Seattle Sun Newspaper - Vol. 7, Issue 12, December 2003

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Mayor's Northgate plan 'Counciled' out

Neighbors rally behind Council's alternative proposal

By JAMES BUSH

While speeding to redevelop Northgate Mall, Mayor Greg Nickels just hit another bump in the road.

On Nov. 12, five Seattle City Council members held a press conference to announce their own proposal for the future of the Northgate area. Stressing public involvement and a transparent process, the council proposal was a clear rebuff to a development agreement negotiated by the Nickels Administration and Northgate Mall owners, Indianapolis-based Simon Property Group. A council vote on whether to accept or reject the Nickels-negotiated agreement had been set for early December.

Nickels didn't attend the press conference, but members of his staff distributed a written statement from the mayor outlining his objections to the council proposal. Nickels argues that the Northgate area needs immediate action, not more process. "This proposal would create delays and uncertainty, and would jeopardize $100 million in new investment and new jobs," said Nickels. The mayor also added a pointed comment addressing the fact that Judy Nicastro and Heidi Wills, two of the five Council members making the proposal, will be leaving office at the end of the year. The other council members backing the alternative plan for Northgate were Richard Conlin, Nick Licata, and Peter Steinbrueck.

"If this council won't act," said Nickels. "I will work with a new council in January."

Nickels had proposed that the council amend the city's land use code to remove a requirement that developers of large properties in the Northgate neighborhood compile a General Development Plan (GDP). The elimination of the GDP requirement was one of the provisions in the agreement negotiated between Simon and the mayor.

Under the council proposal, the GDP requirement now imposed on large properties in the Northgate area can be waived, but only through site-specific development agreements negotiated with full public participation.

The five council members also say they differ with Nickels on his proposed changes to the neighborhood's open space regulations. While the council's open space alternative is substantially similar to the mayor's proposal, by signing a formal development agreement with Simon, Nickels gave the city's legislators just two choices: approve the agreement as written or torpedo the deal.

Steinbrueck said that residents of surrounding neighborhoods want Northgate to be redeveloped, but they want a voice in negotiations. The council also wants in on the process, he said. "Really, the onus is on the executive to work with us: something we haven't had a chance to do much on Northgate," said Steinbrueck.

"We're ready to go," added Conlin. "There's no reason for anybody to hang back at this point."

But Lorig Associates, a local developer which had proposed a major mixed-use development on part of Northgate Mall's south parking lot, said the emergence of a separate council plan has stopped the development process in its tracks.

Laura Bachman, an associate with Lorig, said that her firm was waiting for council action before negotiating a formal agreement with Simon to purchase the site for their proposed project. "We are unable to proceed with any form of reasonable negotiation until the City of Seattle has decided what it is going to do," she said. "Ultimately, the City has to have a united front."

In a letter to council members dated Nov. 10, Arthur Spellmeyer, III, Simon Property Group executive vice president, wrote that Simon had already informed Conlin that any additional process "would not be acceptable. In fact," he continued, "calls for more process and planning are a sure way to guarantee a legacy of delay and economic stagnation at Northgate."

Rejecting the deal negotiated between Nickels and Simon would also mean that the city would not get a 2.7-acre piece of the mall's south parking lot also known as the South Lot that the mall owners had agreed to sign over to Seattle for use as a possible water detention pond. In return for the title to the parcel, valued at $4 million, the City would be obligated to either use the pond to handle storm water from the redeveloped portion of Northgate Mall, or to make a one-time payment of $375,000 to Simon.

How this latest development will affect the continuing efforts to daylight a section of Thornton Creek now located in a pipe under the South Lot is uncertain. The council members want to consider proposals to have the city purchase part of the south lot for open space purposes (and possible future creek daylighting), but only Licata made a strong statement at the press conference in favor of bringing the stream back to the surface.

Mall merchants said they feel helpless watching the mayor and council battle over Northgate's future. Kurt Schauermann, owner of the mall's Orange Julius outlet, said his Northgate store was the highest volume location in the country in the late 1970s, but has declined along with the aging mall. Northgate Mall, which opened in 1950, is the nation's oldest shopping mall.

"We need to see investment and not scare away investors by changing the rules," Schauermann said.

But Jan Brucker, a community activist and attorney who has participated in several legal challenges to aspects of Northgate's proposed redevelopment, said the announcement by the council majority merely gives residents what they've sought for the last four and a half years: a seat at the table during negotiations about the future of their neighborhood.

"It's important to remember," Brucker said, "that this is a community."

Brucker, representing Citizens for a Liveable Northgate, and other representatives of the Haller Lake Improvement Club, Licton Springs Community Council, Maple Leaf Community Council, Pinehurst Community Council, Thornton Creek Alliance, and Thornton Creek Legal Defense Fund signed a group letter expressing "united support" for the Council proposal. In the letter, the community group representatives stressed their support for redevelopment of the area, especially pedestrian-friendly development on 5th Avenue Northeast.

Among the activists on hand at the press conference to support the Council's actions were Liz Kearns of Licton Springs, Barbara Maxwell of Maple Leaf, Gloria Butts of Broadview, John Lombard of the Thornton Creek Alliance, and Velva Maye of Haller Lake.

Maxwell, a prime mover in the early 1990s Northgate neighborhood planning process, said that residents of the surrounding neighborhoods are eager to begin an inclusive planning process for Northgate. "The door is open, and there's a seat at the table for all to participate," she said.

Lombard saluted the Council proposal, saying "it thinks beyond the box of the mall," and stressed the community's support for appropriate new development, saying: "We pledge to work with the city and with responsible, imaginative developers to make the Council's proposal a success."