An update on the Landing

The Council received an update on the Landing at our Committee of the Whole Meeting on Monday night.

Financially, the road, utilities and parking garage projects are all on track, and coming in within budget. At the same time, Harvest Partners (the owner of the Landing) has been completing lease deals on schedule, and generating the new tax revenues needed to cover the city’s infrastructure. In short, the money is working out.

The more interesting part of the presentation revolved around the new tenants that are signing on, many of whom are still maintaining some privacy at the moment.

The announced tenants are all shown on this chart: (Click to enlarge)

The unannounced tenants are another good news story, although our Economic Development staff has kept a close lid on specific tenant names. In many cases, council does not even know exactly who is coming in. We do know that we have apparel stores, restaurants, a spa, a brew-pub, and many other specialty shops likely to fill out this “second-wave” of smaller spaces at the Landing.

Ironically, the pressure that Westfield is placing on the big-name mall companies is probably helping the Landing to develop into a unique and desirable spot. We are told Westfield (which owns hundreds of malls) is pressuring it’s usual national tenants to stay out of the Landing, which leaves the Landing as a mall for smaller start-ups and high-end Northwest companies. I think this will give the Landing a unique character which will keep our project from being like “Westfield Every-mall USA,” something which may work well for Renton. Especially since we are squeezed between Bellevue Square to the North, which is one of the most successful malls in the Nation, and Southcenter to the South which is about to become the biggest mall in the state. Offering unique shops will no-doubt work well for us.

Best of all, there appears to be good progress in an area that has been the most-requested feature of all…. a high-end grocery store. We are told that a high-end store is seriously considering the location, and at the same time Harvest Partners is pursuing a “Market Hall” concept to add more variety. The Market Hall would be a shared Market Space, similar to Pike Place Market (only smaller of course), or more specifically Granville Island in Vancouver BC for those of you that have been there. The Market Hall would be a great place to buy cheese, wine, produce, tea, coffee, flowers, and similar items, but would still not provide all the staples of a grocery store.

Click the image below to enlarge it, to see the concept better:

As a final note, we received an update that the second property (where the Sonics were considering an arena) is being marketed as possible office space in lieu of more retail. Apparently, the office market is perceived to be strong in our area right now. Such a use would likely bring more high-wage employment opportunities into our city, so we would support such a use.

Similarly, we are seeing some hotel proposals around the same site, and in general around the Southshore of Lake Washington.

I’ll share more when I get some more news!

Randy