Neighborhood grows amid pains and promise

By TERESA TALERICO
SEATTLE POST-INTELLIGENCER REPORTER

The wild blue yonder awaits.

On South Lake Union, floatplane pilot Clay Sturge is ready for it. Soon, he's foaming up the water as his plane glides across the lake for takeoff.

"Today is a pretty nice day to fly," says Sturge, a 57-year-old retired Coast Guard pilot who shuttles passengers to the San Juan Islands for Kenmore Air. "It's not a perfect day. You can't see the mountains. But this is a view most people never get to see even if they've lived here their whole lives."

"See that green house?" he asks, pointing to a dock of floating homes on Lake Union's western shore. "The brown one next to it is where they filmed 'Sleepless in Seattle.'"

Blue sky. Sparkling water. The pilot does a U-turn and heads for his home base on South Lake Union, a shoreline oasis whose surrounding neighborhood still has remnants of its gritty industrial past.

From a bird's-eye view, the neighborhood looks tranquil and pretty. On the ground, the scars of its evolution are obvious. Traffic snarls, parking nightmares, land-use squabbles -- all are juxtaposed with glitzy bars, a shipyard and low-income housing that backs up against trendy condos.

Like a restless teenager, South Lake Union is finding its identity. Growing pains, yes. Promise, certainly.

"There was nothing when I first came down here," says Jerry Brown, who runs the MV Challenger, a 1944 tugboat he converted into a bed and breakfast on the water. "The lake's dynamic. I've seen how fast things change."

Once, the lake shore was home to a sand and gravel company, a St. Vincent de Paul thrift store, a logging mill, steam plant and Boeing's turn-of-the-century plant -- its first factory.

Ships, including World War II vessels, were moored in its fresh water. Industry -- plus the grit and grime that came with it -- dominated its south shores. Access to the public, even as recently as 10 years ago, was scarce.

"It was downright frightening for a person on foot," says Dick Wagner, who runs the Center for Wooden Boats, a South Lake Union museum that rents old-fashioned boats. "You had all these big trucks rumbling around. Not to mention it was dusty and dirty."

Industry still exists. Lake Union Dry Docks, a 79-year-old ship repair company, holds forth on a 12-acre facility on the southeast shore. The company's most famous repair job? Jacques Cousteau's Calypso. The dry dock recently secured an $18 million job to repair the 382-foot Kaleetan, a Washington state ferry.

But over the past 10 years or so, South Lake Union has been prettied up.

Continued:

• Grimy industry area has undergone major facelift