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| A vacant storefront sits on the ground floor of downtown Seattle’s Alaska Building. The new owners of the 103-year-old building are planning a conversion to hotel and studio apartments that UNITE HERE Local 8 says would violate city law. Photo by Revel Nt |
Just because the Seattle City Council can’t enforce its own law doesn’t mean the hotel workers union can’t give it a try.
In November, the union took the owners of the Alaska Building to Superior Court, claiming that the group — which plans to turn the 1904 office building into a Marriott hotel — is violating a law the council passed last year requiring there be some residential units in a planned addition to the building, which stands at Second and Cherry on the outskirts of Pioneer Square.
In court papers, UNITE HERE Local 8 asserts the developers have simply pulled a fast one by putting kitchenettes in 26 of the hotel rooms and relabeling them “studios” when they will, in fact, be temporary lodging.
Kauri Investments, one of the developers converting the 15-floor building to a hotel, dismisses the claim, saying it’s all sour grapes on the part of the union, which is fighting to keep a non-union hotel out of downtown.
The battle goes back to Spring of last year, when Kauri and partner Ariel Development proposed putting a Marriott Courtyard at the site.
The partners bought the building from the city in 2005 for $8.5 million and, last month, sold it for nearly $39 million to SoDo real estate mogul Henry Liebman. In their original letter of intent to the city, says Kauri chief executive Kent Angier, who remains part of the ownership group, the partners noted that they planned retail, offices, and market-rate housing at the Alaska.
City councilmembers say they parted with the building for up to $1 million less than it was worth to ensure some housing at the site, and put eyes on Pioneer Square streets that are largely vacant at night. Angier, however, says that was not stipulated in the sale agreement and, when the idea of converting the Alaska to a hotel came along, it seemed to be a win-win for everyone.
Except for UNITE HERE. When the developers came to the city last year asking for a height increase to add 14 new floors on the back of the building, the union led a coalition of groups that lobbied the council for housing. In an ordinance passed in July, the council required floors 9 through 15 of the addition — those above Pioneer Square’s current height limit of 100 feet — had to be residences.
What’s at stake in the union’s legal challenge — formally known as a land use petition — is the definition of a residence.
After passage of the ordinance, Kauri’s Kent Angier says, the developers redrew their plans to include kitchenettes in 26 of the rooms in the new wing, with the city’s Department of Planning and Development issuing a master use permit for the project in September.
The union challenged the permit before a city hearing examiner, but lost: The hearing examiner said, in part, that she had no jurisdiction. Besides the developers, DPD defended the permit, citing the kitchenettes as a distinguishing feature of a residence. Any future enforcement, the department says, will have to wait until the hotel actually opens.
“With the food preparation area, we feel there’s enough there to call it dwelling units as opposed to lodging,” says Alan Justad, a spokesperson for the planning department.
The union has appealed the ruling in court, with a preliminary hearing set Feb. 22, Moritz says, because it doesn’t want to see the Alaska Building’s owners get away with a City Council end-run that could set a bad example.
“We want to make sure this doesn’t get swept under the rug,” he says. “If there’s a way around such council decisions, in our opinion, that’s a problem for future development projects.”
Angier says all the details of how the 26 residences will be separate from the hotel haven’t been worked out. But, likely, the tenants will pay 618 Second Avenue Limited Partners, the building’s new ownership group.
The idea that the studios will be hotel rooms “is a ridiculous argument on the face of it,” he says. This isn’t about housing, he adds, “it’s about non-union versus union. Frankly, the union is the only one that doesn’t want to see this happen.” |
