What years of community opposition couldn't accomplish, our economic meltdown managed almost as a casual afterthought.
Recently, developer Darrell Vange, of Ravenhurst Development, announced he was canceling the ginormous new mall he'd planned - over the dead bodies of several local neighborhood activists - at the site of the Goodwill complex at South Dearborn Street and Rainier Avenue South.
According to Vange, Target, which was to be the primary anchor tenant, was getting cold feet in the bad economy. Chances are good that Ravenhurst, like many developers, was also having a difficult time in the tight credit market lining up the cash to proceed, having already sunk $140,000 into the permitting process and associated legal battles.
The city, no doubt, under Mayor Greg Nickels' intrepid leadership, will find some other way to uglify this part of town. The real estate is simply too valuable, too close to downtown, too adjacent to the Yesler Terrace public-housing tract, whose lovely views of downtown and the bay deserve (by the city's reckoning) a more lucrative use than simply housing (yuck) poor people.
While Ravenhurst left the door open to returning to the Goodwill site if the economy improves, the city won't wait for dollars to Dough-Boy.
NOT A UNIQUE SIGHT
But what makes this story significant beyond the immediate concerns of International District merchants and Target shoppers is that the fate of the Goodwill site is hardly unique. Across the city, fancy new condos are going unsold, and giant holes in the ground that were to become fancy new condos (with tasteful mixed retail on the ground floor, of course) have remained holes in the ground.
On Stone Way North in Wallingford, a proto-QFC managed to tear down the old Safeway building and create a giant pit that's now sat unattended for a couple of years.
In Green Lake, an entire block just east of the neighborhood's center has maintained a lonely pit-vigil for more than a year. Ditto multiple sites on Capitol Hill.
Actually, almost every Nickels-hyped urban village seems to have at least one or three of these local blights - ambitious mega-projects stalled, usually by bad financing, lackluster retail sales, lack of advance condo sales or tight credit markets (pick four).
REPURPOSING
However, just because the wheels of commerce and real estate have ground to a halt is no reason to give up on these sites. Sure, the city might not be especially concerned about these unsightly blemishes, but there are ways to turn them into assets - and for only pennies on the city's misspent dollars.
For example, we could transform these giant block-long pits into community swimming pools. With the lack of drainage and the winter rains, some of these sites are already enormous puddles. Just add a little more water, and voila! Fun for the whole family!
Or, consider them as Japanese gardens. Every good Japanese garden has a nice, tranquil pond at its center. What's the difference between "beautiful, tranquil pond" and "big, stagnant puddle"? Volume.
Or consider these options:
•Skate park - Ditch the water and what do you have? Lots of concrete and 20-foot drop-offs around the edges that are, like, rad.
•Parking lot - The city's traditional use for parcels of land that developers are sitting on until the moment is ripe. Just add ramps.
•Why not turn these blemishes into tourist attractions? With the recent success of the "Lucy" exhibit at the Pacific Science Center, local interest in our prehistoric ancestors has never been higher. Just claim that construction is being held up not by a lousy economy, but by an exciting new archaeological discovery!
"Puget Sound Tar Pits" is far more attractive than "melting asphalt in the summer sun," yes?
•Velodrome - High-speed bicycle racing needs high, high banks; these sites would be perfect. Get in on that Vancouver Olympics action.
Heck, maybe the Rat City Roller Girls need a new home, too. Pitch it as a new, state-of-the-art sports facility and the city's sure to stick taxpayers with the cost.
•Use eminent domain, and give them all to Paul Allen. Financing is then not a problem, and, again, the city will be eager to pick up any costs. Bonus: You'll get a shiny, new streetcar line to your neighborhood in record time.
And if Allen doesn't feel like developing real estate, maybe there's some geeky hobby of his that could use a museum. (Dungeons & Dragons? Stock cars? The world's first Social Networking Museum?)
Or build a new sports facility for an Allen-owned team.
•Or here's a really wild one: The city could finance developers to rebuild the stock of usually affordable housing and independent small businesses they probably tore down to create these earthly sucking wounds in the first place.
Nah. Some ideas are just too far out there.
Geov Parrish, a co-founder of Eat the State!, can be reached at mptimes@nwlink.com.[[In-content Ad]]
