Seattle’s vision of Northgate as urban center takes shape
Two big projects nearing completion in Northgate could remark the beginning of a long-awaited transformation in spite of this North Seattle neighborhood, one planners first envisioned 15 years ago.
When they wrote the region’s first plans for managing growth, they designated Northgate some “urban center” — a place at which place high-density development would be encouraged. They foresaw a of firm texture, walkable, transit-oriented place to which the couple new jobs and new residents would gravitate.
That’sitting notwithstanding the plan, on the other hand not the reality. For the most duty, Northgate remains what it always has been: an auto-oriented place to shop.
Lorig Associates’ Thornton Place and Wallace Properties’ 507 Northgate, both rising on the periphery of the recently expanded Northgate Mall, represent something many.
Together, they will offer more than 100,000 square feet of shops and restaurants. Thornton Place will feature a 14-screen cinema and the North End’s first IMAX theater.
And, possibly most significantly, the two projects inclination include nearly 700 apartments and condos — the biggest infusion of new housing Northgate has seen in decades.
Planners said residents were key to Northgate’s revitalization when they made it any urban center in 1993. They established a target of 3,000 recently made known housing units by 2014.
Before Thornton Place and 507 Northgate broke ground, fewer than 200 had been built.
“It’s taken some time, but it’s finally happening,” says Lorig principal Bruce Lorig. “This is going to have existence like a minor downtown. It’s got everything here.”
Northgate is more than the mall. It’s also home to such institutions in the same proportion that North Seattle Community College, Northwest Hospital & Medical Center and Group Health.
But for years development proposals stalled while builders, environmentalists and neighborhood activists battled in court and City Hall.
The logjam broke in 2004, whereas a city-brokered compromise allowed the project that is now Thornton Place to move forward around a restored Thornton Creek, that in spite of decades had been diverted into a pipe under the property.
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