It’s rare to find a neighborhood that’s excited about an influx of
development. But it’s almost unheard of for a neighborhood to go to bat
for a developer. Indeed, this is what’s happening in North Seattle’s Roosevelt neighborhood. Local developer Pryde +
Johnson has been working with community leaders since 2004 to redevelop
a large property at Northeast 66th Street and 12th Avenue Northeast
into a mixed-use apartment/condo project.
“The neighborhood is looking for quality development, and sooner
rather than later,” says Roosevelt Neighborhood Association Land Use
Committee Chair Jim O’Halloran. “The site is quite literally the center
of the neighborhood. It’s a pivotal site. That is where the density
should be located. Give us a six-story building there.”
Neighbors have supported an upzone—raising building height
limits at the site—and made suggestions like adding workforce
housing to accommodate teachers at nearby Roosevelt High School, which
the developer moved on. Unlike other developments in Roosevelt, Pryde +
Johnson—already well liked in other Seattle neighborhoods for
their well-designed, environmentally sustainable projects—seems
to have full community support. But the project isn’t going to happen,
at least not anytime soon. Ironically, the thing that’s supposed to be
bringing developers and density to the neighborhood is what’s standing
in the way of the development project: light rail.
Back in 2004, Sound Transit came to the Roosevelt neighborhood and
asked residents whether they wanted a massive light-rail stop to be
located near I-5 on Eighth Avenue Northeast, or at the center of the
neighborhood along 12th Avenue Northeast. Hoping that light rail would
invigorate Roosevelt’s small urban core, neighbors—veering away
from the classic opposition to light rail’s massive impact on
neighborhood businesses—opted for the centrally located 12th
Avenue site [“Bring the Train,” Erica C. Barnett, Jan 6, 2005]. That
same year, Pryde + Johnson bought a 1.69-acre property—currently
a worn-down QFC—right above a proposed underground light-rail
station for $6 million. Pryde + Johnson had plans to build a 242-unit
condo project, right above the underground train stop. This was all
well and good until Sound Transit decided it needed to control the
property.
“We need the whole site for construction staging,” says Sound
Transit spokesman Bruce Gray. “That’s where we would drop in our
tunneling machines to build a station.” Pryde + Johnson initially
proposed that Sound Transit lease the site, and when construction was
finished—sometime in 2018—the developer could regain
control of the site and build up. However, Gray says Sound Transit
doesn’t want to deal with any complications that might arise from
leasing the property. Sound Transit isn’t playing the eminent-domain
card—yet—as it’s done on parts of Capitol Hill, but with
its political clout and muscle, it appears it’s only a matter of time
before Sound Transit gets its way.
“If we started building something, [Sound Transit] would force a
lawsuit to condemn it,” says Curt Pryde of Pryde + Johnson. Sound
Transit wants the property, plain and simple. And Pryde says Sound
Transit routinely dismissed proposals to lease the site, or agree to
sell the property back to Pryde—at cost—when construction
is finished. Pryde says he’s even offered to pay for the last stages of
construction—as Sound Transit builds up to street level—so
that an underground parking garage could be built on top of the
station. Still, a mutually agreeable solution hasn’t been reached. “We
feel like they are [being inflexible]. We’ve been… giving them all
the ideas we have, [but] they still come back [and say they] plan on
condemning it.”
To make matters worse, the upcoming vote on Proposition
1—which would fund a light-rail expansion, including the
Roosevelt stop—could put Pryde in an even worse position. If
Proposition 1 fails, Sound Transit wouldn’t have the cash to buy the
site and Pryde + Johnson would be free to develop the property.
However, the Puget Sound region wants and needs light rail, so another
vote would likely only be a few years off. So, while Pryde + Johnson
wait for a vote that could take years, they would either have to sit on
the property losing money, they say, or build up and hope a deal could
be worked out later. 
