Qwest Field parking lot to be sold for housing
Published 9:00 pm Wednesday, July 5, 2006
SEATTLE – King County is selling its Qwest Field parking lot for $10.1 million to a development team that plans to turn it into nearly 1,000 apartments and condominiums.
The development companies Opus Corp. and Nitze-Stagen Co. are to create 956 new housing units, 140 of which will be affordable for households earning less than $35,000 a year.
The county said it also will sell the historic Johnson Plumbing and Hardware Building in Pioneer Square to Historic Seattle for $2.2 million, which will redevelop it with help from Nitze-Stagen. The Johnson Building will include 68 housing units, 12 of them affordable.
“The sale of the Qwest Field North Lot and this historic building marks a transformative day for Pioneer Square,” King County Executive Ron Sims said Wednesday.
Both of the projects will meet environmentally sustainable, green-building criteria, Sims said.
Organizers of some shows at the nearby Qwest Field Events Center are opposing the developments, saying they need the parking lot as a staging area for recreational vehicle, boat and other shows.
Associated Press
Yakima: Highway 410 limited to one lane
Thunderstorms that triggered mudslides in the Cascades limited traffic to a single lane on a section of Highway 410 east of the summit of Chinook Pass on Wednesday.
No one was injured in slides that littered the highway with mud, debris and trees on Tuesday evening between mileposts 84 and 85 and at milepost 74, the state Department of Transportation said.
The two-lane road was closed until midday Wednesday, when crews opened one lane.
Rainfall Wednesday caused maintenance crews clearing the roadway to lose some ground, but DOT spokesman Mark Ettesvold said the department was hoping to open both lanes by midday today.
Associated Press
Hoodsport: Search for official suspended
The search for a missing state pension official in Olympic National Park has been suspended after 10 days of fruitless efforts by dozens of backwoods professionals and volunteers.
After failing to find any sign of Gilbert Gilman, 47, deputy director of the state Department of Retirement Systems, “we’ve reached the limits of what we can do,” park ranger Michael Danisiewicz said in a park statement announcing an end to the effort Tuesday night.
According to the statement, some park rangers will continue a scaled-down search for Gilman, a former Army paratrooper and later a civilian contractor in Iraq. He has not been seen since he went on what he apparently planned as a day hike June 24 in the Staircase area west of the bend in Hood Canal.
Associated Press
Kenmore: Teen invents ‘Butter Blaster’
Buttered popcorn is 16-year-old Mitchell Duffy’s favorite movie-theater treat. But he didn’t like that only the top layer of popcorn got the concessionaire’s squirt of flavoring.
So the junior at Inglemoor High School in Kenmore invented the “Butter Blaster.” The long, thin cylinder with small holes can be shimmied into a tub of popcorn. It then spreads the butter flavor more evenly over the popcorn. He entered his device in the National Invention Showcase and learned last month that he won second place, a $2,500 honor.
Duffy has applied for a provisional patent. He is working on a longer-term patent, which will take more time and money. He hopes that one day every movie lover will find his “Butter Blaster” at the local theater.
Associated Press
