In 2014, I graduated from a local-area high school and left for Oregon to start my freshman year of college. I am returning home this week during spring break.
Among the first things I did after coming home was going on a long drive with my family’s dog, Maya. She’s an older dog now, but her taste for adventure hasn’t aged one bit. I decided to take her out and about to one of her favorite walking areas, the Weyerhaeuser corporate park.
This was a place I remembered fondly from volksmarches and field trips when I was younger. The whole campus was a hidden gem in plain sight: workers flowed in and out, yet curious tourists and schoolchildren alike stood mesmerized by the Bonsai Gardens. Weyerhaeuser built a stunning green space which just happened to house their corporate offices, all of which overlooked a buzzing freeway and a secluded reflection pond. It was all a breath of fresh air.
When Maya and I arrived at Weyerhaeuser, what we saw shocked us both. I think the photographic evidence allows me to speak on Maya’s behalf. Instead of the scent of fresh air, we both smelled the stench of abandonment and despair. Floor level after level we walked, seeing nothing more than a ghost town. How did something this visually dazzling fall into such economic decrepitude? It’s a complicated question with many different answers, depending on who you ask.
I am not writing this piece to relitigate the past. Rather, my goal is to spread awareness of the Weyerhaeuser complex’s current state. This message should serve as a warning to my neighbors in Federal Way: we can never again let companies treat our community the way Weyerhaeuser has.
Weyerhaeuser, a Fortune 500 company, has abused our community’s land at the expense of chasing greater profits and plunder. No company that genuinely cares about Federal Way would ever sell their land to Industrial Realty Group LLC, which plans to bulldoze many beautiful acres of land for the sole purpose of building five ugly warehouses.
The Weyerhaeuser campus should be a well-maintained, celebrated public park, not an open invitation for further corporate development. Weyerhaeuser has benefited from tax cuts worth hundreds of millions of dollars (2008 U.S. Farm Bill anyone?). The company even resorted to charging hunters and campers exorbitant fees for simply accessing their remote forest lands. Weyerhaeuser’s official excuse was to “prevent” excessive garbage dumping.
Really? That’s about as believable as their excuse for leaving Federal Way in the first place.
In a 2014 press release, Weyerhaeuser officials cited the campus itself – along with an apparent lack of local “talent” – as the primary factors in their decision-making process. Have these officials ever visited Highline College, Green River College, or even UW Tacoma? How about talking to the kids at Todd Beamer, Thomas Jefferson and Federal Way high schools?
I know for a fact that there are plenty of students interested in real estate, finance and forestry careers.
We as a community should never again let ourselves be disrespected in this manner. Weyerhaeuser’s abandonment of their Federal Way campus is a disgrace to our city and should be an even bigger disgrace to the company.
Even a dog can see that.
Aaron Wiesenfeld, Edgewood
