Group wants state Supreme Court to weigh in on isthmus building's future
A group fighting to stop a controversial building project in downtown Olympia wants the Washington Supreme Court to take up the case.
A developer is turning the long-vacant Capitol Center Building on Fifth Avenue Southwest into a mixed-use building with apartments, retail space and a ground-floor restaurant. The city’s hearing examiner signed off on the project, called Views on Fifth, earlier this year.
The group — which includes former Washington governors, a former secretary of state, a former state senator and a former Olympia mayor — filed a land use petition challenging that decision. Thurston County Superior Court Judge Carol Murphy ruled last month they were not "aggrieved or adversely affected by the land use decision" and did not have standing to appeal it.
In a notice of appeal filed Thursday, the group asked the Washington Supreme Court to review Murphy's decision to dismiss its petition.
“Unfortunately she took an extremely narrow view of the standing provision under the Land Use Petition Act,” said Allen Miller, the Olympia lawyer representing the group, which has raised environmental concerns and argued the renovation would mar the view of Puget Sound from the Capitol Campus.
Miller said the group wants to go straight to the Supreme Court given the “statewide importance” of the campus view.
The legal challenge has not stopped construction from moving forward. In recent weeks, crews stripped the nine-story tower of its exterior, leaving the steel frame, elevator shaft and stairs.
“It’s going to look the way it looks for a while as they start to fill in the infrastructure,” said Troy Nichols, a spokesman for Views on Fifth.
Crews also have started work on the foundation for two smaller buildings that will go next to the tower.
Construction is scheduled to be done in summer 2019. Nichols said the landlord will look to start lining up residential and commercial occupants this fall.
This story was originally published July 6, 2018 at 6:15 PM.