A new online site, NorthwestHub.org , makes its debut Thursday
The brainchild of attorney Peter Buck, the site will focus on land use, real estate and environmental news in the Seattle area, primarily of interest to architectural, engineering, land use and environmental law, planning, real estate, transportation, and urban design firms.
(Full disclosure: Seattle PostGlobe founder and former Seattle Post-Intelligencer reporter Kery Murakami is a paid consultant and a board member of the venture.)
Its first issue includes an interview with former Seattle City Councilman Peter Steinbrueck, who expresses disappointment about South Lake Union.
Steinbrueck is a partner in the venture.
The issue also includes articles on a new rail line in New York City, as well as explanations of federal climate change and local shorelines protection regulations.
“Right now many of these fields operate in a silo. We’re looking to break down the silos and bring people together,” said Ashley DeForest, managing editor of Northwest Hub.
“We know of no model for such a venture in the land use and environmental community—it is an experiment that seems worth trying in a stressful time for our industry,” said Peter Buck, president of the Northwest Hub board of directors. “Our goal is to create a collaborative tool for professionals and community members to share important information, to support each other and to have a little fun. We promise some lighthearted features and contests that will bring a chuckle to many.”
Established as a 501(c)(3) nonprofit organization, Northwest Hub strives to inform and engage community members and industry professionals about the issues that shape our community. The site was founded by the four lawyers at The Buck Law Group.
Initial financial backers of Northwest Hub include: The Buck Law Group, Transpo Group, PacLand, Blumen Consulting Group, Layton & Sell, Transportation Solutions, Steinbrueck Urban Strategies, Rodgers Deutsch & Turner, Sound Environmental Strategies, and Pearce Projects.
“Northwest Hub will be an exciting new news source of great value to our community. It is an incisive, cutting-edge tool and will redefine how we share our information and knowledge. I’m excited to be one of the site’s initial sponsors,” Steinbrueck said in a press release.
Content-sharing partnerships have been established with FuturArc, a leading architecture magazine devoted to forward-thinking sustainability in the Asia-Pacific region; History Link, an online encyclopedia of state and local history in Washington; and Aero-Metric, a major provider of professional geospatial services.
Northwest Hub is staffed by Deforest; Associate Editor Laura Kaliebe; and Legal Interns Isaac Benham, Malgorzata Bereziewicz and Jordan Talge. Members of the board of directors include: Buck, Murakami, and Jeff Layton, president of Layton & Sell.
To find out more, visit northwesthub.org , subscribe to the organization’s newsletter, follow Northwest Hub on Twitter , or check out its Facebook page.
Murakami was formerly the neighborhoods and City Hall reporter for the Seattle Post-Intelligencer
