Those of us who worked for Boeing have great memories of the sprawling company office campus in North Renton, with some of the nicest buildings being 535 N 6th street and 500 Park Avenue North. Both buildings, built in the 1980s, offered excellent work spaces and conference rooms, easy parking, and nice views. Thousands of us either worked-in or visited these warm, inviting engineering and logistics centers, sometime around the clock when big projects were in-work, letting ourselves in using our badges that functioned like key-cards. Boeing always cared for them meticulously, the way the company oversees all of its properties. Company employees affectionately referred to the buildings by their company codes; the larger one was the 10-16 and the smaller one the 10-13.
These buildings were sold by Boeing to an LLC owned by a San Diego Company in 2021 as part of a property consolidation , and unfortunately the buildings have been vacant ever since. During that time Renton started seeing worsening crime problems throughout the area. Renton also saw dramatic increases in the number of people experiencing homelessness in Renton, a challenge actually made worse by the King County Regional Homelessness Authority. The agency bussed hundreds of chronically homeless individuals from downtown Seattle to Renton hotels, and when an individual broke too many rules, the Authority would evict them out of their hotel space and onto Renton streets.
While Boeing never would have let it happen under their watch, the buildings under new ownership are beginning to look abandoned, with broken windows on all sides, doors that appear boarded up and barricaded, metal gratings and fixtures stolen for scrap, and HVAC and electric service stripped of parts.
Two weeks ago there was a fire on the first floor of the taller building, and the Renton Fire Authority extinguished the flames and rescued two people and a dog from the roof. It’s obvious that people have been entering these buildings without authorization. Broken windows have been covered with wood to block intruders, but it does not appear that anyone is currently doing fire repair and remediation work, like drying out the interior before mold sets in. The other building, the 10-13, is missing some of it’s upper windows, letting the elements get in.
