Fast Company’s piece on Thorton Place seems to be stretching the truth pretty far, or reporting a proprietary brand of “truth” as they’d apparently like it to be rather than what the naked eye would reveal. Certainly the development is a tremendous improvement over Northgate’s old overflow parking lot, but in Seattle’s squeaky-tight housing market some of the units are vacant (probably because even the subsidized apartments still aren’t exactly “affordable” to many) and at least one of the major structures is experiencing severe drainage and settling problems. (It’s on top of a CREEK, for crying out loud…) Furthermore, the “medical center” they’re referring to is Group Health’s Northgate clinic, which is unrelated and predates the Thornton Creek development by over a decade, and yeah, there’s a planned light-rail station, but the kind of “soon” they’re talking about is such that most of the residents of the senior-living section won’t live to see it.