North East Redevelopment Area groundbreaking in Burien, 6 June 2017.[/caption]

Photos courtesy Don Wilson/Port of Seattle.

The Port of Seattle, the City of Burien, and Panattoni Development broke ground Tuesday (June 6) on a 26.2 acre site which will house two Class “A” industrial warehouses, totaling 458,500 square feet. Both buildings are scheduled to be completed in early 2018. The master planned area in the City of Burien is known as the Northeast Redevelopment Area (NERA), and will anchor 600 to 800 jobs in the next three years. The companies co-locating on site will be involved in storage, processing, airport services and logistics related to aviation, among others. “The Port of Seattle is thrilled to work with the City of Burien and Panattoni Development to bring family wage jobs to southwest King County,” said Port of Seattle Commissioner John Creighton. “Redeveloping this property brings economic development and tax revenue to Burien, and advances the Port’s goal to increase air cargo business and jobs as part of our Century Agenda.” “This project is a great public to private partnership revitalizing unused land with excellent cooperation among the Port of Seattle and City of Burien,” said Bart Brynestad, Partner with Panattoni’s Seattle office. “Panattoni and our partner MetLife are looking forward to working with the Port of Seattle and City of Burien on this exciting endeavor.” “The redevelopment of NERA is an example of how successful public-private partnerships can bring more jobs to Burien,” said Burien Mayor Lucy Krakowiak. “This site, along with our new cold storage facility, is key to diversifying our business base and will be part of an important job center in our community.” The Port’s agreement with Panattoni Development includes a 55-year initial term plus two 10- year extensions, for a 75 year total, with an initial annual rent of just over $1M, with a provision base rent increases every 5 years as well as Fair Market Valuations (FMV) every 10 years starting in 2021. In the ground lease, Panattoni has also agreed to provide prevailing wages and apprenticeship utilization during the construction. The Seattle Gateway Center #1 site will preserve and restore 1.87 acres of degraded wetland and wetland buffer. These areas will be restored to improve ecological functions and values and will be protected with a conservation easement. Invasive shrubs such as Himalayan blackberry, Scotch broom, holly, and English ivy will be removed and native trees, shrubs, and groundcover will be installed to create a diverse vegetation community. Salvaged logs will also be placed in the buffer to enhance wildlife habitat. In addition to the preservation and restoration of the wetlands, the project will also be retaining 8.4% of its existing significant trees. Our future plantings will include 281 deciduous trees and 196 Evergreen Trees. Native trees such as Serviceberry, Alaska Cedar, Western Red Cedar, Black Austrian Pine and ornamental trees such as Flowering Pear, Incense Cedar, Autumn Blaze Maple, and Zelkova will be incorporated into our design. Both sites will pursue LEED v4 certification. Sustainable site measures will stress stormwater management through direct infiltration and regional water facility filtration; a cool roof and concrete truck apron to reduce heat build up, and exterior lighting selected to enhance safety while shielding the night sky from glare and uplighting. Outdoor water use will be minimized through drip irrigation systems and drought-tolerant plantings, while indoor water fixtures will be very low flow. High-efficiency exhaust fans and gas fired heaters along with LED lighting equipped with daylight and occupancy sensors will optimize core energy performance year after year. Building materials used will be low-emitting and free of lead, cadmium, and mercury. Construction waste diversion will be maximized throughout construction with on-site source separation of waste streams.]]>

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24 replies on “Ground broken on new facility in Burien's NERA Tuesday; 600-800 jobs coming”

  1. Nice form with the shovels…for apparent first time users…also good effort with the hard hats….ditto, and useless there….but cute….
    But great to see some progress with industrial property use and economic development, finally….let’s hope the region gets the right result…..

  2. That’s all well and good. But I live 4 houses away from this and it is making my life miserable.

  3. This is great news for our city and has been a long time in the making with the development of NERA, so happy to see it finally coming to fruition. Gordon Shaw, look it’s finally happening 🙂

    1. PJ One wonders if you would be so happy if this was happening on your block? For those of us who are watching the dismantling of our once quiet, family friendly neighborhood it’s not looking so good. We still get to pay the higher taxes, while all of this NERA and the expanded airport have made our property less desirable and thus less valuable. This new so called ‘light industrial park’ gets anything they want, storm water treatment, new water and sewer lines, sidewalks and street improvements and lighting, while we long time tax payers in this same area get none of these improvements. The airport made us give-up our schools, local businesses and neighbors just so they could build airport related industry. And Burien has never taken our side against all of this shameful action by the Port. But instead are only too willing to sing the song of ‘more jobs, nature walks, etc.’ PHOOEY! It’s a load of you know what and we are being treated like pawns on a chess board.

      1. The 777 mini mart and Sunnydale saloon are really all anyone needs to be happy. Smokes, chips and a cold one make Merica great

      2. Clean it up if you can provide enough information to the city that they deem your street needing sidewalks. Then maybe you can get them. But there is a difference in thinking something is needed and something actually being needed.
        Like take in point a park is going to have a lot of foot traffic in the day time and early evening. So the need for sidewalks and lights are needed.
        A street that might not get as much foot traffic may still lighting at night but sidewalks might not be needed. It would be nice to have but in a buget that is usually looking for cost saving cuts. A unneeded sidewalk would be first to go. Especially if say law enforcement needs better armor or fire power.

  4. Yeah it’s great for Buriens economy, but what about the homeowners that weren’t bought out by the Port and now have to live right next door to a huge warehouse that will have trucks coming & going at all hours.
    Its disgraceful that the port would only buy out half the residential block and not the other half. Now you have a residential neighborhood butting right up to a large industrial complex. Shame on the corrupt Port of Seattle.

    1. Oh yeah those trucks that will be coming and going out of east towards Des Moines Memorial and a way from homes.
      Seems as if the ports does anything someone finds a problem. They bought too many they didn’t buy enough. Oh no there building on land to make more money for a city that needs more money.

    2. If you look on the semi “no pun intended” bright side, the slated development is for warehousing with associated traffic and not true industrial usage. I’ll take a freight truck over a caustic plastic factory, and BTW I live locally so I’m affected as well.

    3. The homes purchased since the start of the SeaTac noise mitigating process were within a decibel rating justifying such action. Didn’t make the cut, consider yourself lucky you weren’t forced out of your home. Pick your battles, overhead or rolling by both have their own demons.

  5. Burien needs more of this and they should zone more of Memorial Drive to industrial to allow this happen. We finally can take advantage of the close proximity to the airport instead of only the negative noise and pollution impact.

  6. I wonder how many of those trucks are going to disregard the weight limit and just go up 146th to and from the 509?

    1. The possible fines and steeper hill to go up would be a good reason not to take that way.
      But then again you can look at negative things that could happen. Then the actual facts of road conditions and professional truck driver’s that can lose a class c driver qualification for such behavior. That could cost them there employment and way of life. So yes it is possible it could happen. That’s on the driver and not the company or even the port.

    2. Very important point Shelly. I wonder the same thing and if the truck drivers will stop at the crosswalk at the top of the hill when families and kids are coming and going from Matthison Park. Those drivers (and the city of Burien) will certainly become aware of why there are weight restrictions on 146th, if and when we have a significantly freezing winter. To a certain extent, this is also true of the hills and dales of the oft neglected 8th Ave. S.
      For those who believe all traffic will only be to the east of the industrial park, they are not members of the neighborhood, who know differently. Any significant challenge to daily traffic on main thoroughfares has drivers seeking any and all alternative routes. We are not only talking about trucks but also about employees coming and going, for around-the-clock shifts.

      1. If you remember ? the entire area around there had 1000 homes with employee’s in each of them going to and from work 24/7 as well, so it will be the same but different.

    3. Also why would they take 509 if there going to the airport 518 is right next to Des Moines Memorial. Then there is also 156th if they missed 518. There going back and forth from airport to the warehouse. I don’t see any need for them to take 146th also isn’t the exit on the current building heading on to Des Moines Memorial.
      Interesting your​ calling it The 509 it’s just 509 your not in California.

      1. Shipping containers come from the waterfront and the rail yard in Sodo.
        What’s the quickest route to/from Sodo?
        Pretty obvious to me.

        1. I believe these warehouses are going to be more for ready to eat food services. Like airline food and food for restaurants in the airport .The majority of the items from sodo and the water front are more grocery store and electronic items.
          A lot of the ready to eat items like airline and restaurant food comes​ from Kent and south end of Tukwila.

  7. There were 3 coyotes sighted today in someone’s yard on Des Moines Memorial Dr. We just saw 6 or 7 animals that looked like huge racoon’s but they had short tails. Don’t even know what they were. They were running through yards, climbing fences, running down the street making weird noises. It was pretty unnerving.
    The wooded areas that are being cleared have been homes to these animals for years and now they are all scattering everywhere. Better keep your cats and little kids in the house. There isn’t anyone in King County that will do anything about wild animals running around your yard. I am sure the situation will get worse as more woods are cleared.

    1. If you do a search for coyotes on this blog they have been around for year’s. As for king county they won’t do anything about any animal in burien because we have are own animal control in burien. Just a few weeks back we had to call cares for a injured raccoon and of course they came out search for it. But unfortunately could not find it. Nice people to for all the people that complain about them. It was are first contact with them outside of a visit to there old location a few years ago to find how to donate a cat a roommate left behind. It took them a little while to come out and look they had other animals to deal with but they called a couple of times to keep us updated and ask for updates on if the raccoon was still around.
      Here is a link to some information on living with wildlife http://wdfw.wa.gov/living/nuisance/

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