Where there once stood a historic Seattle ballpark, land that’s now home to the Rainier Valley Lowe’s hardware store may soon be leveled once again to make way for an Amazon distribution facility.
Despite being re-zoned to accommodate dense, affordable housing and small businesses, concept documents filed with the City this week suggest that the Lowe’s property on Rainier Avenue South could soon host a 68,000 square-foot distribution center and a small ocean of parking spaces. The Pepsi plant north of Lowe’s is also part of the proposed reconstruction and it appears as though a deal with Amazon would involve the use of both properties.
As we examine our own stories and feelings about growth across our city, a particular quote from Dr. Maya Angelou keeps coming to the surface: “People will forget what you said, people will forget what you did, but people will never forget how you made them feel.”
Conversations around what the City of Seattle is doing to combat its burgeoning affordability crisis have been dominated by discussions of Mandatory Housing Affordability (MHA) and Housing Affordability and Livability Agenda (HALA) policies. Some neighborhood groups are concerned these projects will not create the expected amount of affordable housing, while worsening the effects of redlining –– and a report from the City of Seattle supports the notion that the effects of MHA have the risk of disproportionately impacting communities of color.
