Mount Baker Station Area
What's Happening Now?
After many years of community planning, the Mount Baker Station Area is entering an exciting new chapter. The City of Seattle and Sound Transit are jointly redeveloping several parcels adjacent to the Mount Baker light rail station with affordable housing, a childcare and early learning facility, and potential open space. This transformational redevelopment opportunity fulfills longstanding City, Sound Transit, and community goals to create more affordable housing and a vibrant, pedestrian-friendly area around the light rail station.
In summer 2021, we received more than 750 responses to our Site Ideas survey. We are working with the Office of Housing to complete a full engagement summary and final report of recommendations later this year. The Office of Housing and Sound Transit are also conducting additional technical analyses of the redevelopment sites before releasing a Request for Qualifications/Request for Proposals in late 2021 or early 2022.
Read our FAQ and watch our Site Ideas presentation below to learn more.
In February, we received more than 850 responses and hundreds of comments about the redevelopment through our Goals and Priorities survey, and we've highlighted key themes in this summary.
In spring 2021, OPCD and the Seattle Department of Construction and Inspections (SDCI) posted a blog underscoring our commitment to the vision of a walkable, affordable, transit-oriented Mount Baker. This followed news of a preliminary application filed with SDCI for development of a warehouse facility in the Mount Baker Station Area.
The Mount Baker Station Area has been the focus of several important planning processes in the past 15 years. Since the completion of the Link Light Rail Station, several public and private sector development projects have been completed or are underway in the area that create an opportunity and need to create a stronger framework for intergovernmental collaboration.
For this reason, we lead a collaborative interagency team of partners focused on implementing the City's adopted plans and policies in the Mount Baker Station Area to ensure we maximize the benefits of government efforts and investments. With our partners, we guide and leverage other public and private investments to advance the community's vision of a safe, vibrant, and diverse Town Center in a cohesive, equitable, and cost-effective way.
Accessible Mount Baker
Accessible Mount Baker (AMB) outlines a bold vision to enhance safety and accessibility for everyone. It prioritizes the safety of people walking and biking through the area while enhancing transit reliability.
The Seattle Department of Transportation (SDOT) is currently working on near-term walking and biking improvements at the Rainier Ave S and Martin Luther King Jr Way intersection as part of theMLK Protected Bike Lane project. SDOT anticipates finishing design work this year and building the improvements in 2022. SDOT is also partnering with King County Metro and Sound Transit to study the feasibility of potentially relocating the Metro Transit Center closer to the light rail station. We know from previous outreach that this is a desired change and are evaluating technical details and opportunities internally. The early design for this relocation is funded and the final design and construction are currently unfunded.
Get Involved
Thank you to everyone who took our surveys and joined our in-language focus groups. We held focus groups and one-on-one conversations in Amharic, Khmer, Mandarin, Oromo, Somali, Spanish, Tigrinya, and Vietnamese. A full engagement summary will be available later this summer.
Sign up for updates about this and other Mount Baker projects.
Project Documents
- Mount Baker Station Design Guidelines (2017)
- North Rainier Urban Village Assessment (2015)
- Mount Baker Town Center Urban Design Framework (2011)
- North Rainier Neighborhood Plan Update (2010)
- North Rainier Neighborhood Action Plan (2010)
Please visit the North Rainier Urban Village page for more background information related to the project.
Project Timeline
The project will support the groundwork, agreement and partnership needed to complete design and funding for Accessible Mt Baker construction, utility strategies, open space acquisition, and overall economic development to implement community goal and priorities. The estimated timeline is five years, beginning in late 2017.