Kent city leaders and staff have found a developer to purchase its Naden Avenue property with plans to build a manufacturing campus.
Mortenson, based in Minneapolis, Minnesota, has agreed to purchase the 7.7-acre vacant property that sits north of Willis Street (aka State Route 516), south of West Meeker Street, east of State Route 167 and west of the Interurban Trail, said Bill Ellis, city chief economic development officer, in a Jan. 21 phone interview. Ellis declined to reveal the sale price.
Ellis told the City Council during its Jan. 20 meeting that a group of elected officials and staff had selected one of the three proposals presented by developers. More details will be released at the Feb. 3 council meeting when the full council will vote on the purchase and sale agreement, Ellis said.
Mortenson is a major builder, developer and engineering firm with offices in 12 cities, including Seattle. The company is well known for building stadiums and arenas, including Climate Pledge Arena in Seattle and the future Las Vegas Athletics baseball stadium. But it also builds industrial and manufacturing facilities.
“The market is still not in a speculative place, but the site fundamentally has always had certain attributes that lent itself to build a manufacturing campus,” Ellis said to the council. “It has massive power, big power substation. You can, if you drove by today, you’ll see PSE (Puget Sound Energy) work crews upgrading that substation.
“It has easy access to two state highways. It has big transmission lines. Along the western edge of it, there’s a King County sewer main. Generally, that’s negative because you can’t build on it. But if you have a manufacturer, waste water right into main hub of of a sewer line is actually not such a bad thing. It’s actually a positive.”
The roundabout built at Fourth Avenue South and Willis Street, and the improvements to the intersection of Willis Street and 74th Avenue South were each done by the city to make the property more attractive to a developer with better traffic flow and access.
Mayor Dana Ralph, City Council members Bill Boyce, Toni Troutner and Marli Larimer joined city staff on a panel to chose one of the three proposals submitted last year, Ellis said.
“We discussed with many potential developers and investors but three responded and we interviewed them and we’ve made a selection,” Ellis said to the council.
The Kent Reporter reached out to Mortenson for comment but has not heard back.
Ellis during his report to the council said the Naden property could be a great attraction to an aerospace company. The city already is home to Blue Origin, the aerospace company owned by Amazon founder Jeff Bezos.
“We’re looking to increase the amount of economic activity in our downtown,” Ellis said. “Aerospace manufacturing is the high value industry in our backyard. We have the most chance of recruiting at this location and for benefit to our city and to our tax base.”
Ellis said a manufacturing business would bring in a lot of employees and those workers would lead to more indirect jobs as they spend their money in the area.
If the council approves the purchase and sale agreement next month, it will finally mark what appears to be a strong path to developing the property.
Previous plans for the property didn’t pan out, including when the city began to purchase the Naden properties in 2002 with plans for an aquatic center. City leaders later abandoned that plan because of the high costs and eventually agreed to partner with the YMCA to build a fitness facility and pool on the East Hill that opened in 2019. The city spent $11 million to help build the YMCA.
The decision to not build an aquatic center led the council to try to sell the property to a developer, including a zoning change in 2019 to allow manufacturing uses.
A proposal by a developer to build a hotel on a portion of the property fell through in 2020, partly because of COVID-19 and a pause on new developments.
The city put out a request for qualifications in 2021 to developers and appeared to have a deal with Seattle-based Avenue 55 to build a technology center that would house numerous businesses. But negotiations ended in 2023 between the city and Avenue 55.
City staff then released a request for proposals in May 2025 from developers that led to the latest plan by Mortenson.
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