Planning 2011-10-27 COMPLETE AGENDA PACKET

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A.9. CONCLUSION The Tukwila community has seen its "Urban Center" transform from farms and undeveloped open land to an industrial hub, and again to its current incarnation as an industrial and regional retail and employment center. Southcenter is very successful as a commercial district it is "the place to shop" for the City and a large portion of the region. Tukwila is the sixth- largest city in the state for sales tax collections, and most of those dollars come from the stores located in Southcenter, with up to two billion dollars' worth of retail activity generated annually by retailers in the Southcenter area. However, the success of the district has led to rapid growth that has sprawled in haphazard fashion across the enormous land area of Southcenter, resulting in a diffuse and exclusively auto oriented environment that is confusing to shoppers and features little connection to the rest of the community. Whereas Southcenter is the economic engine of the City, it does not function as any real center for the community. It is active primarily in the daytime, and there are few nighttime uses. Development within Southcenter is exclusively commercial and is characterized by low -rise structures surrounded or edged by surface parking. There are very few places to gather or meet other than in the interior pedestrian corridors of the Mall. Southcenter is bounded by substantial natural and manmade features that separate the district from the residential neighborhoods to its north and west, and from commercial development to the east and south. Because of a lack of other connections to the district, most people get to Southcenter by car. Its development pattern is entirely oriented to automobile, with very little consideration given to the pedestrian or bicyclist. Wide streets lack distinctive treatments such as landscaping themes, interesting signage or architecture. While the City's Zoning Code states that the TUC is intended to be "pedestrian friendly", the large scale of the district's blocks and the speed of traffic on its streets create powerful disincentives to walking in the district. Sidewalks are inconsistent and narrow. Street crossings are few and far between, and the streetlights are timed for cars, not for pedestrians. This pattern of development is vulnerable to loss of value likely to stem from increasing gasoline prices and the popular embrace of sustainable patterns of development. The City of Tukwila has a memorable natural setting, and Southcenter has several notable, if hidden, resources, including Tukwila Pond, Minkler Pond and the Green River. But these resources have thus far been a missed opportunity for the district hidden from view, difficult to access, and therefore rarely used by most of the City's population. Aside from these amenities, few natural site features remain most have been developed and paved over with asphalt. Southcenter's visual character stands in W: Long Range Projects Southcenter Plan PC REVIEW 922.11 attach C Esistin.g Cond Sununary.docs 9 /14/201 1 12 26 Photo 16. Strander Boulevard Photo 15. Southcenter Parkivav