Seattle Mayor Bruce Harrell wants to revise the city’s much-debated plan to develop affordable housing and park space on 34 acres of surplus military land at Fort Lawton by including a greater number of housing units.
In a Dec. 27 letter notifying the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development about his intentions for the project, Harrell said his administration will now seek to create up to 500 housing units by Discovery Park in Magnolia, whereas the city’s existing plan calls for about 240 units.
It’s the latest twist in a saga that began almost 30 years ago, with housing efforts at the site repeatedly delayed by legal challenges and political inertia.
“This new plan,” by optimizing the property’s current zoning and lowering the per-unit cost of infrastructure improvements required at the site, Harrell wrote, “makes the most of the unique opportunity at this site, creates more needed housing and increases economic feasibility of the overall project.”
Changing the plan will require additional environmental review and City Council approval while raising the project’s costs and further extending its construction timeline, the mayor said in his letter to HUD, which must sign off on the plan before the Fort Lawton site can be transferred for housing.
HUD is reviewing Harrell’s letter and will respond to his administration “on next steps” related to the city’s application for the site “once we have evaluated all issues,” HUD spokesperson Vanessa Krueger said in an email.
Harrell’s move may disappoint critics of the housing project who want the last part of Fort Lawton incorporated into Discovery Park, which was created when the U.S. Army transferred most of the military base to the city in 1973. Housing advocates, on the other hand, may be pleased by the mayor’s proposal to double the unit count. They may be less happy about the new schedule, which anticipates infrastructure construction starting in late 2025.
When then-Mayor Jenny Durkan and the City Council adopted the existing plan, in 2019, casting the project as a way to combat Seattle’s housing crisis and provide options for lower-income households next to treasured Discovery Park, they hoped construction would start as soon as 2021.
The plan’s potential revision comes after years of inaction at the hilltop site, with the Harrell administration hesitating over extraordinary infrastructure costs associated with the project and with HUD raising concerns about the development timeline in the city’s 2019 application for the land.
HUD postponed its determination on the application at Harrell’s request multiple times, most recently so his administration could have a consultant reassess the city’s options, before giving the mayor a Dec. 27 deadline to make up his mind about whether and how to proceed with the project.
Harrell based his decision partly on the $200,000 “alternatives assessment” that the real estate advisory company Heartland and other consultants completed in October. Unlike prior analyses commissioned by his administration, which estimated the city might have to spend more than $100 million on water, sewer, electric and street upgrades at the site, the Heartland report estimated the work could cost much less, about $30 million.
That expense, although high compared with other projects, would be more than offset by the money the city would save by getting the land from the military at a discount, rather than on the private market, the report said.
The existing plan from 2019 calls for the United Indians of All Tribes Foundation, Catholic Housing Services and Habitat for Humanity to build 85 studios for formerly homeless older adults, 100 affordable rental apartments and 52 affordable for-sale homes, totaling 237 nonprofit housing units. The plan also includes 22 acres of grass, woods and athletic fields.
The recent Heartland report analyzed three options for Harrell: the existing plan; a somewhat denser version of that plan (up to 460 units); and a much denser plan (996 units or more) with significantly less park space.
The existing plan would carry the smallest overall price tag but would incur a per-unit infrastructure cost of $126,000, the report said. The somewhat denser plan would have a lower per-unit infrastructure cost, of $68,000. The much denser plan would have an even lower per-unit infrastructure cost, of $42,000, though it would require zoning changes at the site, the report said.
The report meanwhile identified Magnolia as one of Seattle’s most expensive and least diverse neighborhoods, without much rent-restricted housing.
Harrell is proposing that the city pursue the somewhat denser alternative, aiming for about 500 units (the Heartland report assumed an average unit size of 750 square feet, but some units could be smaller, Harrell’s office said).
Back in 2019, the city pegged the cost of the entire project at about $90 million. In his Dec. 27 letter to HUD, Harrell said his revised plan could cost about $285 million. The city is now estimating infrastructure costs of $56 million, combining Heartland’s aggressive value engineering with a prior consultant’s more conservative approach to cost multipliers, his office said.
“This revision will further the City’s historic efforts to build affordable housing in Seattle, ensure fair housing opportunities for all and create diverse and well-rounded communities while preserving essential green space within our urban landscape,” Harrell wrote in his letter, vowing that his new plan would, like the 2019 plan, devote most of the site to park space.
The Harrell administration is still working out how to fund the project with help from state and federal agencies and will “designate a Fort Lawton project manager” to lead the city’s work on the project, the mayor wrote to HUD.
A timeline included with Harrell’s letter anticipates a housing-density study and a supplemental environmental review this year, City Council approval by March 2025, HUD approval by June 2025 and infrastructure work in late 2025. The timeline doesn’t say when actual housing construction would begin.
