• 2005-06-15 00:00

    Port, Des Moines work together on business park plan

    tIe and the city of Des Moines formerly bitter adversaries in the third-runway fight – now are working together and may hire a developer to build a 75-acre business park south of Sea.Tac Airport. Yesterday the port Commission approved the first in a series of agreements that could lead to building the park for indus- trial and other uses. That vote followed a similar one Thursday by the City Council. Both were unanimous. “It is a new dax” said Diane Summerhays, the port’s director of Aviation Community Develop- ment. “It’s a pretty big deal for that city and it’s a huge deal for the relationship” between the port and Des Moines. The J,eite stretches northwest from{he intersection of 24th Ave- nue S6uth and South 216th Street. It was a residential neighborhood until the late 1980s when port offi- cials, who operate Sea-Tac, began buying and removing homes in the flight path as part of a noise mitigation program. Several years later the port and J' / /R city sought to develop a techno[ ogy campus on the property But that proposal noundered in part because the two sides were locked in a protracted legal fight over the port’s plans to build the third runway Last summer. Des Moines and other airport-area cities dropped their lawsuits to block construc- tion of the runway which began an era of cooperation. Now Des Moines and the port plan to hire a consultant to write a conceptual master plan for Des Moines Creek Business…