It turned out to be a bad news day on Wednesday for the city of Kent when Des Moines received the lease to land the new Federal Aviation Administration’s (FAA) Northwest Mountain Region offices.
“Of course I’m disappointed,” Kent Mayor Suzette Cooke said in a prepared statement. “The opportunity to bring such a high-caliber, stable employer to our city would have been a game changer for our local economy.”
The U.S. General Services Administration (GSA) on Wednesday issued a notice of intent to award a lease to the Des Moines Creek Business Park Phase II and Panattoni Development Co., Inc., for a new facility at the corner of South 216th Street and 24th Avenue South, according to a media release from Sally Mayberry, GSA regional public affairs officer.
GSA initially announced a March 30 date for a decision to pick a site for a 300,000-square-foot facility to handle about 1,600 employees. Kent wanted the regional office facility to be built where the city-owned Riverbend Golf Complex’s par 3 course now sits.
The Kent City Council voted 5-1 in January to approve the conditional sale of the 18.5-acre site for $10 million to a partnership led by the Texas-based Trammell Crow Company, one of the nation’s leading commercial real estate developers and investors. The city wants to sell the property to eliminate debt at the golf complex and to fund capital improvements at the 18-hole course.
“I’m very proud of our team and our efforts,” Cooke said. “Between the developer, the City Council and staff, we put together a very strong proposal as evidenced by the fact we were named a finalist in what was a highly competitive process. I offer my congratulations to the city of Des Moines.
“With this decision behind us, we now turn our attention to marketing the par 3 property for a high quality development at this marquee, gateway site.”
The par 3 course remains open.
The FAA occupies about 360,000-square-feet in several different leased locations in Renton but wanted one site for all of its employees. Renton city officials put in a bid to keep the FAA in town. The new offices are scheduled to open in August 2017.
“The intended awardee met the requirements of the request for lease proposals and providing the best overall value to the taxpayers,” according to the GSA. “GSA is working to finalize the contract as soon as possible. Once the lease is signed it will allow the agency to consolidate its workforce in the Northwest Mountain Region in one facility to better deliver their mission to provide the safest, most efficient aerospace system in the world.”
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