Spotlighted at the 2025 Renton State of the City address, the plan for development at the Rainier Avenue/Grady Way junction will create a “more urban environment” near the future Sound Transit center.

“In 2025, we’ll begin implementing the Rainier Avenue Grady Way Junction Transit Oriented Development Plan,” Mayor Armondo Pavone said at the address last month. “This project is designed to guide future growth and create a holistic approach for people-oriented neighborhoods.”

The Rainier/Grady development plan was adopted by the city of Renton in November 2021. Renton redevelopment manager Paul Hintz said work on the plan started in 2019 after Sound Transit decided to build a new transit center at the intersection of Rainier and Grady.

“It left us with a decision about how to manage that area for future growth, because obviously, when you have an investment like that, it’s going to carry interest from the community to take advantage of it,” Hintz said.

Hintz said more residential development is key to their plan, along with commercial development, to help meet the needs of the new residents.

“It’s important that people live within walking distance to mass transit like this in order to take advantage of it and not need a car,” Hintz said. “Hopefully a lot of ground floor establishments within residential buildings that offer services, entertainment, recreation, dining experiences, things of that nature, a more urban environment than [what] we’ve seen before in Renton.”

Hintz said designing transit-oriented development means to design the built environment in a way that makes it more conductive to other modes of transportation, such as biking or walking.

“So in addition to having many routes for people to get to and from, streets will be designed differently. Streets will have more focus on accommodating pedestrians and bicyclists than they do accommodating cars like in most streets,” Hintz said. “So imagine wider sidewalks, more robust landscaping areas, protecting bike lanes, things of this nature.”

Another way Hintz said they can make the area more pedestrian friendly is to add block connections so people can cross the street in a pedestrian crossing in the middle of a block instead of walking down to an intersection.

The plan also recommended the creation of a Planned Action Environmental Impact Statement (EIS). The city won a grant from the Washington State Department of Commerce for the maximum amount of $250,000 to complete an EIS for the plan.

“A Planned Action EIS is a technical document that analyzes the likely impacts on infrastructure, city services, and the built environment across a large area based on three different growth scenarios. Once the desired growth scenario is identified, requirements of developers called ‘mitigation measures’ are identified in response to the likely impacts so developers know what will be required if they develop in the area,” Hintz said. “Implementing the document expedites the development review process and reduces soft costs associated with land development.”

After the completion of the EIS last spring, Hintz said the city started developing a new zoning overlay to provide increased development capacity for the area.

Hintz said soon after the plan was adopted, the city made the entire subarea eligible for the multifamily tax exemption program in order to entice new larger developments to the area.

“That’s a common tool that cities use to allow exemption of property taxes for a specified time frame based on the development of residential units,” Hintz said. “This is a tool that helps to bring about the creation of affordable housing and market rate housing. It creates a financial incentive for developers to come build in this area, because they get to enjoy that tax exemption for a number of years.”

Hintz said they haven’t seen any new developments come to the area yet, but the plan is still in the early stages.

“Basically, we’re looking at 20 years in the future to realize this vision,” Hintz said. “But this was just adopted last year, so we haven’t seen any action yet, and I wouldn’t expect any action yet, to be frank.”

Hintz said others examples for planned action in Renton include a plan for South Lake Washington Boulevard, which developed the Landing and surrounding developments, and the Sunset Area, which has transformed over the past 15 years.

Hintz said the future Renton Transit Center is expected to be completed in 2028.

The full Rainier/Grady Junction TOD Subarea Plan can be found on the city of Renton’s website here.