‘The right thing to do’

Mike McGinn, who served as Seattle mayor from 2010 to 2014, remembers when times weren’t as bustling in Seattle, when cranes didn’t cram the skyline, and when construction trade unemployment hovered around 30 percent during the recession.

Then the call came. It was from a real estate developer who had just entered into an option agreement with Amazon to expand in the city’s core.

“Awesome,” Mr. McGinn replied.

At the time, it seemed like a godsend — particularly since most other major employers in the region, from Microsoft to Boeing, were located in the suburbs.

“From my perspective as an environmentalist and a mayor, this is good. We want our jobs in our core areas, which can be well-served by transit and services. That was theright thing to do,” he said.

Mr. McGinn has no regrets.

“I think the challenge is how do we respond to having jobs. Because the alternative — I know what it was like to be mayor when we had high unemployment. That is not a good alternative,” he said.

Mike McQuaid, a fourthgeneration Seattleite employed for three years by Amazon about a decade ago, said the company “has opened up ourdoors to the world.”

A former president of the South Lake Union CommunityCouncil who’s still active with the organization, Mr. McQuaid said some people hold a warped, romanticized view of what the neighborhoodwas before Amazon.

Back then, about the only draws were a U.S. Naval Reserve, a Denny’s restaurant, an athletic supply store and “plenty of illicit reasons,” said Mr. McQuaid, who owns a public affairs consulting firm.

“It was a remnant of the laundry industry that served the maritime trades in and around Lake Union, which was a working lake. When that industry went into decline, this really was an afterthought of Seattle,” he said.

Of the 33 buildings on its campus, Amazon owns half and leases the rest. One is named Rufus after the first dog to come to work at Amazon. Another is called Wainwright, a tribute to the online retailer’s first customer.

The 36-story Day 1 headquarters, opened last year, is a model of sustainability, from its fourth-floor outdoor plaza with plants and a grill for barbecuing to its small dog park outside the front doors, even down to its Jetsons-looking phone booths — yes, phone booths —for smartphone users who want a little privacy.

Next to it, the sci-fi-looking Spheres are under construction. The glass domes, to open next year, will be filled with green walls, lush vegetation from around the world, and a waterfall, providing Amazon employees with a place to relax.

Between people and dogs, South Lake Union brims with activity. Apartment buildings, a Whole Foods grocery, restaurants, coffee shops, a furniture store and other retailers feed the crowd. Even Microsoft, whose headquarters is in Redmond about 16 miles from Seattle, has opened an office in the neighborhood, as have other tech companies drawn by Amazon.

The old warehouse and laundry district has given way to a multicultural neighborhood where Mr. McQuaid mused that he can walk several blocks and hear four different languages.

“It’s really helped make this what I call — I’ll preface it with a careful perhaps — perhaps this is the most significant urban revitalization in America today,” he said.

“It’s really put Seattle on the global map in a way we haven’t seen since Boeing ramped up during the war years and since the world’s fair came to Seattle in 1962. And there are some challenges with that. But they are notbad challenges to have.”

Shelters and job training

Amazon has its own scorecard for measuring its impact on Seattle.

The company states it has invested $3.7 billion in buildings and infrastructure, paid $43 million into the city’s public transportation system through worker transportation benefits, created an additional 53,000 jobs as a result of direct investments, and helped to spur another $38 billion in investment in the local economy.

The number of Fortune 500 companies with engineering/research and development centers in Seattle has increased from seven in 2010, when Amazon moved into downtown, to 31 today.

By Amazon’s count, its properties house 24 restaurants or cafes and eight other services.

Among those who have benefited is Elise Vincentini, owner of Downtown Dog Lounge, a 15,000-squarefoot day care, boarding, training and grooming business in the heart of Amazon’s campus.

Ms. Vincentini opened the location a year and a half ago after caring for the dogs of Amazon executives at her other store. For $47 a day, employees can board their dogs. She also provides training to help pets adjust to the office environment and sponsors events like Barktoberfest, which features a canine costumecontest.

“It’s a solid business,” she said.

Amazon is donating 47,000 square feet in a new office complex now under construction adjacent to its Day 1 headquarters to Mary’s Place, a nonprofit emergency shelter provider for people in need.

The space will be enough to house more than 200 people in 65 rooms. It will replace space in an old motel owned by Amazon that Mary’s Place had been using as a shelter. That was demolished to make way for the complex, and the shelter temporarily occupies another building ownedby the company.

Amazon also has donated 25,000 square feet, enough for five restaurants, in its office complexes to FareStart, which provides food service job training to those struggling with homelessness, poverty, addiction or who have been in prison.