Seattle downtown plan needs adjusting, report says

If downtown Seattle wants to be like Vancouver, B.C., it needs more than Mayor Greg Nickels has proposed in his "Center City Strategy," which calls for taller buildings and more dense development.

Two of Vancouver's top planners told the City Council yesterday that Nickels' taller-building plan is a good start but won't attract enough housing to curb sprawl — a stated goal of the mayor's strategy.

Larry Beasley and Ray Spaxman, Vancouver's current and former directors of planning, respectively, said Seattle could tap the higher profits developers likely would get from the mayor's proposal to pay for public amenities such as schools and community centers that would draw families downtown.

They also noted that Nickels' plan, announced this year, calls for taller, more dense development than in Vancouver, which could cast more dark shadows on sidewalks. And they said the city could do more to protect historic buildings from wrecking balls.

Developers and the Downtown Seattle Association in turn warned the council not to expect too much from the private sector because construction costs are higher in Seattle than in Vancouver. The council is expected to vote on the mayor's plan early next year.

Nickels' spokesman Marty McOmber called the Vancouver planners' report promising and said "at first blush nothing jumped out as major red flags."

City Council members and others praised the report as the start of a profound debate about the future of downtown.

"The Future of Downtown"


Public forum will be held 5:30 to 7:30 p.m. Monday in the Bertha Knight Landes Room, first floor of Seattle City Hall, 600 Fourth Ave. Feedback on the Vancouver, B.C., consultants' report will be welcomed.

"The mayor's proposal was like bringing the space shuttle to the launching pad. This launches the discussion," Councilman Tom Rasmussen said.

The council hired Beasley and Spaxman as consultants for $14,500 at the urging of Councilman Peter Steinbrueck, chairman of the council's urban-development committee. Steinbrueck said he wanted to hire the two because Vancouver is renowned for its livability, and he has felt the mayor's proposal "doesn't do justice to our city."

The main challenge facing Seattle's urban core, Steinbrueck said, is the imbalance between jobs and housing. Roughly 22,000 people live in Seattle's downtown area, while 165,000 work there, according to city figures. This means many people commute to downtown from other neighborhoods and cities, adding to traffic problems. Vancouver has a better balance — about 85,000 downtown residents and 132,000 jobs.

Steinbrueck said that Nickels' plan would not assure more downtown housing over the next few decades than current zoning allows, according to an analysis by the city's Department of Planning and Development. And without more downtown housing — which would put more residents near their jobs — it's unclear how the mayor's proposal would deter sprawl, Steinbrueck said.

The Vancouver team agreed.

To fight sprawl, they said, Seattle needs to attract more than young singles and retirees to neighborhoods like Belltown. The city should entice families downtown with schools, parks and other amenities.

"A lot of people don't like the suburbs but can't find things they need downtown," Beasley said, adding, "if you design it for children, it's good for everyone."

Beasley and Spaxman said 3,000 children now live in downtown Vancouver and that families are coming in droves.

Seattle could finance amenities by recognizing that zoning changes proposed by Nickels increase property values for developers, they said. "When you increase heights, you are making gold [for property owners]," Rasmussen said.

The issue of getting more public benefits out of developer profits is likely to be the most contentious part of the debate.

"Vancouver is a great city, and they've done some innovative things to promote downtown residential development, but there are huge differences between Vancouver and Seattle in terms of geography, land available for center-city development, regulatory requirements, construction costs and even seismic risks," said William Justen, a downtown developer and managing director for Samis Land Co.

Developers Matt Griffin and Richard Stevenson agreed, noting that last week Nickels proposed a new development-impact fee that would collect about $57 million to pay for new parks in Seattle's center city. In addition, Griffin said, sales taxes alone on his new Washington Mutual tower project downtown could reach $15 million to $20 million.

Steinbrueck scoffed at the developers' arguments, saying he believed it's more profitable to build in Seattle because of its soaring housing prices. He said he wants the council to commission economic models that show roughly what developers would earn on new, taller projects and how much they could afford to fork over for amenities.

"I assume some would like to keep that a mystery," he said, "but I'm determined to get that in the months ahead."

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