Big retail, housing project slated for old Boeing site in Renton

A Dallas-based development company yesterday unveiled plans for a $390 million, 68-acre shopping and residential project in Renton that will be one of the biggest in the Seattle area in recent years.

Harvest Partners says it will start construction in the spring on former Boeing land near the southern tip of Lake Washington. The project, called the Landing, includes:

• About 800,000 square feet of retail space, the area's largest shopping-center development since Redmond Town Center was built in the mid-1990s.

• About 900 housing units, a mixture of condos and apartments, one of the area's largest housing developments.

• A 140-room hotel, cinema and restaurant complex next to the housing development.

The project, slated to open in late 2007, has been in the works since 2002. That's when Boeing, which manufactures its 737 jetliner in Renton, decided to sell much of its surplus property there.

The company worked with the city to come up with a development plan, then early last year asked for proposals from developers, essentially putting the pre-planned project out for bids.

Last December, Boeing sold most of the land needed for the development — 46 acres — for $37.8 million to Chicago-based Transwestern Investment, which chose Harvest to develop the property.

"This [site] is like a little gem sitting between Bellevue and Tukwila," said Bob Baker, the Harvest partner overseeing the project.

Baker said former industrial land in large population areas has grown more popular with developers around the country as suburban land has become scarcer.

About 220,000 people live and 90,000 people work within five miles of the Renton site, he said.

The project reflects the current rage for outdoor plaza-style shopping exemplified by Seattle's University Village, and also the desire for developers and cities to mix together different kinds of development.

A quarter-century ago, Baker said, a site of this size might have become a mall, with shops and anchor stores in the center, surrounded by parking lots.

Instead, the Landing is to have a large apartment-condo complex at its northeast corner, and a theater-restaurant complex with small retail shops beside it.

To the south will be strips of big-box-style retail stores, but with a mix that would have been unlikely a few years ago.

For example, developers hope to attract a home-improvement warehouse to locate next to a string of clothing stores, and a midsize grocery is envisioned a couple of doors from an anchor department store.

"Ten years ago you wouldn't say, 'Let's put Target and Nordstrom next to each other in a shopping center,' but now it's being done all the time," Baker said.

"The way people shop has changed," he said

Tom Boyer: 206-464-2923 or tboyer@seattletimes.com