Tags
Community, congestion, development, employees, employers, Planning, Seattle, Sustainability, Union, Weingarten, West Seattle, Whole Foods
West Seattle is facing a large development proposal in the “West Seattle Triangle,” the gateway into West Seattle from the West Seattle Bridge. The project, at the intersection of Alaska Way and Fauntleroy Way SW, seeks to build a number of apartment units and a few small shops in addition to its primary aim, to create a large Whole Foods store. Some community groups disapprove of the proposed plans citing pedestrian/cyclist safety and traffic congestion as major concerns (among others).
Design overview as presented in a report to the Seattle Design Commission.
Some opposition is based on the idea of responsible development that clearly benefits the community, something they say developer Weingarten Realty is not doing with its current plan. And the whole concept of Whole Foods is another concern – bringing in large corporations with less-than-ideal employment conditions. Read more about this from one opposing organization, Getting It Right For West Seattle. Here is a sample of its perspective:
Weingarten is proposing to bring to West Seattle a national chain grocer, Whole Foods, which is notoriously anti-union and undermines the good union-scale jobs currently in the area with 6 of the 7 existing grocers within 1.5 miles offering union wage scales, health care benefits and retirement security. On top of that, their
proposal packages Whole Foods in the largest mixed-use retail development in the history of West Seattle with a mega-development inviting multiple, dangerous intersections of pedestrians, cars, and multiple delivery and
garbage trucks…
