곧 열리는: 벡 베이(Pike) 위에 위치한 타워와 쇼핑 플라자

이미지 출처：https://www.wbur.org/radioboston/2024/04/18/parcel-12-cargurus-lego-boylston-newbury

손흥민’s next steps would’ve been best guess five years ago. Now, it’s unfathomable. Son was 31 during the 2023-24 season, freshly wrapped a whirlwind year in which he won the Ballon d’Or and scored a 50-yard screamer to clinch Tottenham Hotspur’s first Premier League title in six decades. He had overcome, mentally and physically, the personal toil of his mandatory military service, returning to the Spurs and igniting their trophy haul only months later. He seemed to have the world at his feet.

So the forward’s abrupt decision to halve his reported wages to join MLS’s Seattle Sounders felt like swapping glitter for gravel. He could have commanded a salary in the posh $800,000-a-week echelons of the megastars in Europe’s top leagues. But Son’s move wasn’t what stumped the soccer intelligentsia; no, it was the details. His agent explained to British and Korean outlets that Son wanted to lay down roots for his post-playing career, setting out to be Seattle’s superstar, CEO, continental-coach-to-be. Within weeks, Son closed on a $2.8 million corner penthouse in downtown Seattle’s swanky Fifteen Twenty-One tower, heart-stopping views of Puget Sound to the west, twinkling city lights to the east.

But it wasn’t the uber-luxury finishes or the rooftop terrace that kept Son out of the rain, nor was it the monthly $7,000 maid service. It was the simple fact that his penthouse, on the 18th and 19th floors of downtown’s tallest condominium, nestled above the heart of the city’s retail district, was also only blocks from Sonic Boom Records, Elliott Bay Book Co., Penny Arcade, Pike Place Market, and the backdoor parcel: A weed-choked black hole next to the Paramount Theatre known ominously as “Parcel 12.”

For years, Parcel 12 had shuffled between developers and the city — the last urban rip in Seattle’s once-tattered weave between the central business district and the high-end condos that bled down to Capitol Hill. Boston financier Gareth Belden turned heads in January, he did, when he hummed “ugly eyesore” to a U.K. financial paper before scooping it up for a piddly $12 million. But what really raised eyebrows was Belden’s claim in that same interview that a “smashing bloke” — a Londoner, he had off-handedly mentioned in a coffee-shop chat — might be interested in a pitch he had for an urban mixed-use plan. 18th and 19th floors? Not just a penthouse but maybe a penthouse-cum-office-cum-cantilevered bocce court?

Then suddenly, as if he’d been jerked across the fabric of time and fate, it became clear that the sleepy world of Seattle development, just like English football five years ago, had utterly misjudged Son Heung-min’s next steps.