Throughout what is now known as the “courthouse mess,” the city of Everett has complained that the things Snohomish County officials were or weren’t doing regarding parking spaces and redevelopment plans as part of a courthouse deal, came as “a surprise” to the city. It’s likely city and county residents feel the same, since the announcement of another “public-private partnership” — one that would have been the largest public building project in downtown Everett since the construction of the Everett Events Center in 2003 — comes as a surprise to them. It came to light only as the deal fell apart.
The public needs to know when city and county officials are considering whether to embark on a public-private partnership. Yes, certain details of real estate deals must be negotiated under the privacy of executive session, lest prices get jacked up, but this is so much more than one real estate transaction. It is, or was, a major project using taxpayer dollars, but the public was not part of the discussion.
Everett signed a $25,000 contract with Wallace Properties, Inc. of Bellevue, to determine what might work if it had the whole block to work with; the consultant said the area had high potential for “development into retail and parking space,” and that it would be too expensive to renovate the historic, but burned out and condemned Hodges Building. (Which Everett doesn’t own.)
The proposed deal was complicated, and would have involved condemning three more buildings and a vacant lot on Hewitt Avenue. Part of the plan included having the county build the retail shops on Hewitt Avenue in order to make some money back by selling them as surplus after the construction, as The Herald’s Noah Haglund reported. (If they sold for a really great price would taxpayers get a tax rebate as (partial) owners of the building?)
Everett’s Downtown Plan, approved in 2006 and developed by the city with a lot of public input, provides plenty of incentives for businesses that wish to locate downtown. The plan, which unfortunately came to fruition as the recession began to sink its claws into the economy, does not talk about redeveloping that block of Hewitt Avenue as one of the “public-private partnerships” under consideration.
Since the consultant determined the block was ripe for redevelopment, (and really, what else is possible with burned out buildings and empty lots but redevelopment?) why not allow private enterprise to do the all of the developing? Everett has enough private-public partnerships at the time. With the economy gaining steam, rework the downtown plan, which mentions earlier versions of now revised projects at the riverfront and the port. If another public-private partnership comes under consideration, involve the public.
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