Anyone who has stepped foot near Amazon.com’s new headquarters in Seattle’s South Lake Union neighborhood can feel the change happening around them. Perhaps no neighborhood in the city is undergoing such a radical overhaul.
And now Seattle Mayor Mike McGinn is touting that growth, saying that the redevelopment of the once gritty neighborhood is adding jobs, housing and new opportunities to the city. McGinn, along with Seattle City Councilmember Richard Conlin, today released a report titled Public & Private Investments in South Lake Union.
McGinn claims that South Lake Union – where Amazon.com moved from its longtime Beacon Hill headquarters last year — has been an “engine for job growth and new housing, helping Seattle recover from the recession.”
According to the report, South Lake Union currently has about 23,000 jobs and more than 12.5 million in new real estate developments have been added since 1995. And that means more money for the city. Between 2000 and 2011 development in the South Lake Union accounted for over $155 million of the City of Seattle’s revenues, with estimates of an additional $356 million in revenues between 2012 and 2022, according to the report.
Meanwhile, new rezoning proposals could help support up to 22,000 additional jobs in the neighborhood and 12,000 new households.
Conlin added in a press release continued:
“I was initially skeptical about some of the grand plans to transform South Lake Union into a regional public health/technology powerhouse. But the numbers demonstrate that targeted public investments and forward-thinking policy decisions actually did make a tremendous difference in shaping the future of that neighborhood. The lessons learned about how our early actions primed the pump for job growth and economic prosperity will inform our consideration of the proposed South Lake Union rezone legislation and other infrastructure investments in the neighborhood.”
Here’s a full copy of the report:
