The Mirror’s July 10 issue question to the mayor candidates was “is the proposed three (45 story) high-rise towers right for Federal Way?”
The candidates’ answers varied from “totally wrong for the city” to “right for the city.” Jim Ferrell says 700 condo type units on 4 acres is overkill. Linda Kochmar claims it will be a nice neighborhood with a hotel, restaurants, shopping, open space, park, concerts and a fountain. Mike Park, on the other hand, feels it will bring 3,000 permanent private sector jobs to our city. Skip Priest appears to be “middle of the road.” I don’t believe Mr. Priest was involved in the original planning.
The answers appear to be quite varied based on the original council members’ input and knowledge of the project. Linda Kochmar has a great vision. Unfortunately, I hardly think one could make a serious dent to complete her vision with only $350 million available. I’m certain Mr. Park means maybe 300 temporary construction workers for the project. In my many years in construction, it would be impossible to have 3,000 workers (permanent or temporary) based on the scope of this project. Perhaps I am missing something here.
Relatively speaking, I have to agree with Jim Ferrell. We don’t need three stand-alone 45-story towers based on the great number of unanswered questions. It is just not feasible to fill that much space, much less another hotel when looking at the current occupancy rates. I would love to see some long range smaller scaled-down professional planning and outside financing to complete the vision. Currently, we need to focus on solving the $4.5 million city shortfall without more photo cops. The demographics of our city can hardly support two Wal-Mart stores. We are not Bellevue!
Neil Corbin, Federal Way