Proposal may bring Thornton Creek to surface

By Bob Young
Seattle Times staff reporter

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Environmentalists hailed the $7.2 million proposal yesterday as a breakthrough that would provide open space, decrease pollution in the creek and help wildlife. They also praised city officials for working with them after several years of testy relations.

"It's amazing what can happen when the city gives collaboration a real chance," said Jan Brucker of Citizens for a Livable Northgate, one of the groups that argued for bringing the creek to the surface, or daylighting it.

The compromise calls for digging down about 20 feet under the parking lot and creating a natural-looking channel, surrounded by lush vegetation, through which the south branch of the creek would flow. The pipe would remain under the channel bed to act as a safety valve through which water would flow during large storms.

The plan is called the "hybrid option" because it combines parts of the activists' full-daylighting proposal, which called for removing the pipe, and the city's earlier proposal to leave the creek underground while creating a pondlike drainage system above it to handle storm water that runs off acres of mall asphalt.

Announced by Mayor Greg Nickels yesterday, the proposal is expected to gain City Council approval.

But some council members, who were in their regular Monday morning session at the time of Nickels' news conference, were miffed that they could not attend.

They said the compromise probably would not have occurred had they not pushed the mayor to bring citizens into Northgate decision making.

Last November, a majority of the council stood with community activists against a deal Nickels had negotiated with the mall owners. The council floated an alternative that would require more citizen input in shaping the future of the mall area. At the time, Nickels criticized the council proposal for creating "more process."

"There wouldn't be any Thornton Creek resolution if it weren't for the council's resistance (to the mayor's plan) last year," said Councilman Peter Steinbrueck. "Given that, it's odd that the council was deliberately cut out of the parade."

Councilman Richard Conlin, who largely crafted the council's alternative with Steinbrueck, agreed.
 
Nickels' spokeswoman Marianne Bichsel called the council's schedule conflict "unfortunate" and said the mayor did not intend to exclude anyone from the announcement.

Yesterday, Nickels said the hybrid solution that came out of a 22-member Northgate Stakeholders Group was the best of three proposals studied for the creek, based on cost, water quality and flood prevention.

Seattle Public Utilities customers would pay for the project through their drainage rates. Public-utilities director Chuck Clarke said it would have a "negligible" impact on rates.

As envisioned, the channel project would run next to 300 new apartments and condos proposed by Lorig Associates. Together with mall renovations and transportation and pedestrian improvements, city officials hope the channel, with its adjacent greenery and housing, will transform the mall area from a shopping center into a prettier place where people live, work, shop and play.

City officials hope to start the changes next month when ground is broken for a new library, park and community center. Channel construction should be completed by 2008, according to city officials.

Bob Young: 206-464-2174 or byoung@seattletimes.com