neighborhoods that immediately surround the mall, including Maple Leaf and Licton Springs.

Liz Kearns, president of the Licton Springs Community Council, said the mayor's team made their case to a full, and generally friendly, house at her group's meeting on Jan. 15.

"What the mayor was asking with this presentation is, would we,when the time comes, support them when they go to the city council," Kearns said. "Instead of butting heads with the city council anymore, he's looking to get the communities on board."

Others weren't so hopeful. Camp, of Maple Leaf, said years of inaction on Northgate, combined with her distrust of the mayor and developers, make her wary of any new initiatives.

"This mayor has not been very forthcoming in including the public in the decision making process," Camp said. "Our concern is that the neighborhood doesn't get short shrift in that activity."

The council, apparently, is similarly in the dark about Northgate's future. "We have not gotten any recent information," said Phyllis Shulman, legislative assistant to City Council member Richard Conlin, "There has not been a lot of details shared."

Shulman's suspicion is that the mayor's office is willing de-regulate the Northgate Mall site to advance a rehabilitation of the entire area. That would mean concessions like reducing open space requirements, or even exempting developers from following a GDP, Kirn said.

"I think there's some very different views about what is required for making progress in Northgate," Kirn said. "What the council feels so far is that they haven't seen sufficient meat on the bones."

Still circling are rumors that Security might still be interested in buying the South Lot. Some even suggest that Simon might want sell the entire Northgate complex to some unknown buyer. Neither firm would comment on those rumors.