Housing
A Space-Strapped City Gets an Unusual Opportunity: A Brand-New Neighborhood
Faced with an unusual chance to build a brand-new neighborhood on a tract of state-owned land, Seattle leaders don’t intend to just sell it off to the highest bidder.
As apartment high-rises and office skyscrapers have filled and reshaped Seattle, there’s one long, thin strip of relatively untouched land that stands in sharp contrast to all the development around it.
The 25-acre plot of land next to the Queen Anne neighborhood and near the shore of Elliott Bay—surrounded by a golf course, rail yard, and chain stores—has been used as a military outpost for more than eight decades. In the early 1970s, it became the Washington Army National Guard facility, equipped with a readiness center and field maintenance shop. Today, the property is filled with military vehicles and staffed by more than 600 people.