This afternoon at 3:30 the Seahawks are playing the New England Patriots in Santa Clara, California in Super Bowl LX. The game is broadcast free on NBC, and is likely to be the most watched Super Bowl in television history. The Super Bowl is widely considered the premier US sporting event of the year.
Our Seahawks have had an amazing season, and are favored to win! Go Hawks!!!
Renton’s Pavilion Event Center brought tens of thousands of visitors per year to downtown Renton during its two decades of operation. Renton brought this facility to life in 2002, when Council purchased this building as part of a Mazda Dealership, and we rehabbed it to host community events.
Because we got a good deal on the building and we kept the upgrades reasonably modest, the building became an affordable community asset that has hosted countless events of all types. Many of these events have brought vendors and customers from other cities, supporting our hotels and restaurants and introducing downtown Renton to new visitors.
Nine years ago the city’s operator-partner running the Renton Pavilion Event Center began having to say “No” to anyone hoping to schedule an event for the following calendar year. Rain City Catering, the Pavilion operator (and King County’s minority-owned small award-winning business of the year), could have had the popular event hall constantly booked with conventions, large banquets and receptions. But starting in 2017, the City would not allow them to accept reservations beyond the current calendar year (i.e events had to be held by December 31st of the current year or they were not allowed.) Weddings and events of 450 people take longer than that to plan
Council tried fixing the log-jam six years ago, by initiating an RFP process that would extend a new long-term lease to the operator in exchange for the operator paying for upgrades to the building, and adding some anchor tenants that would ensure daily activity at the building. We also insisted that they maintain active and vital event space. Unfortunately, RFP activities were slowed by the pandemic.
After I retired from Council four years ago, the Mayor and Council selected an RFP response from a new bidder, Dave Brethauer, who asked for a 25 year lease, starting at one dollar per year for the first five years. The lease would then go up to about $150,000 per year, (a little more than we had been receiving from Rain City Catering ) with small inflation adjustments during the 20 years after that. Rain City Catering made their own attractive bid, and with a term lease they would have booked more events and paid more annually to the city. Rain City Catering would have paid for all improvements, and added anchor tenants. I covered the RFP process in detail in this blog post here.
Dave Brethauer’s winning RFP response asked for additional substantial considerations from the city beyond five years of free rent: first-right of refusal if the Pavilion ever gets sold, and first right of refusal on any potential sale of any other nearby city property, including the Transit Center (which will be vacated by 2028) and the former Big Five site which is currently getting millions of dollars in taxpayer-funded upgrades. In exchange for the bargain lease and all the guaranteed purchase opportunities, the RFP response implied that Mr. Brethauer would redevelop the Pavilion into an active “Renton Market” at his expense, and it would continue to include significant event space.
The Renton Reporter, Renton’s official newspaper, also made it absolutely clear that upgrades would be the responsibility of winning RFP respondent:
“The proposal would leave the renovations, operations and management to the leaseholder. At committee, Mayor Denis Law said that throughout the different proposals the city has received for the 14,770-square-foot structure, there has always been talk of a year-round, vibrant market.
Law told the council that the city is not currently proposing money toward the project, nor would the city operate it.
“We’re not getting into the business to run a market,” Law said.”
(Renton Reporter, May 3, 2019)
Now, six years later, I can find no Pavilion lease with Mr. Brethauer anywhere on the City’s website. But the City of Renton is currently engaged in using taxpayer funds to make $12.8 million in upgrades to the Pavilion and nearby Piazza Park, with Mr. Brethauer’s involvement.
THE PROBLEM:
With $12.8 million in fresh public investments on this already-valuable property, taxpayers are owed a fair-market return on the (virtually brand-new) building. A $15-18 million-dollar property leased to a private party should generate $1-2 Million dollars per year, far-exceeding the $1- $150,000 per year offered in the 2019 RFP response (when the bidder was supposed to fund the improvements).
Washington State’s Constitution has clear, indisputable language about gifting public money to private businesses or parties.
The City’s update from June 19, 2025 says that the City of Renton is building out the Pavilion consistent with “the RFP process in 2019” (this is NOT consistent with the 2019 RFP process). Then it says a lease will be finalized in August 2025 (which did not happen) and that the tenant (Mr. Brethauer) will be bringing in and managing the businesses.
We’re six years past the RFP date with no lease, and the selected RFP bidder does not appear to be paying for any of the millions of dollars of work being done. Clearly the RFP process of 2019 should be considered null and void.
Furthermore, the City has done so much taxpayer work on the building that city leaders are going to have to figure out how to get $100,000 per month out of 12 farmer’s market stalls, two boothes, and a couple of small start-up anchor tenant to cover a fair rent payment for the city property.
If the property is leased to the winning RFP bidder for what what they wanted in their RFP response, it will be a crime. Under our State Constitution, our city is not allowed to subsidize private businesses even if we think they’ll improve our downtown. Giving the market away on a 25-year lease starting out at $1 per year would be unthinkable. It’s forbidden.
“Public-Private Partnerships” are full of legal and political risks in our state, even when proper and transparent RFP and bidding processes are followed. And they have not been followed in this case
The city is on a political tightrope that is even more precarious because of campaign donations. A quick review shows Dave Brethauer making substantial campaign donations to the Mayor; while anyone is allowed to make such donations, the Mayor must work hard to ensure any deal is not only fair, but also appears fair to the public. Full transparency and impartiality are very important when leasing valuable public assets.
And City officials are now rushed. They’ve invited the world to see our city center in June, four months from now. But without a legal lease for the Pavilion, which is a prerequisite for subleases for the interior booths, it’s hard to imagine the pavilion will be occupied with permanent tenants by the time of the World Cup matches. And if they rush these leases, they curtail the public’s ability to ensure we’re getting a fair deal for the taxpayer funds invested. (Each lease and sublease is required to go to Council, then into committee, then back to council, and then get a first and second reading, then go to the Mayor and clerk for signing; it takes weeks.)
One would have to be a superhero to get this done, legally, without unfairly gifting public funds, in time for June occupancy.
The City of Issaquah just announced they are temporarily changing their name to 12saquah in honor of the Seahawks exciting return to the Superbowl. Meanwhile Renton, the proud home of Seahawks headquarters, has been mulling a proposal since November to remove the football from our City’s logo.
[updated 2/3] Fortunately, several Renton Council Members have expressed opposition to the idea, as have many members of the public. Councilmember Ed Prince, an avid Seahawks fan whose son plays football sport competitively, was very opposed to the logo change. Councilmembers Perez, Alberson and O’Halloran also expressed concerns about the change. The once seemingly-greased November 17 proposal from Renton’s communication department recommending the change said the next step would be Council action to officially adopt the new version of the logo removing the football (along with the airplane and the salmon). Happily at this point at least four Councilmembers seems uninclined to do so.
Perhaps Seahawks fever might put an end to the idea of doing away with the football once and for all. Our Seahawks’ triumphant return to the biggest and most-watched event in US sports will certainly help remind the current council why we put the football in our logo in the first place.
And as we near the exciting Superbowl LX, we certainly can’t let our friendly neighbor “12saquah” appear more devoted to the Seahawks than we are in their loving, exuberant hometown of Renton Washington!
Last night Renton City Council received their 56th change order for the Phase 4 Rainier Avenue improvement project. This change order brings the new anticipated cost up another $390,000, 29% higher than originally budgeted. And the project is only nearing the “pavement complete” stage. Landscaping, signage, and other finishing is still ahead and will undoubtedly bring more changes. (Just last month Council approved a change order hiking the project cost by $3.4 million.)
The contractor submitted the latest $390K change order in response to a section of the original street being about eight inches higher than shown in the engineering drawings, necessitating more material removal and rebuilding of the compact gravel layer before pavement resurfacing could occur. While this specific change order may be reasonable, the total number and cost of change orders on this project should merit some concern by council, and ideally should lead to detailed after-action reviews. Change orders can be caused by many things including schedule delays, contract language, engineering issues, incomplete requirements definition, permitting changes, scope creep, and other issues.
Two-to-three times the number of changes than in previous phase:
For comparison, the Rainier Avenue Phase 3 project was a very similar size and scope to this project, providing the same bus access lanes, upgraded signals and lighting, center median, wider sidewalks, updated water and sewer, joint use utility trench, upgraded signals and new landscape– on a more southerly stretch of Rainier Avenue. But that Phase 3 project ran ahead of schedule and resulted in only 20 change orders at the “pavement complete” stage, just 35% the number of changes seen in Phase 4 to date . The Phase 3 project reached 36 change orders by its conclusion, picking up 16 relatively-minor changes as all the landscaping, signage, Metro Bus provisions, and art installations, and final reconciliation were completed. But even the final number was only 2/3 of the 56 change orders on Phase 4 to date– and again, the phase 4 project has a long ways to go.
You can find the list of change orders from Phase 4 here. You can find the complete list of change order from Phase 3 here.
Phase 4 is at least 154 work days behind (about 7-8 months), and motorists have endured continuous lane closures and traffic jams.
Phase 3 finished three months early, and all lanes remained open during most of construction. The Renton Reporter announced the early opening in December 2013 as shown below.
There are only four and a half months until the Renton Farmers Market opens, and just five months before international visitors fill local hotels for the FIFA World Cup. But our 26-year-old downtown Piazza, which will host the Market and soccer celebrations events, currently looks more like a construction zone than a park.
Crews will be scrambling during the next 18 weeks in what could be consider a self-inflicted emergency, since the Piazza was a nice park before it was torn up last summer. As one of Renton’s stakeholders who helped plan and build the Piazza in 2000, I would not have chosen to rip so much of it out. The trees and other plantings were maturing to the original landscape architect’s plans. The shade from the trees, along with the park’s two (now eliminated) water-features, provided much-needed respite from summer heat.
As can be seen in today’s photos, some of the trees are remaining, but many have been removed.
This city flyer above, released just today, urges “Get Ready Renton Businesses!” Our businesses could make the same request of the city. “Get our parks ready Renton… and while you are at it, complete the delayed work on Rainier Avenue so visitors can get to the soccer games”
My wife and I saw the Northern Lights early this morning from our home in North Renton Highlands. We got this view at about 5:50 AM, two hours before sunrise. These iphone photos make the colors more prominent than they appeared to our unassisted eyes, but the colors were visible and enjoyable without the phone.
Demolition began today on 500 Park Avenue North, the smaller of the two buildings at Garden Plaza as anticipated in my blog entry of December 19. Thanks to Maggie Howard for sending me these photos.
Removal of this dangerous, blighted building will be cause for celebration. It’s sad that the once-desirable office building was able to sink to this level of deterioration during the past three years.
When writing my previous blog entry about the pending demolition of 500 Park Avenue North in Renton, I ran a google image search for the property and noticed that the photos that came up were mostly the building in its current sad state of decay. After demolition, this building and the nearby 535 Garden Avenue North building will ideally be remembered the impressive way they looked for the first 30-50 years during Boeing use, not the dystopian way they looked during the last three years under ION Renton ownership. To help us remember them in a positive way, I captured some views from Google Maps in the years before the recent neglect set in, and I’m posting them here for posterity.
For several months distraught residents and visitors of “The Reserve at Renton” senior living apartments have been attending Renton City Council Meetings and complaining about towing. Many have testified that they or someone they know had their car towed to Kent unfairly, and they say they were billed as much as eight hundred dollars to reclaim their car.
I posted two blog entries about this controversy in September that you can find here and here.
On my first post an anonymous commenter wrote “I’d be curious if the towing company is licensed to do business in Renton”. I assumed the company probably had a Renton license, as it seemed unlikely that a company that was being discussed so publicly at Council meetings would not be checked by anyone at the city as to whether they had a Renton business license. But I told the commenter I would look into it.
I only recently followed up on this comment, and the answer surprised me.
The city publishes an 81 page list of active Renton business licenses, and Lynn’s Towing is not on it. There are nineteen other tow companies on the list, including many in Renton and some in Seattle, Issaquah, Burien, and elsewhere. There are also many other types of businesses with headquarters on Central Ave in Kent, near Lynn’s towing address of record. But Lynn’s Towing does not appear to be on the list. Readers can check the list for themselves here.
Note that I’m only commenting on whether Lynn’s Towing appears to be on the published list of Renton business licenses. Towing companies also need Federal DOT and State Business License, and I think that they meet those requirements; State license records show them with a current license. I tried to access the company’s website today to find their posted license information, and unfortunately the site appeared to be down both times that I checked it.
I’m not an attorney, so I can not say whether a lack of a city license would have any bearing on the legality of the towing actions that were discussed at the Renton City Council meetings. Towing procedures are covered primarily under state law (and at this time I assume the business has the necessary state licenses). City business licensing concerns would primarily be an issue between the city and the business, and often involve payment of taxes to the correct jurisdiction.
Anyone in Renton whose car gets towed involuntarily could ask for proof that the towing company is licensed to do business in our city. A business found to be ignoring licensing rules has no credibility in making judgements about who is lawfully following parking rules.
Howard Hanson Dam is central to preventing Green River flooding, and it’s been in the news in the past few days. Seventeen years ago the dam needed major updates in order to store it’s full design capacity of water. Public officials from potential flood areas including Renton participated in helping the Army Corps of engineers acquire the necessary funding to make permanent repairs and install temporary levee extensions (walls of sandbags on top of existing levees) in case we experienced a bad flood while completing the repairs.
The concern was not with the dam itself, but rather the soil near the dam. The dam is located in a valley that was narrowed by a landslide 10,000 years ago. This ancient landslide was beginning to seep water, and the Army Corps of engineers ultimately injected concrete into this landslide zone to stop the water from forming streams that ultimately could have grown into a washout. The concerns subsided in spring of 2010 as repairs were completed.
This blog post from 2009 documents a visit by public officials to this site where we got a personal view of the problem near the dam. Councilmember Terri Briere and I attended and represented Renton.
To see all the posts I’ve published concerning Howard Hanson Dam, please click here.
My home as at the corner of NE 23rd Street and Harrington Place NE, which gave me both a power outage and a front-row seat to the power restoration during the last 24 hours. We were one of the estimated 100,000 PSE customers without power at the end of last night’s storm.
A large seemingly-dead cedar tree fell across NE 23rd street, snapping the high-voltage power lines and yanking a utility pole out of alignment. My daughter-in-law who lives in a home nearby and was still awake at 2:00 AM heard the crash and saw the sparks on the street as the wires grounded and shorted out. Thankfully no one appeared to have been injured.
I’ve been told Renton Firefighters arrived quickly and inspected the area, ensuring no one was underneath the tree and that there was no lingering fire danger. They closed the road with tape, and city road crews followed up with additional signage.
Early this afternoon Puget Sound Energy workers and a tree service arrived in force, and removed the tree and restored the wires in about two hours of work. We and 56 other households were of course all happy to get power restored. Residents along NE 23rd street were also happy to have the intimidating wires picked up so they could get out of their driveways.
Here are some photos from the restoration:
In my previous entry on December 9th, I shared the concern that NOAA was predicting a five-foot increase in the water level in the Cedar River in Renton over the next few days (December 9th-12). Their predictions proved fairly accurate, and our city went through an anxious and restless few days as water levels in the river ultimately rose to the bottoms of some of our downtown bridges before finally subsiding.
As an atmospheric river deluged Western Washington and the Cascade foothills, city crews and residents worked to protect our city and others as best they could while Army Corps and Seattle engineers captured as much water as they could in reservoirs on the Cedar River, Green River, Skagit River, and elsewhere.
Thankfully, the rain slowed about when NOAA had predicted, right when Cedar River’s Chester Morse reservoir was topped out at about 10 percent above it’s normal high water mark– a point where no more water could have been sequestered.
During these events many Renton residents (me included) had taken to Facebook and other social media to share real-time information and photos. With this blog entry, I’m bringing this blog up-to-date on these posts.
Authorities are only beginning to assess the damage from this flooding, and I’m sure there has been hardship and property damage that we are not yet aware of. There have been reports on social media that some people in Renton were displaced from their homes at the Riviera Apartments and likely elsewhere. My sincere sympathies are with everyone who has been impacted, and I encourage everyone to report any damage to the city for possible Federal and State assistance.
Even with the new rain we are experiencing, NOAA shows the Cedar River might only touch the “minor” flood stage, about four or five feet lower than last week’s record flood stage.
However, today a new threat to Renton and Tukwila arose when a Green River levee failed near Southcenter mall, causing an emergency evacuation of parts of the valley.
Below the cut I’ve included my Facebook posts from the past week, along with photos of the high water in the Cedar River that crested last Thursday and Friday.
One key lesson every good project manager learns early in their career: if you want a project to come in on budget, it must come in on schedule. Delays create extra labor costs, out-of-sequence work, tool and equipment shortages, evolving requirements, and other consequences that can dramatically increase the costs.
I previously described the eight months of delays and $4,000,000 cost increase on this project in a blog post in March: “Motorists and businesses losing patience with delayed Rainier Avenue project, originally scheduled to finish this week”
Monday we learned that these delays have cost Renton another $3,400,000. The complete ten-page spending bill can be found here.
The following excerpt from one of the engineering contractors on this project shows how initial delays cascade into further delays, and new costs rapidly accumulate as requirements and processes shift over time (emphasis added).
“All documentation was developed by our team and subsequently approved by the City and its legal review team expeditiously following Notice to Proceed. Unfortunately, we were unable to proceed with presenting and securing these property rights due to evolving pre-certification review complications between WSDOT and City management lasting approximately seven to eight months. That said, we’ve been notified recently that these oversight issues are resolved and that our team will shortly be given approval to make offers.
The complicating factors at this point, and the purpose of this contract amendment request, is that all valuations are now over six months old, as are the project’s title reports, and WSDOT recently has undergone extensive updates to its Right of Way Manual in the last 60 days resulting in a total redrafting of all of the City’s temporary construction easement documents. Also notable: in an unprecedented compliance order for all local public agencies, WSDOT is now requiring pre-approval on all Administrative Settlement Justifications on a parcel-by-parcel basis for negotiations settlements $1 or more above Fair Market Value. It is difficult to estimate how much more effort this WSDOT review will cost, but we will be diligent to secure these approvals as efficiently and quickly as possible.
Regarding our increased fee request, the revisions to all (26) Appraisal Waivers and redrafting of all of the offer packages are effectively a restart of most of our efforts.”
Keeping on schedule starts at the top. Renton’s previous Public Works director brought in earlier phases of Rainier Avenue improvement on time and on budget, with very few lane closures. He personally inspected the construction sites daily, and kept the project moving as planned. When anything got off schedule, those of us in elected office would help him get it back on schedule. Renton’s current Public Works director often phones into meetings from his home on Bainbridge Island, and has never lived in King County. Lengthy lane closures and delays have been the norm on this project, and it feels like little has been done to protect the schedule or cost to taxpayers.
Residents should make it clear to Renton leadership that no more delays and no more tax money will be tolerated for this project– it’s way past time to get it done.
During the 28 years I was on Renton City Council, we gave members of the public who attended our meetings at least five minutes to speak. If someone was giving complex testimony and needed more than five minutes, we would almost always grant it. I always felt that anything less than five minutes was too rushed, and particularly difficult and unfair to those who speak English as a second language. Occasionally over the years various members suggested shortening it, and I always pushed back, insisting on maintaining at least five minutes.
I retired from Council in December 2021, and in the following year the standard was changed to three minutes. This change has resulted in too much hurried testimony, missed opportunities to solve problems early, and complaints from residents who often feel they are not being heard. Rushed testimony doesn’t just miss key points– it also can come off as more hostile than intended, as hurried speakers often side-step pleasantries, don’t have adequate time to gauge how their comments are affecting their listeners, and sometimes may not feel they can slow down to breathe.
I personally recommend that Renton Council restore the five minute testimony. Current Renton Council meetings average about 45 minutes, and this change would only make them 5-10 minutes longer. Since Councilmembers are paid about $500 per week for their service, it seems fair that they give members of the public two more minutes each to speak on issues of concern to them. (It’s typical to have between 2-5 speakers, and five speakers talking for two extra minutes would only add ten minutes).
The Council has also become shy about discussing the issues brought up by the residents, and I’ve covered that concern in a previous blog entry here. The Council could add another five to ten minutes of interactive problem-solving with residents who come to speak, and still keep their average meetings to about an hour.
Below is a screenshot of the top of the agenda from my last Council Meeting in 2021, and the last paragraph shows that audience members still had five minutes each to speak to council, and even longer if we offered an exception (which we frequently did).
Below that is a chart showing the typical council meeting length.
