MAYBVM

188 189 planned as a consequence of the 28th/24th Avenue Extension,will be a 460,000-square-foot industrial building in the Des Moines Creek North Business Park that is being constructed byTrammel Crow-a project that will create approximately 400 new, permanent jobs.The building is a result of an overall development strategy that, according to Robinson,“has and will continue to play a huge role in the eco- nomic health of the city.” Economic vitality in SeaTac also means maintaining a large portfo- lio of lodging options.“We’re a 24-hour city,”Scorcio states.“We have a tremendous amount of hotels in the city.We are in the process right now of adding around fourteen hundred hotel rooms in the city, which will bring the total to approximately six thousand.” Another large project soon to break ground is a new addition to the corporate headquarters of Alaska Airlines,which already calls SeaTac its home. Construction for a new campus, to be called Copper River, will begin this summer on property recently bought by the airline. The project will include the redevelopment of an old hotel and THE CITY OF SEATAC apartment site. Because SeaTac has little room for expansion, and is surrounded by other jurisdictions,much of its growth and expansion is, necessarily, infill. “What little parcels there are, are acres–not hundreds of acres,”Scorcio explains.“So,we do not have a comprehensive growth plan in that sense; we have a redevelopment plan for the city.Virtually everything that occurs in the city means something else being torn down and something new is built in its place–which, for a suburban city is another thing that makes us unique.Normally, only a big central city gets to that point,while suburban cities get to stretch and grow.We’re redeveloping within our foot- print.” While the state of Washington does not give its cities much opportunity to offer incentives to developers, Robinson believes that SeaTac still has some built-in advantages that are attractive to developers.“One of the benefits of doing business here in SeaTac is that we don’t have any local business and occupation tax,” he explains.“We have no utility tax.We have a business license fee based on the number of employees, but not taxes per employee.We’re a low-tax city and I think that helps bring people into town to do business.” While the state of Wash- ington does not give its cities much opportunity to offer incentives to developers, Robinson believes that SeaTac still has some built-in advan- tages that are attractive to developers.