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Meeting metadata file x175934.json.
Transcript file 2025-06-23_housing_mayor-signs-legislation-to-fill-vacant-s_x175934.srt.
♪♪ ♪♪ -It's all about arts and culture, everything we do is about activation and expression and SDOT director Adiam Emery. Thank you for being here as well and your great transportation leadership, which is gotten some attention, some good attention lately. I also want to thank Lincoln Property for hosting us here today at the state of the art 225th building. This is amazing, isn't it? I'm talking about the weather by the way. This site is amazing, the architectural statements that are made, the feel of it and most importantly what we're trying to do to activate this area. And support the growing life sciences and biotechnology hub here in South Lake Union. We know that this is an incredible industry, one we do not take for advantage -- for -- take, What's the word I'm trying to find? For granted. It's been a long week so far. Creating over 25,000 jobs in the sector here in King County, Washington and just do amazing work for global health and regional health and the kinds of things they're working on. You know we get criticized from the other Washington for some of our commitments to things like equity and gender fairness, and climate change. We get attacked for our belief in science and how we are, we believe in the benefits of research grants at a time where we have to fight for this kind of commitment. And I have leaders around me that will talk more about that, but the fact is, is housing, jobs, and a diversity of small businesses are critical to our economic vitality. Critical to us being vibrant here in downtown and a little north of downtown. Downtown runs on people. On small businesses, on ideas. And our downtown activation plan, that I'm very proud of the planning that we did, but most importantly the implementation as well. And I want to thank our Office of Economic Development and that regard as well. We are making progress again to make downtown safe, thriving, vibrant, and critical neighborhood for residents, workers and visitors alike. So, the first piece of legislation we'll be signing this morning will help fill vacant storefronts by expanding ground level commercial uses. Which will in effect boost our economy and activate our streets with more people. In this particular facility, again in the biotech space, we couldn't be more excited. This will broaden the pull of tenants for ground floor spaces and allowing more entrepreneurs, and free thinkers and small business owners to call downtown Seattle home. And we actively recruit these types of tenants and we're excited about what we're seeing. New businesses will be allowed on ground floor areas. This will include medical offices, research and development, laboratories, food processing, horticultural operations, crafts, manufacturing, art installations and many more. And again I want to thank SDCI for their wisdom in thinking about how we can think outside of the box. And indeed, Chief Operating Officer Marco Lowe and his group for the housing work. The housing ideas that have come forward in this work. The second piece of legislation will extend building permits for projects previously vested under our old codes. And this will in effect allow projects to proceed without the time and cost of applying for new permits. We think this is a critical strategy, which by extending these permits, it will prevent hopefully the potential loss of 29,000 planned units of housing. Including many affordable housing units and housing projects planned for downtown. And you'll from Chris Persons later. And I want to thank Chris and his organization, Community Roots, for doing the work that they are doing. These affordable housing units and housing projects planned for downtown not only house people, which is the most important thing, they also produce about $13.4 million in sales tax and $75 million in MHA fees. So it's a win-win scenario when we're trying to do this kind of work. So we know that in a challenging economic environment right now and that's why I'm so pleased to see my department heads here. We have a One Seattle approach trying to look at our entire system and think, what makes sense as we deal with some of our fiscal challenges. So, I close by thanking Councilmember Mark Solomon for his leadership in sharing the land use committee, he's been focused on its expanding economic opportunities and creating new housing and supporting small businesses throughout the entire city. And of course he's been with the city for a while, making sure, in the public safety realm, things are going along the way, he wants to see them as a crime prevention specialist, a subject matter expert. And now he uses his expertise in other areas. And so as land use chair, council member Solomon has been strong work to get this legislation over the finish line and we look forward to continuing our with him. And I present to you Councilmember Mark Solomon. -Thank you, Mayor Harrell. [ Applause ] Good morning, everyone. Thank you for being here. I'm happy to be here with you [preview truncated]