Remember the promise of biotechnology? Remember the mayor's plan to turn South Lake Union into a world center of biotech research and innovation? Remember all the high-paying new jobs and tax revenues this was supposed to bring to our city?
That was the justification for huge public investments in infrastructure in South Lake Union. We were told we needed to upgrade the water systems and build another electrical substation to handle the increased demand of all those labs developing new patented life forms.
Height limits were raised so that buildings could have special ventilators on the roofs.
The South Lake Union trolley and the Mercer reroute were originally sold as amenities to help fulfill the mayor's biotech dreams for that area.
You don't hear so much about biotech these days. The dirty, little secret no one at City Hall will acknowledge is that biotech has tanked. And this isn't a dip in activity due to the current economic downturn - biotech never got off the ground.
There has been no real growth in biotech jobs regionally or statewide since 2003. Further, the number of jobs created in South Lake Union from 1995 to 2002 actually exceeded the number of jobs created there since 2002, when Paul Allen and our mayor decided South Lake Union was going to be a biotech hub and pledged nearly a billion of our tax dollars toward that goal.
The other dirty, little secret: Most of the "new" jobs in South Lake Union simply are due to businesses relocating there from other parts of town, such as Group Health, Amazon and NBBJ Architects.
A SECOND BITE AT THE APPLE
The biggest of the projects planned for South Lake Union - and most egregious - involves the Mercer corridor. Billed as a traffic improvement, it's really a beautification plan designed to deflect traffic away from Paul Allen's residential developments facing the lake along Valley Street.
Specifically, it would turn Valley into a residential street, rerouting traffic onto a newly designed two-way Mercer (now only an eastbound route). Three city-initiated studies concluded this plan would make traffic worse, especially in the eastbound direction - actually increasing travel times by eight minutes.
From an initial price tag of about $90 million, the Mercer project mushroomed to more than $200 million during the planning phase. This, however, has not deterred our mayor and most of our City Council from making Mercer their No. 1 priority.
Last year our mayor and City Council raided funding from the Bridging the Gap Levy (approved by voters in 2005) for an additional $70 million for the project. No matter that these were dollars explicitly earmarked to meet a backlog of neighborhood street and bridge repairs.
Still, there was a $50 million shortfall in the budget for this boondoggle. In April, the state Legislature turned down Seattle's plea for $50 million in federal stimulus funds for the Mercer project. To receive the first round of Recovery Act transportation dollars, cities had to obtain state approval.
When interviewed, key state legislators said the Mercer project did not rise to the level of other projects of statewide significance.
Now we've learned that our City Council and mayor have gone back to try again for a bite of the apple. City leaders recently filed for $8 million in stimulus funds through the Puget Sound Regional Council and also will go back directly to the federal Department of Transportation (DOT) to request another $50 million for the project.
When City Councilmember Nick Licata asked what other backlogged transportation infrastructure projects would be part of the city's application for stimulus money, he was told by the mayor's representative they would only request funds for Mercer. They didn't want to "muddy the waters" by asking for help with roads, sidewalks or bridges in our neighborhoods.
NOT A REAL SOLUTION
Hundreds of cities are applying for stimulus funds, and the federal Department of Transportation will not make final decisions until the end of the year. Nevertheless, staff from the mayor's office told City Council members that Mercer was so important they would get the DOT to speed up its decision.
They also spoke confidently about getting the feds to reprioritize stimulus funds from distressed "communities affected by the current economic downturn" to "economically growing areas."
Apparently, our mayor thinks he's got the clout to overturn the key criterion for use of these funds - boldly pasted on the front of the Recovery Act itself -so he can better serve Paul Allen's South Lake Union agenda.
Perhaps you could justify this relentless quest by our mayor and CityCouncil to spend millions in precious transportation dollars for the Mercer project if it actually relieved congestion or solved a regional transportation problem.
Perhaps you could justify raiding Bridging the Gap funds destined for neighborhood projects if Mercer met a real need.
Perhaps you could justify going back over and over again for Obama's stimulus funds if Mercer did indeed serve a distressed community rather than the richest man in the world.
This project fails on all counts.
For information on the city's application to the Puget Sound Regional Council, go to psrc.org/projects/tip/selection/2009/STP_CMAQ_Applications/28_Seattle_MercerWest.pdf.
John V. Fox and Carolee Colter can be reached at editor@southseattlebeacon.com.
