(The Center Square) – The King County Regional Policy Committee has been updated on possible plans to redevelop the county’s civic campus in south downtown, including the potential to add up to 4 million square feet of non-residential space and 13,000 homes on the public parcels.
The county owns eight square blocks there, including the office of the King County Executive, a King County Council and related staff branch office, courts and corrections.
The high-crime area is becoming a more dangerous place for citizens to come and utilize government services.
According to Wednesday’s presentation, six of the eight buildings need repair, are obsolete, underutilized, or even shuttered.
The courthouse, for example, was built more than 100 years ago, and its south entrance was used to allow residents to interact with its local government. However, since the 1960s, that entrance has been used as a loading dock and a place for trash collection.
King County Councilmember Pete von Reichbauer noted the area is not as safe as it used to be.
“The courthouse should be the safest place in King County, and that has not always been the case,” Reichbauer said at the Wednesday meeting. “So I am really pleased that the executive has been working hard on trying to figure out how we could move into the 21st century, and how we can accommodate the need to have accessibility and safety as our two features on our campus.”
Estimated costs for maintaining the eight buildings are approximately $700 million, which includes making necessary repairs or replacing aging systems.
However, if the county were to renovate the buildings, the associated costs would range from $2.5 billion to $3.2 billion. According to the presentation, this route would exclude functional improvements for courts and in-custody facilities.
King County first explored changes to its government-owned buildings in 2018 when it kicked off the civic campus initiative. The COVID-19 pandemic halted progress on the initiative’s planning stages, but in March 2023, the project team launched a series of regular engagements with the community advisory group and parallel government partners group.
The Civic Campus Planning report considers a case study in which the executive and legislative functions would remain in the downtown area, while a portion of King County’s administrative functions and the civil, criminal and legal systems be shifted to a second site in the county-owned land in the SODO District.
Potential redevelopment of county-owned buildings could also build up capacity to deliver between 2.75 million and 4.14 million square feet of non-residential space or between 7,000 and 13,000 new homes, according to Aaron Young, founding partner of the architecture firm Northwest Studio.
“An incredible transformation with a diverse mix of affordability levels and housing sizes,” Young said.
The outlined vision of the King County-owned space has a long road ahead. If approved, construction and occupancy are not expected until sometime between 2035 and 2040.
Plans call for developing a proposed governance structure for the project and funding and financing strategies by the end of this year.
