Why Seattle's Morgan Junction EV Charging Lot Is Delayed Until 2027

“How long does it take to build eight parking stalls?” The Urbanist asked when it first began tracking this project, and for Seattle City Light, the answer remains a moving target. What officials promised in 2022 would be a three-month construction job is now scheduled to open in September 2027, according to seattlebrief.com — a delay of nearly five years on a project that was supposed to be finished before the current decade began.

That gap between promise and delivery has turned a modest charging lot in West Seattle’s Morgan Junction into a symbol of frustration with local government’s ability to deliver on infrastructure promises. The 4,500-square-foot site — a former substation that sat decommissioned for 20 years — was meant to bring eight paid fast-charging stations closer to neighborhood retail, services, and major arterial roads. Instead, it has become a case study in how even small public works projects can stall through a cascade of design changes, procurement snags, and construction failures.

A Timeline That Kept Slipping

When Seattle City Light launched the project in 2022, the utility noted that construction could begin as soon as that year and take approximately three months, The Urbanist reported. By early 2025, District 1 Councilmember Rob Saka announced that his office had taken “decisive steps” to “accelerate the timeline,” publishing an internal SCL memo that laid out a schedule to start construction that October. But it wasn’t until February of this year that contractor Zenisco Inc. actually broke ground.

Five months into the work, construction halted entirely. While crews worked during the FIFA construction moratorium, City Light engineers identified what the utility called a “significant structural design issue” with the east wall — work-quality problems and site conditions that required a complete stoppage while the team redesigned the barrier between the lot and the adjacent alleyway. The city recently fired Zenisco in the middle of construction, and work has not resumed.

Why Seattle's Morgan Junction EV Charging Lot Is Delayed Until 2027 — Photo: seattlebrief.com

“This project has taken longer than we planned, and we understand the frustration that comes with that,” Seattle City Light posted in a September update to the project website. “We’re committed to completing this work and opening the station for the Morgan Junction and all who visit.”

The West Seattle Blog has chronicled this saga for years, covering updates at monthly meetings of the Morgan Community Association and documenting how timelines continued to slip even during the design phase, before construction ever began.

Utility Cites Supply Chain Bottlenecks

Part of the delay, City Light has said, stems from factors beyond its control. A former utility spokesperson told the West Seattle Blog in late 2024 that Morgan Junction was the utility’s “largest and most ambitious EV-charging station project to date,” requiring more engineering and permitting than typical installations.

“We’ve also experienced significant delays with procurement of the chargers and other electric service equipment,” the spokesperson said. “This is likely due to the rapid increase in transportation electrification costs nationwide.”

That procurement crunch reflects a broader squeeze on EV infrastructure components as cities across the country race to electrify transportation, driving up prices and wait times for specialized electrical equipment.

A Pattern of Stalled Lots

Morgan Junction is far from the only site where City Light has struggled to build a standalone charging lot. In 2021, the utility proposed converting another decommissioned substation along NW Market Street in Ballard, but backed off after early planning work. A soil test determined that on-site drainage options would not work, and the only viable alternative required connecting to the municipal stormwater sewer on the south side of NW Market Street — an option that would have added cost and disrupted vehicle traffic and King County Metro trolley bus operations, making the project unviable, according to a 2022 SCL update.

After abandoning Ballard, City Light turned to a leftover parcel in Belltown owned by the Seattle Department of Transportation, originally eyed for a public playground as part of the Waterfront Park redevelopment. A land swap opened the opportunity for EV charging, but facing significant concerns about using such a high-value site near Pike Place Market for surface parking, the utility abandoned that project as well, citing “unforeseen delays and funding constraints.” The site has since been paved over but remains unused.

The Pivot to Curbside Charging

Spokesperson Kate Jacobs told The Urbanist that the utility’s planned expansion “does not include comparable sites that would require new lots.” Instead, City Light is focusing on curbside charging in the public right-of-way, aiming for 200 on-street charging locations by 2030 via funding from the 2024 Seattle Transportation levy, according to the Seattle Department of Transportation.

Who Pays the Price of Delay

Eight stalls. A 4,500-square-foot lot. The official Seattle City Light project page now lists September 2027 as the target, but anyone who has followed the monthly community association meetings knows that date has shifted before.

“We will conduct a comprehensive review of all phases of the project as soon as we’ve delivered this important asset to the community,” Jacobs wrote. “Implementing lessons learned is part of our standard process, and lessons from Morgan Junction and past projects will improve how we deliver public charging as we expand our network to meet growing demand.”

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