Nordstrom Deal Update
by Free Press Staff
The Seattle Displacement Coalition, an activist group for the homeless filed a complaint with HUD Inspector General Susan Gaffney on November 13. The complaint asks Gaffney to investigate allegations that Seattle Mayor Norm Rice and city councilmember Martha Choe intentionally falsified facts in order to characterize Seattle's premier downtown retail shopping core as a "slum," and thereby qualify the area for federal HUD loans.
The complaint asserts that the purpose of the HUD financing was to save the developers, Pine Street Associates, nearly $6 million in interest over a conventional loan for the renovation of the vacant Frederick & Nelson building, which is planned to become Nordstrom's downtown flagship store. A similar deal involving Nordstrom is being challenged in court in Spokane
Claiming that crime more than doubled in a two-year period when Frederick & Nelson was closed, the city now admits the increase was false. Jordan Brower, fiscal watchdog and longtime opponent of the Nordstrom/HUD deal states, "What Mayor Rice did is no laughing matter. The city purposefully misled HUD by claiming that downtown's premier retail core was a slum."
Contact phone numbers:
Seattle Displacement Coalition (206) 523-2569
Mayor Norm Rice (206) 684-4000
Councilmember Martha Choe (206) 684-8802
Nordstrom in Seattle (206) 628-2111.
Please see related corporate welfare stories:
Rice Subject of HUD Investigation
Seattle's Downtown Boom
Managed Care: Less Care, More Profits
Corporate Welfare Resources on the 'Net
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Contents on this page were published in the January/February, 1997 edition of the Washington Free
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