page_title: Renton, Washington
section_title: 21st century redevelopment
hierarchical_section_title: Renton, Washington / History / 21st century redevelopment
caption_attribution_description: English: Renton Transit Center, Renton, Washington, USA
context_page_description: Renton is a city in King County, Washington, and a suburb of Seattle. Situated 11 miles southeast of downtown Seattle, Renton straddles the southeast shore of Lake Washington, at the mouth of the Cedar River.
  After a long history as an important salmon fishing area for Native Americans, Renton was first settled by people of European descent in the 1860s. Its early economy was based on coal mining, clay production, and timber export. Today, Renton is best known as the final assembly point for the Boeing 737 family of commercial airplanes, but it is also home to a growing number of well known manufacturing, technology, and healthcare organizations, including Boeing Commercial Airplanes Division, Paccar, Kaiser Permanente, IKEA, Providence Health & Services, UW Medicine, and Wizards of the Coast. As of 2019, the population of Renton is estimated at 101,751, up from 90,927 at the 2010 census. Renton is currently the eighth-largest city in Washington and the fourth-largest in King County.
context_section_description: The city government has encouraged redevelopment of industrial areas around Downtown Renton and near Southcenter since the 1980s. The first IKEA in the Pacific Northwest opened in Renton in 1994. The former Longacres horse-racing track was redeveloped in the 1990s to support offices for Boeing and the Federal Reserve Bank, which moved from its Seattle building. Port Quendall, a land parcel in north Renton, is home to the Virginia Mason Athletic Center (VMAC), housing the Seattle Seahawks Headquarters and training facility that opened in August 2008; before then, the Seahawks trained in Kirkland.
  In the mid-1990s, Renton undertook a major redevelopment effort to revitalize its downtown core, which had declined in commercial prominence since the opening of the Southcenter Mall in Tukwila in 1968. The many car dealerships that had previously occupied the center of downtown Renton were encouraged through economic incentives to relocate to a newly created auto sales zone close to the I-405/SR-167 interchange. In place of the old dealerships downtown, a new transit center and parking garage were built in partnership with King County Metro. The transit center is surrounded by several multi-family residential buildings and a small town square named Piazza Park, which hosts a weekly farmers' market.
  Centered on former Boeing Co. property near the south shore of Lake Washington is a 68 acres (280,000 m²) residential and commercial development named The Landing. To the north of the Landing, a hotel and office development on the lakefront called Southport is under development at the site of the former Shuffleton power plant, which was demolished in 2001. A 347-room hotel operated under the Hyatt Regency brand opened in June 2017. Three 9-story office towers are currently under construction at the Southport site, and are expected to open in 2019.
caption: Renton Transit Center
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