Bold reality check: South King County’s three new Federal Way extension stations are lagging behind in housing growth, despite a surge in transit capacity. The planned openings on December 6 will reveal station areas that look surprisingly barren when compared with other recently launched station neighborhoods in the region. Kent, Des Moines, and Federal Way each show minimal transit-oriented development (TOD) activity, suggesting the extension is not capitalizing on its near-term housing potential.
A difficult layout and a weak local real estate market contribute to the slowdown. The freeway-aligned corridor, including a station that is notably challenging for TOD, reduces opportunities for dense, walkable neighborhoods. With high interest rates and rising construction costs, many developers are reluctant to make big bets in South King County, where rents are comparatively modest. In this environment, private interest remains scarce, leaving public entities to drive development—but with limited success so far. By comparison, Sound Transit’s busiest stations have attracted stronger market activity; for example, Downtown Bellevue and Downtown Redmond have generated substantial pipelines of housing and ongoing projects in the past years, underscoring what could have been achievable under different conditions.
Near the three new stations, the Urbanist’s review identifies just over 3,000 homes in the development pipeline, the majority concentrated in a single phased megadevelopment near Federal Way Downtown Station. This pace suggests a lengthy timeline for full realization, and contrasts with more robust pipelines elsewhere in the region.
Des Moines and Kent: progress is uneven. The Kent Des Moines station stands out as the only one with recent midrise development completed. In 2018, Highline College opened Highline Place, a five-story student housing building with 160 beds and 14,766 square feet of retail, plus a 38-car parking garage. A second phase planned for 2019 would have added 207 units and 195 parking stalls, though the pandemic slowed this expansion and its current status remains uncertain. Other nearby projects include Mercy Housing North’s Multicultural Village, a 233-unit affordable housing development with childcare facilities and a family resource center, set on surplus land from the extension. The Suton/Kent Ridge View Mixed-Use Development proposes 564 units across nine buildings on a 12.7-acre site, featuring several apartment buildings, a seven-story mixed-use core with 140 units and a cafe, plus substantial parking—a high ratio given TOD goals.
East of the station, development faces additional hurdles: the Midway Landfill—a 60-acre Superfund site—presents contamination challenges that complicate redevelopment and elevate costs, deterring TOD in the vicinity.
Star Lake Station faces its own constraints. Nestled between I-5, a parking garage, and McSorley Creek Wetlands, the area lacks active multifamily or mixed-use projects and is dominated by single-family housing. The creek’s greenbelt and the nearby interchange further limit land available for dense development. Jurisdictional boundaries complicate planning as well, with Kent’s city line ending at S 272nd Street and Star Lake’s surrounding area lying within an unincorporated King County designation, not positioned for rapid TOD conversion.
Federal Way Station presents a slower path to growth. The newest multifamily project near this station dates to 2009, and while a bold 30-year development agreement was approved in 2023 to revitalize what could become Federal Way’s downtown, concrete housing pipelines remain years away. Sound Transit has earmarked two parcels adjacent to the Federal Way Station for affordable housing, totaling 1.88 acres, with additional sites to be allocated once contamination and planning concerns are resolved. In total, about six acres may be transferred to affordable-housing developers, potentially yielding up to 1,000 new units if fully developed. Yet local policy has not consistently favored multifamily housing; high impact fees and periodic moratoriums in the 2010s have dampened investor enthusiasm for apartment projects in particular.
A slow start for TOD in South King County is evident. With only one completed housing project in the past decade and a limited pipeline, the extension’s TOD prospects appear lagging behind other regional corridors. Some analysts wonder whether a different alignment—such as SR 99, which sits closer to existing housing and developable land—might have produced a more aggressive TOD outcome than the I-5-focused route Sound Transit ultimately chose.
In contrast, Kent Des Moines Station shows more promise with a pipeline exceeding 1,000 units in various permitting stages, while Federal Way Downtown remains largely in the planning stage, with early groundwork underway but no clear permit activity yet for its two project clusters. The potential exists for more than 2,000 homes plus commercial uses and amenities to emerge from these initiatives, but they are not yet underway.
Overall, current projections suggest roughly 3,000 new homes could come online near the three Federal Way extension stations in the coming years. That figure trails the housing activity seen near Shoreline South Station, where public development efforts have spurred significant growth. Transit-oriented development is on the way in South King County, but the pace remains slow and uneven.
Author and context: Urbanist Staff. The Urbanist’s team periodically collaborates to cover breaking news and large initiatives; more about the staff can be found on the organization’s site.
