If everything had worked out, the Foss Waterway Development Authority would have just six years left to live.
It would complete its task by 2015 and close up shop.
Lights out. Keys in the mail slot. No forwarding address.
Now, Don Meyer, executive director of the authority, sounds disappointed when he confesses that he’s unlikely to meet that target. A lousy economy glutted with the real estate products the authority’s customers are trying to sell means it will probably take until at least 2020 to transform a 1.5-mile shoreline on a once-polluted slough into an urban neighborhood.
Not that it hasn’t accomplished quite a bit. Since being formed in 1996, the authority has overseen redevelopment on seven of 15 sites, including the Glass Museum, Albers Mill, The Esplanade condos and Foss Landing apartments. Waterway Park, focusing on human-powered boating, is next in line. And hopes for a hotel remain.
I’ve been critical of some decisions. I thought a developer like Portland’s Williams and Dame was better suited for an urban project than the folks the board selected. Sometimes the board seemed in too much of a hurry to choose developments – mostly tax-subsidized residential – that met existing markets but threatened the balance needed to keep the waterway active. Supporting more building height north of the Murray Morgan Bridge is a distraction that likely won’t be allowed by shorelines laws. And there needs to be more public space.
Frank Jacobs, an original board member who left last fall after 12 years, gives the authority a “C.”
When the city purchased the polluted land in the early 1990s, there were plenty who thought it was foolish. The property was a mess, both above ground and in the tainted soil below.
In the early days, the authority did all it could to entice developers, including handling cleanup. The first developers invested as much with their hearts as their heads.
Once these pioneers had led the way and folks could see how they could make money, attitudes changed. The board became more demanding, insisting that developers pay cleanup costs, build better buildings and fund off-site improvements such as the public esplanade.
“We shifted risk and cost to the developers,” Meyer said.
Now the boom has busted. A huge condo development is begging for buyers and flirting with bankruptcy. A hotel developer has given up and yielded to another. A mixed-use building is on hold, seeking tenants and financing.
Recently the board met to talk about how it might have to change its approach yet again. Rather than selling and getting out of the way, perhaps the authority needs to co-develop. Perhaps it needs to lower expectations of what developers will pay for.
Perhaps. But what it shouldn’t do is be in too much of a hurry. The best buildings, such as The Esplanade, resulted from a board that was empowered. The worst, such as Foss Landing, came about when the board was desperate.
Keep that in mind as it works with hotel developer Hollander Investments, which built the Marriott near the convention center. A desire to get a hotel built is good; being so desperate to make it happen that the board accepts a bad building isn’t so good.
“There’s a feeling that we’ve got to do something,” Jacobs said. But getting a quality hotel is worth waiting for better times.
“I’d counsel they do nothing,” he said.
There are other pressures to act quickly.
“We fund our operations from the sale of property,” Meyer said. “If you don’t sell any property, you have a problem.”
If the city wants quality, maybe it needs to insulate the authority from pressure to close deals in order to keep the lights on.
Meyer remains optimistic.
“What we’re going through is an adjustment to market realities,” he said. “But I fundamentally believe, despite the setbacks, that the waterfront is still a golden opportunity.”
Even if it takes a little longer than hoped.
Peter Callaghan: 253-597-8657
peter.callaghan@thenewstribune.com
blogs.thenewstribune.com/politics
