Renton’s 300-seat Carco Theatre was flooded in December, after Renton leaders initially downplayed the NOAA forecast that predicted we could see the worst flooding ever (see screenshots below). Nearly a year after the flooding of Carco, nothing has been done to reopen the theater. A local non-profit that leased space from Renton and helped community groups prepare programs for public access TV, Puget Sound Access Television, has also been displaced by the flooding.
Renton Municipal Code:
“301.3.11.1 Abatement: A building or structure accessory thereto that remains vacant and open to entry after the required compliance date is found and declared to be a public nuisance. The code official is hereby authorized to summarily abate the violation by closing the building to unauthorized entry. The costs of abatement shall be a lien against the real property and may be collected from the owner in the manner provided by law.”
I wish Renton’s top officials would read the Renton Municipal Code. It may take them a few weeks, but it will dramatically help them better understand their options when faced with problems.
This week’s Renton Reporter quotes our Mayor as saying (incorrectly) that the city had two choices for dealing with the abandoned Park Avenue buildings; buying the buildings, or just waiting years for the owners to do something.
But there was always a third option, the best one, that is perfectly clear in Renton’s Code: correcting the nuisance and billing the owner. I’ve been advocating for this option all along. This option would have saved these buildings, giving the owners an asset worth about $30 million dollars in today’s market, and saving North Renton from years of blight and crime.
By ignoring this preferred option, Renton achieved the following outcomes: the buildings are now in ruin; threats from fire, falling and other hazards grow worse by the day; the demolition permit, if it’s ever used, will leave a hazardous and unusable parking garage in place; barbed wire will soon frame the blighted site; the building ownership appears to be in a state of stalled foreclosure; and the process to get back to a healthy occupancy of this space might require environmental cleanup costs (per the Mayor’s estimate) in the hundreds of millions of dollars. Since the land value is assessed at $7 million, no one will want to spend $100 million cleaning it.
The Mayor is also quoted in the Renton Reporter as holding back on fines, even though the city regularly threatens residents with prompt $100-per-day fines for minor issues like not mowing grass or not scrubbing someone else’s graffiti off their fence. Regarding the Southern California firm that owns the deathtrap Park Avenue buildings, the Mayor is quoted as saying the city was “not fining them because we don’t normally fine businesses that in good faith are going to be building in Renton.”
If reading through Renton’s code was too hard, Renton’s leaders could have done a 30-second google search to get the advice from an organization that Renton helps fund just for such guidance, the Municipal Research Service Center. The MRSC suggests immediate repair of hazards by the city followed by billing the owner, and does not discuss buying the offending building as the Mayor suggested.
The City should still act to abate the hazards in this building before someone gets seriously injured or killed, although the City has already squandered the opportunity to save stakeholders tens or even hundreds of millions of dollars. And the next time one of these buildings goes vacant, Renton leaders should treat our ordinances as the law, and not a “pirate code” that can be arbitrarily altered at will.
_________________________________________________
The MRSC guidance, Mayor’s full quotes, and the City’s Property Maintenance Code are all shown below, for reference. (Background on these buildings can be found here.)
A recent press release from the City discussed the impending purchase of the Stoneway Site for extension of Cedar River Park, but did not mention the environmental remediation challenges that will come with it.
I support the city purchasing this site as long as Renton gets it for a fair price and we get assistance from the Department of Ecology, State Fisheries, and others to help fully clean it up.
According to the Department of Ecology, there is still formaldehyde, petroleum residue and potentially other industrial waste on the site that is acceptably capped and monitored so long as none of the soil, concrete, and buildings are disturbed. Any digging on the site requires Department of Ecology approval and likely a new environmental remediation plan. The site is also subject to continuous monitoring for chemical movement, and carries liability for whoever owns it.
Renton’s Piazza Fountain has welcomed visitors to Renton’s downtown since the Piazza park was built 24 years ago. In addition to making downtown more inviting, The fountain and surrounding Piazza are a gateway to Renton for everyone arriving by bus through the adjacent transit center.
The beautiful fountain is dedicated to beloved Renton resident Marge Richtor, who served our community for decades in numerous roles including on Renton Parks Board. She was a friend and inspiration to all of us who knew her. A plaque on the fountain commemorates the dedication.
In recent years, the fountain has not been maintained as well as in the past. And this year, even though temperatures are in the 80s and people are out and about, the fountain has been entirely neglected.
This should not be allowed to go on for long. It’s time to clean the fountain and get it flowing again. As in the case with our broken clock tower, the public notices when these community centerpieces are neglected.
Just as importantly, the city has been making plans to revise the Piazza landscape. If they do so, the fountain should remain the inviting centerpiece that it has been for the past two decades.
If you share my view that this fountain should be cleaned, maintained, and preserved you can let the Mayor and Council know by emailing mayor@rentonwa.gov and council@rentonwa.gov.
It’s way past time for the Electric Utility to remove the derelict power line towers on Sunset. Our views in Renton are cluttered enough by power lines, that we don’t need a bunch of additional rusting towers adding their own blight.
I took these photos two years ago, and the scene is no different today (other than a little more weed growth and more rust. )
This power line was abandoned and replaced by a new run many years ago, but the retired power lines were initially left in place. Several years ago copper thieves began climbing the towers and stealing the wire, so as a safety measure the power company removed the rest of the wire.
I assumed they would eventually apply for demolition permits to remove the ugly, unnecessary towers, but that has not happened. I’ve expressed my displeasure to our local utilities in the past that they never seem to prioritize maintaining the appearance of their easements in Renton. This is just one example of it.
I don’t remember whether these were owned by PSE or Seattle City Light, but in either case the City of Renton should lean on them to take them down and clean up this easement.
Here’s a variation of an old riddle: What time is it when the hour hand points to both 9 and 10:30?
Answer: Time to get your clock fixed!
Renton’s downtown landmark 4-sided clock, which sits on a tower on it’s own cozy “Clock Tower Plaza,” does not appear to have functioned correctly for years. It appears to have run properly shortly after it was last moved in 2021, but sometime in the years since it quit keeping proper time.
And unlike most stopped clocks that are correct twice per day, the tower clock is never correct because all four of its faces are showing different times.
As Renton works to revitalize the downtown, it’s important to keep up with the basic maintenance. And setting the tower clock, and repairing it as necessary, is one of these tasks.
While there is not a lot of information about this clock online, I remember it joining our downtown landscape as part of the Metro Interim Transit Hub in 1997. Metro Transit had just been part of King County for a few years, and they were creating a hub and spoke system that would increase transit service between “transit hubs” in urban centers in King County. Renton did not have a transit hub, so we agreed with Metro on a temporary hub on Burnett between South 2nd and South 3rd streets, with a permanent hub coming later. Since Metro was paying for infrastructure in other cities, they agreed to pay for bus shelters, signage, and (if memory serves) I think this clock in Renton. The clock was placed at the corner of South 2nd and Burnett, with a sign alluding to it an South 3rd and Burnett.
In the following years we completed a purchase of the former Mazda dealership at this location for about half a million dollars, and ultimately built the transit center with Metro’s help (for about $3 million), the parking garage (for about $8 million), renovated the Mazda showroom into the Pavillion (for about $2 million), and built/landscaped the Piazza park (for about $1-$2 million). I think we moved the clock to its new location on South 3rd and Burnett when we built the parking garage. The dollar amounts I’m quoting are approximate, from memory; they should be fairly accurate. Prices were obviously lower in 1997.
The clock was moved temporarily again in 2020-2021 to allow reconstruction and improvements in South Third Street.
After the clock was moved back to its current home, it kept time for a while. In 2022, Renton spent $4500 on holiday lights just on this clock tower, recognizing its significance as a landmark.
Downtown merchants and visitors deserve to have the clock fixed. Friends have told me they’ve reported the broken clock in the past, but I plan to add my personal report to “Renton Responds” to see if we can get the clock accurate again. Hopefully the time has come to fix the clock.
The Rainier Avenue Phase 4 improvement project was originally scheduled to be completed this week, but after multiple delays it’s now expected to continue until at least October.
The last major delay was approved by City Council last summer, when the Council authorized a change order that added about four million dollars and 129 extra work days to the contract. Utility franchises will pay the $4,000,000 in additional charges, but Renton’s motorists and businesses are paying for the delays through their lost time, idling, frustration, and lost business revenues.
This latest delay was specifically caused by installation issues with a Joint Use Trench (JUT) that will be used for utility routing by PSE, Lumen, and Comcast. Because of unexpected conflicts with other in-ground utilities, the JUT has had to be installed at a depth of ten feet underground instead of the planned 5 1/2 feet. The extra 4 1/2 feet of depth significantly increases the cost of the worker protection shoring in the trench, requiring excavator placing of heavy steel frames instead of the hand-placed steel sheets. The extra depth also put the trench deeper into the water table, requiring pumping and loose sand management. Making matters worse, some of the extra soil being removed has some minor petroleum contamination (probably from old service station activities), and the soil has to be taken to a special site.
While I understand that utilities can cause delays, I think there could have been more effort placed on minimizing the number of days with lane closures.
In past years Renton Council passionately debated every proposed lane closure; Council used to typically restrict lane closures to hours, not weeks or months, and Council tracked them. When asked about a planned lane closure, or how long a prior lane closure had lasted, former Public Works Director Gregg Zimmerman always had the answer. Mr. Zimmerman usually knew immediately because he had been personally overseeing the work site. In the previous (southern) phases of Rainier Ave improvement under Gregg Zimmerman’s management, he famously committed to keeping five lanes of Rainier Ave continuously open. And Council helped Mr. Zimmerman hold the contractor to it. As quoted in the Renton Patch in 2012 ” Renton Public Works Administrator Gregg Zimmerman’s promise to keep at least five lanes of traffic open throughout construction drew heavy applause and whistles from a crowd of more than three dozen attendees”
Minimizing lane closures should be a requirement in all future road projects. Even if it makes the job more laborious to keep moving cones and steel plates in and out of position when a lane closure is needed (as opposed to leaving the lane perpetually closed), the extra labor can easily pay off. Rainier Ave typically carries about 40,000 cars per day. Many motorists are reporting delays of ten minutes from these lane closures, and google maps confirms this. If every car suffered ten minutes of delay, that would represent 6,666 hours of lost car/driver productivity per day. Assuming $50 per hour for a car and driver (the Uber hourly rate), this amounts to $333,000 per day. (The real losses are people being late for work or school, paying extra for daycare, taking time from family, etc, but these are harder to put a price on.) Whether the delay actually costs $333,000 per day, or half of this, the point is still the same. It’s worth investing $5000-$10,000 per day moving cones, signs, and steel plates to keep the lanes open when work is not being performed in them.
A Facebook user recently asked about this project on a group page, and the question attracted over 70 passionate responses. Here is just a small sample:
“QUESTION???? at RAINIER and RENTON AVE
Would anyone care to share why it’s taking so long for the Road / infrastructure project to move forward? It’s been several years and not a single person was working. It’s an absolute inconvenience to all, and taxpayers should know.”
“I have empathy towards construction workers and don’t blame them specifically. Lots of hands at play here. But as someone who travels this intersection at least 4 times a day, it’s absolutely an inconvenience. Is it convenient to have to wait up to 10 minutes to get through a light? Not an exaggeration, has happened multiple times and not only when the power was out. I’m pretty patient and do like city improvements but this project should have been planned better or the city should somehow help navigate the delays.”
“The entire project is an embarrassment to take this long. It would be interesting to know why it has been taking years upon years.”
“Very sporadic as to when they will be working and when they aren’t. Majority of the time not.”
“It shouldn’t be left like it is for the time being. I drive a lifted truck and it feels like I’m out off of exit 38 going through the mountains on Rainier. It’s sick”
“It’s inexcusable and not professional nor is the city functioning in the best interest of it citizens. You don’t just leave it a mess for years. They could at minimum reconfigure the traffic and the ridiculous lane closure if they’re going to do nothing for another six months.”
In a previous article I described how Renton lost a popular flight school that was teaching Renton’s aspiring aviators to fly because Renton’s Airport Management (their landlord) didn’t want the bother of doing maintenance anymore. Renton Airport Management would prefer that a wealthy private jet owner come replace the still-usable building, even though more jet use could trigger a runway extension right into Renton High School.
Flying Magazine is now reporting on how this in turn triggered turmoil at Boeing Field.
Renton Airport management and The Landing Gear Works are engaged in a landlord-tenant dispute that’s made its way up to the Renton Council, dominating Monday’s audience comment period. Eight aerospace workers could lose their jobs, and they were asking for Council help. Council Members seemed to want to help, but have been reluctant to engage directly with Landing Gear Works.
Renton airport management is frustrated with Landing Gear Work’s claim that the company repaired their roof in lieu of rent payments. Airport management asserts the roof was Landing Gear Works’ responsibility under the lease.
The president of Landing Gear Works, Tom Anderson, said the city only made the roof his responsibility a few years ago through unfair pressure, and he doesn’t understand how the city would expect him to install a new roof and make other long-term upgrades to a building when he can only get a one or two year lease. He says he’s been trying to settle these issues for months, including making payments if they won’t accept his repair receipts, but the airport office has been uncommunicative. He points out the Renton airport is on their third airport director in three years, and recently had no director for several months after the previous director attempted to manage our airport from his home in Utah.
My opinion is that Council Transportation Committee should meet face-to-face with Landing Gear Works and see if an agreement can be worked out before going down the expensive path of litigation. Under RCW 35A.11.020, Renton City Council has ultimate leasing responsibility for Renton Airport, and past councils have engaged in these discussions with tenants when necessary. I recommend Council not go down the eviction path until they’ve personally tried to work this out.
Recent councils have not experienced many landlord-tenant disputes at Renton airport, thanks primarily to the long, productive tenure of a former Renton airport manager who worked closely with all airport tenants, and ensured there were regular monthly meetings of an empowered Renton Airport Advisory Committee (RAAC). The RAAC combined the perspectives of airport users and representatives from Renton’s neighborhoods to build a thriving, compatible airport community, and they addressed tenant issues like roof maintenance productively and early. In my early days on council, Prior to formation of the RAAC, up to 25 percent of my council time was spent handling airport landlord-tenant disputes. Recently, frequent changes in airport management and infrequent RAAC meetings are bringing back landlord-tenant tensions at the airport.
Background on Landing Gear Works:
For 11 years Mr. Anderson and his company “The Landing Gear Works” have designed and built specialized light plane landing gear at Renton Airport. Mr. Anderson pointed out at the Monday meeting that he has deep roots in Renton; his Dad ran a Machine shop in Renton dating back to 1947.
The Landing Gear Works’ most popular product is a titanium landing gear system for Cessna 180 and 185 aircraft. These specialized landing gear are lighter weight and less susceptible to corrosion than alternatives, and are sought after world-wide by Cessna owners seeking improved performance and durability. They are not available from anyone else.
On a typical day, the Landing Gear Works will have two or three customer aircraft on-site receiving new gear, and will ship out additional landing gear sets to repair stations around the globe.
The products are made entirely in Renton, with major components fabricated in their airport workshop and other components coming from machine shops throughout Renton.
The Landing Gear Works must maintain key approvals from the FAA to sell these products. The FAA has issued Supplemental Type Certificates (STCs) approving the design, and Parts Manufacturer Approvals (PMAs) authorizing the manufacturing. Both of these approvals have to be rigorously maintained by Landing Gear Works, by showing they maintain high quality manufacturing processes and that their engineering team is responsive to in-service incidents involving their products. They have an FAA “continuing airworthiness” responsibility to care for the design, manufacture, and use of these products, as long as they are in service on airplanes.
One continuing airworthiness obligation is maintaining an approved spare parts supply. Needed parts must be readily shipped to anyone with an airplane on ground. FAA enforces this requirement to keep the world’s aircraft flying safely, and eliminate any temptation to use unauthorized parts in repairs.
An eviction of an STC and PMA holder (such as Landing Gear Works) with a mere thirty days notice is incompatible with meeting these Federal regulations and expectations. Ninety days for a move should ordinarily be considered a bare minimum, and more time would be better.
The Historic Building:
Landing Gear Works’ engineering and manufacturing takes place in a historic building at Renton airport. The “Old Tower Building” was built in 1943, and provided air traffic control when Renton was building up to one hundred and sixty B-29 superfortresses per month during WWII. Later, the building served as the Engineering Liaison office for Boeing’s flight line.
When Boeing gave up their lease on the building and turned it back to Renton, we searched for an appropriate aviation use that could occupy the building. The building does not have any hangar space and is designated in the FAA approved airport layout plan as “Aircraft Manufacturing.”
I remember when our long-serving airport manager enthusiastically announced he found the right company, with Renton roots and a high-end product. Landing Gear Works was to occupy most of the building, with the exception of the historic tower and some of the offices below the tower. At that time the city maintained the exterior of the building, including cutting the grass, picking up debris, and keeping the roof repaired. The airport manager also helped Landing Gear Works sublease three hangar spaces to install their equipment on aircraft.
The Landing Gear Works operated in smooth partnership with Renton for many years. The recent dispute took root when a later airport manager condemned the hangars used by Landing Gear Works and scheduled them for demolition, and insisted that Landing Gear Works must agree to rent the entire old tower building under a one-to-two year lease if they desired replacement hangar space.
Mr. Anderson says the city then stopped doing any repairs or upgrades to the building, asserting it had become solely a tenant responsibility. The roof began to leak in several locations, and a rusted AC unit broke from a wall in a storm and let water damage an office. The roof appears to be one or two decades past its design life, and is now subsisting only from frequent patching.
Normally, if the city expects a tenant to pay for long-term upgrades to a building, such as a new roof or HVAC system, the city will extend a lease for a long enough period that the cost of the upgrades can be amortized over many years. As a Council Member, I often helped negotiate these time frames, to ensure our tenants could amortize their improvements. That was apparently not done in this case. Landing Gear Works began to use a large percentage of their profits making short-term repairs to their building, not able to fund major upgrades without a long-term lease.
The future for the historic Old Tower Building:
The Airport Layout Plan was updated in 2022. While the latest version is not yet on the City Website, I have included it below. The new layout plan shows that the historic old tower building along with several other buildings may eventually be demolished, and replaced with new hangars and offices. Ideally, new airport buildings would front the perimeter fence, so customers could visit a building without going onto the air side of the security fence. The layout plan shows such a configuration.
Implementing this plan will require extensive coordination with leaseholders and other stakeholders to protect everyone’s interests. It will require a request for proposals, public review of options, planning, permitting, and FAA approval. Hopefully this plan will also include coordination with the Renton Historical Society and building architects, who should consider saving the historic tower cab and incorporating it into one of the new replacement hangars.
Finding an aviation tenant for a leaking office building that is planned for demolition will be difficult, and it’s possible the city could go months or years without income from this building. We can look a half mile east to the former Boeing Buildings on Park Avenue to see how poorly buildings can fare after a period without tenants. Unfortunately a recent airport break-in shows that the even the airport perimeter fence is not enough to stop intrusions on the airport.
I think Council and Landing Gear Works should sit down together and attempt to sort this out. If a settlement can be reached for Landing Gear Works to catch up on rent, with a possible allowance for continuing to nurse-along the aging roof, it would make sense to keep them in the building until demolition is near. If demolition will not happen for ten or more years, then a long-term lease that allows Landing Gear Works to install and amortize a new roof would make sense.
