Vulcan Mind Meld

ON JULY 29, IT RAINED money on Dexter Avenue North. That night, there was a fund-raiser spearheaded by Vulcan, the real-estate and investment company owned by billionaire Paul Allen, at a Vulcan-owned office building. The beneficiaries were Seattle City Council members Jim Compton, Margaret Pageler, and Heidi Wills, who together received at least $28,930 in donationsa staggering sum for a single event for city races. In one evening, the council members raised 6 percent of the total contributions they have received in the past four years. Vulcan and its allies say the event was an outpouring of broad-based community support for some of Seattle's finest leaders. Critics see the fund-raiser as one part of an overwhelming lobbying effort by a fantastically wealthy corporation that threatens to turn Seattle City Hall into a wholly owned subsidiary.

City Council members say Vulcan has launched an extensive lobbying effort, especially in promoting development of the South Lake Union neighborhood. It involves six Vulcan employees and contractors and an alliance of powerful business interests, large nonprofit institutions, and a host of smaller community partners. Notes council member Compton: "Vulcan is all over the place."

Vulcan spokesperson Michael Nank downplays the company's role in orchestrating a multi-issue lobbying effort. "It's community, it's grassroots. There's a lot of supporters [for changes] in South Lake Union."

The Seattle Displacement Coalition's John Fox, a low-income-housing advocate, thinks Vulcan is running the show. Vulcan's lobbying campaign "is the most sophisticated we've dealt with in terms of the staff assembled and the resources available" over the 25-year history of the coalition, says Fox. "The double whammy, the full-court press, comes when you combine [lobbying] with the [campaign] cash."

FROM ALL REPORTS, Paul Allen is a quirky guy. Co-founder of Microsoft with Bill Gates, Allen is the fourth-richest man in the world, with a net worth of more than $20 billion, according to Forbes magazine. The holdings of Vulcan reflect his varied interests: the Seattle Seahawks, the Portland Trail Blazers, the Experience Music Project (EMP) museum at Seattle Center, the Cinerama movie theater, and nearly 50 acres of real estate in the area south of Lake Union. Allen began acquiring land in the area as philanthropy to help an effort to develop a large park in the area around Westlake Avenue Norththe so-called Seattle Commons project. If the voters approved the park, Allen would donate the land. But the Seattle electorate twice refused to fund the big park, so Allen began to develop his holdings on his own.

Today, Vulcan wants to transform the neighborhood from a sparse collection of cheap housing, light industry, retail businesses, and office buildings into Belltown on steroids. Vulcan's Web site explains a vision of South Lake Union as "a new kind of urban community that offers 24-hour opportunities for living, working, learning, and recreationwhile helping to curtail urban sprawl." Vulcan hopes the employment engine for the area will be biotechnology, and the company plans to develop 10 million square feet of space to make the place run around the clock.

To realize this vision, Vulcan wants the support of the taxpayers. The corporation is actively lobbying for more than $550 million of public investment in the area. The proposed projects include a new Seattle City Light substation and other electrical improvements; a 2.5-mile streetcar linking South Lake Union with the downtown shopping district; transportation improvements to streets, including fixing the "Mercer Mess" of traffic snarls between Interstate 5 and Seattle Center; and the development of South Lake Union Seaport Park. Vulcan's City Hall agenda also includes things that are harder to price, like extensive zoning changes to support biotechnology and a preferred alignment for the new monorail that would cut through Seattle Center on its way toand throughEMP.

MAYOR GREG NICKELS has wholeheartedly embraced Vulcan's vision. There appears to be no dissonance between Seattle's most powerful elected official and the city's richest landholder.

Members of the City Council are divided on South Lake Union development in general and especially on the particular projects. Council member Pageler sees Vulcan's plans for South Lake Union as a major business opportunity. She compares it to the mid-1990s redevelopment of the downtown core, which involved Nordstrom, the Pacific Place shopping mall and garage, and Westlake Park. In the 1990s, she recalls, "The big guns came together. A lot of [the plans] were strong-armed by Nordstrom. I don't think any of [the council members] agreed with all of it, but the outcome was a benefit to allour tax coffers, people who live downtown, and people who shop downtown."

Council member Wills puts a different spin on today's plans. She thinks Vulcan wants to build a kind of corporate ecotopiaa neighborhood that combines employment, residence, and environmental stewardship. "We need to embrace the opportunity to support new jobs with housing, transportation, open space, and parks. The next stage is creating a more sustainable city." Council members Jim Compton and Jan Drago also are generally supportive of the Vulcan vision.

City Council member Nick Licata is skeptical. He thinks the corporation wants to get huge public subsidies to improve the value of its $200 million investment in South Lake Union real estate. He characterizes the push as "a classic land-deal game plan. [Vulcan] has to get the politicians to agree to these changes so it can sell the land."