Everett/Snohomish County Development News

[taiwanesedrummer36]

Some new renderings:









Some changes they apparently made include the addition of a parking garage surrounding the movie theater and some rearranging of some buildings.

Fall workshops supported by the Planning Commission will be coming soon...

[Bond James Bond]

^
Don't ask me why, but I just can't get excited about that project (now that I live here and know "the lay of the land"). It's a bit out-of-the-way, and frankly, I don't think more retail is needed - especially not a new shopping center. If they want more retail, they should put it downtown or at least around the Everett Mall.

The idea for offices there is OK, I suppose. Even some industrial would be good.

But maybe they should put the UW-Everett there?

[Bond James Bond]

Oh yeah - in other news I checked out the new South Everett park & ride today. It's nice! It'll be especially nice when the landscaping gets bigger after several years.

[taiwanesedrummer36]

Boom times for community colleges in Edmonds and Everett

By Kaitlin Manry
Herald Writer

With the economy faltering and family-wage jobs increasingly hard to find, enrollment is on the rise at local community colleges.

As classes get under way this week, Everett Community College has a record-high 7,414 students -- that's up 11 percent from last year. Edmonds Community College is also on track for its highest enrollment ever with 8,874 students -- 7 percent more than at this point last September.

So many students have been using the EdCC's Career Center to look for job training and work advice, more staff will likely be brought in to work at the center, said John Michaelson, vice president for college relations and advancement.

Though national figures aren't available yet, anecdotal evidence suggests community colleges throughout the country are experiencing upswings in enrollment, said Davis Jenkins, a senior researcher at the Community College Research Center at Columbia University in New York City.

"When the economy turns down and job prospects dim, people return to school," he said.

Job retraining courses at both Edmonds and Everett community colleges are increasingly popular. Interest in welding and fabrication courses at Everett Community College is "going out the roof" and staff are struggling to try to accommodate the demand, said Christine Kerlin, vice president for enrollment management.

At EdCC, the paralegal, health and computer training programs are especially popular this fall.

"We're swamped," said Stephanie Wiegand, director of communications at EdCC. "Our worker retraining programs are exploding. At the moment, we're seeing increasing numbers of people with unemployment because they've been laid off from positions they've held for a long time -- mostly from the banking and mortgage industries, as well as from a number of small businesses."

A record number of students applied for fall admission at public universities in the Puget Sound region, but it's unclear if or how that trend is related to the economy, said Karen Copetas, director of admissions and enrollment planning at Western Washington University in Bellingham. Western expects its largest freshman class ever this fall with nearly 2,700 enrolled.

"My sense is while we're all feeling that the economy is going to make a difference in terms of students' college selection, we don't have any concrete evidence that that's happening right now," she said.

Applications were up 12 percent at the University of Washington, but director of admissions Philip Ballinger said it's too early to tell whether enrollment trends have anything to do with the sluggish economy.

Adults tend to be more likely to pursue education at both four-year universities and community colleges during economic slumps, Jenkins said. Recent high school graduates aren't influenced as much by the economy.

The end of the tech boom in 2001 was the last major economic downturn that drove people to community colleges, Jenkins said.

"Even public four-year colleges have become prohibitively expensive for many people," he said. "That makes community colleges more attractive."

Online education is exploding at both Edmonds and Everett community colleges. At Everett, officials are trying to coordinate online schedules so students have more options and can avoid driving to campus five days a week, Kerlin said.

"We've seen a huge surge of folks choosing to take courses online," she said. "I think this is certainly related to people who are, first of all, juggling a busy schedule which includes commuting -- and secondly (trying) to cut commuting costs."

Administrators at both Snohomish County community colleges expect the enrollment boom to continue throughout the winter and as long as the economy stays sour.

"Given where the economy is, we're already looking forward to a potentially a heavy enrollment in winter quarter," Michaelson said. "People go back to work and enrollment goes down. They leave work and we often see more enrollment."

Reporter Kaitlin Manry: 425-339-3292 or kmanry@heraldnet.com.

[NW Mike]

I think the river front project is a great location. Having Retail so close to downtown is smart growth, if Everett is to grow. Making good use of an old landfill right near rail and highway. Sounds smart to me! The only thing I really don't like about it, is that they are all low rises. Why not build like Portland did along the river front. More density! Less Parking Lots!! If they really wanted to do this right they would have a Trolley coming down into the development from downtown.

[CW10]

Yea, I agree, the downtown area of everett needs to grow more. I like the trolly idea.

[taiwanesedrummer36]

Originally Posted by CW10

Yea, I agree, the downtown area of everett needs to grow more. I like the trolly idea.

Seems kind of weird: the city is pursuing the Riverfront project quite rapidly, but hasn't done as much in the Downtown area and the Broadway corridor, though development plans and guidelines have been released.

In Downtown, projects such as the new Elks Lodge condos and Library Square are well underway, but I think the Colby Tower project has stalled and some other projects too, mainly because of the economic downturn.

I'm guessing the reason Downtown isn't growing as much is the NIMBYs, such as small business owners, historical buffs, and other old-timey people. As for Broadway, it's still too barren and rundown.

Most likely a streetcar would boost these efforts, but my personal opinion is it might be risky considering the factors here.

[taiwanesedrummer36]

Originally Posted by NW Mike

I think the river front project is a great location. Having Retail so close to downtown is smart growth, if Everett is to grow. Making good use of an old landfill right near rail and highway. Sounds smart to me! The only thing I really don't like about it, is that they are all low rises. Why not build like Portland did along the river front. More density! Less Parking Lots!! If they really wanted to do this right they would have a Trolley coming down into the development from downtown.

As for this , I emailed the folks in charge of this project, and they simply say there isn't enough demand for something like Portland's riverfront district, which is awfully nice; everytime I go to Portland I just have to take an hour-long stroll throught that beautiful area.

And i'm guessing they don't have underground parking garages is because of the landfill below, if anyone was wondering...

[taiwanesedrummer36]

Public will weigh in on park expansion, eventually

• Council wants price on sports park project before stakeholders take part in design phase

By Alexis Bacharach
Enterprise editor

Public participation is always welcome in Mill Creek city government.

But there have to be limits, or wish-lists for capital projects will break the bank, say City Council members.

That's why community members won't be tapped on a planned sports park expansion until consultants provide an estimate for development costs and basic amenities, including fields and rest rooms.

"You have to tell people up front how much money they have to work with," Councilwoman Mary Kay Voss said. "Just because my guests come to eat at my house doesn't mean they have a say in how I remodel my kitchen."

An overview of the planning phase submitted by consultants on Sept. 2 called for a series of public discussions with the Parks Board and various stakeholders -- with no budgetary guidelines -- to establish three master site plans for the Council to choose from.

"We've been down this road before when we were planning for the community facility that was supposed to be part of Town Center," Voss said. "The community invested so much time and effort and when the proposal came back to the Council it was more than $8 million and we had to kill it. People cried. I don't want a repeat of that mess."

The Council dedicated $7 million for the park expansion in the 2008-2015 capital facilities plan, but the figure is intended only as a placeholder. The majority of the council won't support spending more than $5 million on playfields -- two soccer fields, a youth softball field and adult baseball field.

"If it costs that much to develop that property into playfields then it's not the appropriate site for a sports park," Councilman Mike Todd said. "I think there are other options we need to consider -- partnering with the school district, for example -- if this comes in higher than $3 million or $4 million."

The city purchased two properties adjacent to the existing sports park earlier this year for a combined $5 million.

Todd and Voss aired their concerns in February that it would cost too much to develop the area, but other council members argued that the city's initial interest in the properties was for parks alone.

While Mayor Terry Ryan agreed that financial parameters must be in place before the public weighs in on the project, "We identified this property to expand our parks. It was an appropriate site then and it's an appropriate site now."

[taiwanesedrummer36]

Navy awards work to build Everett training center

A Bellevue contractor will construct the new $10.3 million facility, scheduled to open in 2010.

By Yoshiaki Nohara
Herald Writer

EVERETT -- The plan to build a new training center at Naval Station Everett is moving forward.

A Bellevue-based company, a tribal joint venture called Jkt/Pcl, was awarded a $10.3 million contract on Sept. 18 to build the training center.

The project generated proposals from four companies, said Rick Huling, a public affairs officer for the naval station.

The project includes renovating administrative support spaces in the station's headquarters and building a new parking lot, Huling said.

"This is going to be a great facility," he said Wednesday. "It's really designed to help out sailors and improve their quality of life."

About 5,500 sailors work at the station along with 650 civilians, Huling said. It has some classrooms, but sailors currently must go to San Diego to receive training. The new training center should allow sailors to take some training courses, if not all, in Everett.

The new Fleet Region Readiness Center is expected to be finished by March 2010. The building is planned to include instructor offices, laboratories, classrooms and support spaces.

"It's not going to create a lot of jobs," Huling said. "But it will help with the continuing stability of the station and its potential to grow. That's good for the community."

[taiwanesedrummer36]

Providence to celebrate start of construction project

Some upset neighbors say they'll stay away.

By Sharon Salyer
Herald Writer

A kickoff for one of the biggest -- and most controversial -- building projects in Everett will take place on Saturday.

Construction is expected to start as soon as next week on a $500 million, 12-story medical tower at Providence Regional Medical Center Everett.

Beginning at 11 a.m. Saturday, the hospital will host a celebration for the project. Invitations were sent out to nearly 6,000 people, including hospital employees and medical staff, volunteers and people living in surrounding neighborhoods, said spokeswoman Cheri Russum.

While hospital officials say the project is the biggest and most expensive in the 150-year history of Providence Health & Services, its parent organization, some neighbors who bitterly protested the hospital's expansion plans say they won't be attending the event.

"I almost started crying when I read the invitation," said Barb Lamoureux, a director of Neighbors for Neighborhoods. "We're sitting right on top of the demolished Donovan homes."

For part of the project, the hospital moved or demolished more than 20 houses built in the late 1920s and early 1930s.

"I think the hospital's intent was in the right place, but to get a letter saying we'd like you to celebrate the groundbreaking, I thought was in poor taste," Lamoureux said.

Nevertheless, Lamoureux said she doesn't know of any plans to protest the event.

"Sometimes silence is the best protest," she said.

Krista McClimans, who also lives in north Everett, said the invitation sent to neighbors to attend the groundbreaking got mixed reviews.

"Some were offended because it was sort of like having a party where the neighborhood used to be," she said. "And some folks were just fine with going and wanting the opportunity to have a dialogue with other folks who are going.

"At this point it's a done deal; it's what we agreed to in 2005," she said.

The group that she leads, Neighbors for Neighborhoods, is now focused on any future expansion plans by the hospital, she said.

Last week, the nonprofit group filed a lawsuit against the city of Everett seeking to reverse the City Council's recent approval of rezoning 9.3 acres near the Colby campus for future hospital growth, which could include a second tower.

Holly Gibson, a member of Neighbors for Neighborhoods and president of the Northwest Neighborhood Association, said that she asked the hospital to send a special invitation to neighbors.

The letter, signed by hospital chief executive Dave Brooks, acknowledged that the construction project, which included building a new five-story parking garage, has affected the surrounding neighborhood "and will continue to do so."

"It's like a war zone around here," Gibson said.

"We just barely recovered" from the parking garage project, he said. "Now it's starting again."

Brooks noted that Saturday's groundbreaking will mark the culmination of years of planning by hundreds employees as well as people who have been patients at the hospital.

"To me personally and to many people in this organization, Saturday is a big deal … the culmination of a dream," he said. "The only thing more important to me will be the ribbon cutting in 2011."

Talks over the need for the hospital expansion date back to 1994 when the city's two hospitals merged, Brooks said.

About six years ago, the hospital decided that any future expansion of its medical, surgical and critical care would take place at its Colby campus, he said.

Purchase of some of the Donovan homes began as early as the 1980s "knowing eventually there would be a need for more land so the facility could expand," Brooks said.

Reporter Sharon Salyer: 425-339-3486 or salyer@heraldnet.com.



The stats

Providence Regional Medical Center Everett's new medical tower:

Height: 12 stories, 175 feet tall

Space: 680,000 square feet; 368 patient rooms; an emergency room that can treat up to 78 patients at a time; 19 operating and high-tech-procedure rooms

Cost: $500 million for the building, $30 million for the parking garage

ER capacity: 140,000 to 150,000 patients a year

Main entrance: Off 13th Street in north Everett

Scheduled opening: Summer 2011

For updates on the hospital's construction project, check the Web site: www.providence.org/everett/tower/towerwebcam.htm

[taiwanesedrummer36]

Lynnwood City Center project moving along slowly

• Lagging economy, complexity of project among reasons cited

By Oscar Halpert
Enterprise editor

Efforts to revitalize Lynnwood and create a pedestrian-friendly downtown called City Center are coming along more slowly than some of those involved in the early planning process would like.

"Everyone's just waiting," said Jean Hale, CEO of the South Snohomish County Chamber of Commerce. "The unknowns have to be resolved before someone can do development."

Unknowns, those involved in the process say, include how much developers might expect to pay in fees to offset the impacts of redevelopment, whether there's a market for commercial leasing, and whether the city or private interests make the first big step forward.

The plan foresees mixed-use, high-density development, new streets, parks and transit access for about 300 acres of central Lynnwood over the next 10-20 years. Creating City Center would accommodate anticipated growth -- the Puget Sound Regional Council estimates the city will absorb 5,400 new residents by 2020. It also protects neighborhoods by concentrating that growth, proponents say.

So far, however, developers have been hesitant to move forward.

Lindsay Echelbarger, a Lynnwood real estate developer, said he isn't surprised that the city's largest redevelopment project in its history has been slow to get going.

"The city was so slow off the mark in the beginning," he said. "I think the city is supposed to act as a catalyst to spark things off."

He said last-minute changes left a bad taste in the mouths of some developers who were involved in the early planning process from 2002 to 2005. Now, with the economy in a rut, the business community is in somewhat of a wait-and-see mode, he said.

"I wish the city could be more proactive," he said. "Right now, I'm not sure the development community's ready to move forward because of financing problems."

David Kleitsch, the city's economic development director, said groundwork for City Center is moving forward, though perhaps not in the way people expect.

"We're still looking for that first development to happen," he said, adding that City Center is one of the most complex redevelopment projects around because of its size and the large number of property owners.

The city missed the upswing in the business cycle that saw Bellevue and Seattle approve multiple construction projects by late 2006. Many of those projects are complete or nearing completion.

"If we can get this done and ready for the next cycle, that will be a great thing," Kleitsch said.

Traffic planning is one of the keys stalling progress and Kleitsch said the city's six-months behind schedule on completing its analyses and ordinances for City Center.

"Really, what's been driving the schedule on the City Center has been getting the engineering, the analysis, if you will, on traffic," Kleitsch said.

That analysis is important for two reasons, he said. First, it indicates a commitment not to make traffic any worse and secondly the city can evaluate costs as it comes up with a planned action, which expedites permitting by giving developers certainty, he said.

City Council President Loren Simmonds, who co-chaired the City Center Oversight Committee that met from 2001 to 2005, said there are many reasons for the project's slow progress but the economy and sluggish leadership from former mayor Mike McKinnon are two of them.

"I don't care what you're trying to build, trying to get funding for anything is kind of dicey," he said. "Quite candidly, as far as McKinnon's leadership on this thing, I think he was quite tepid. He didn't really provide any impetus."

Add to that the fact that the city's been focused heavily on upcoming annexations.

"That's absolutely the 900-pound gorilla that's eating up the lion's share of staff time," Simmonds said.

Oversight committee members, Simmonds said, discussed the need for a "City Center champion," someone who's job was solely to focus on that project.

"We would be further down the road today if the same impetus was put toward the City Center as was put toward the rec center," Simmonds said.

And Simmonds agrees with Echelbarger that the city should take the first step to get the ball rolling.

"The reality is the city has been told from virtually day one that if the city wants this thing to fly...it has to make a significant statement and that significant statement normally takes the form of making a significant financial stake in the project," he said.

Kleitsch said extensive office vacancies are a problem.

"We have worked with owners to bring vacancy rates down," he said. "We are moving forward, doing periodic updates and making sure people see we have not stopped on this."

[Everett Fan]

I am so dissapointed in the new Riverfront development. Parking right up to the river? Super low rise, no density. OM calls this world class? By who's standard? I was so excited about this before, now I am just dissapointed. We always get crap thrown at us here in Everett. I am tired of it.

[taiwanesedrummer36]

Originally Posted by Everett Fan

I am so dissapointed in the new Riverfront development. Parking right up to the river? Super low rise, no density. OM calls this world class? By who's standard? I was so excited about this before, now I am just dissapointed. We always get crap thrown at us here in Everett. I am tired of it.

I think it's just the entire Seattle metro area that get's crap. And I say this because looking at our extremely-related counterparts, Vancouver and Portland, we just suck.

Or it could be it's because we don't have an extensive mass transit system that jumpstarts mixed-use development...

[NW Mike]

True About both last posts!!

[SteveM]

Originally Posted by taiwanesedrummer36

I think it's just the entire Seattle metro area that get's crap. And I say this because looking at our extremely-related counterparts, Vancouver and Portland, we just suck.

Or it could be it's because we don't have an extensive mass transit system that jumpstarts mixed-use development...

Hmm. We can beat up on ourselves, but honestly, Vancouver and Portland have plenty of low-rise, surface-parking heavy sprawly crap in their outer areas too. I don't know Vancover as well, but if you take a ride on Portland's Westside MAX, you'll see a ton of surface parking along with the transit-oriented projects.

I think the real issue here is what the guy involved with the project told taiwanesedrummer36 -- the project just isn't targeting people without cars. There's not much anybody can do about that (in the short term, anyway).

[taiwanesedrummer36]

http://www.heraldnet.com/article/200...chool.closures

This really isn't development news, but the closure of Mountlake Terrace's Evergreen Elementary (look at the location) could provide land for a potential park & ride expansion or transit-oriented development!

[taiwanesedrummer36]

Horizon wants to operate daily flights from Paine Field

Herald Staff

EVERETT -- Horizon Air will pursue flights at the Snohomish County Airport at Paine Field, the company announced today.

Horizon, which is owned by Alaska Airlines, wants to launch daily flights before next summer, likely to Portland and Spokane.

The decision comes after a 6-0 vote last month by the Everett City Council in favor of a resolution supporting scheduled commercial flights at Paine Field, the company said in a news release. The Port of Everett recently approved a resolution that stops short of calling for commercial air service, but does urge the county not do anything that would hurt federal funding at the airport because it is used by the Boeing Co.

Horizon said it is considering flights that would aid same day business trips. Passengers could also use the service to connect in Portland with other destinations, bypassing Seattle-Tacoma International Airport.

“Rather than suffer on the I-5 slog or endure tedious hours on I-90, Snohomish County residents would be able to travel between these Northwest regions much more quickly with Horizon Air from Paine Field, said Dan Russo, Horizon’s vice president of marketing and communications.

Area residents have opposed commercial flights at Paine, which serves general aviation as well as Boeing. Residents have long been concerned that such flights would increase traffic and noise and hurt property values.

Horizon officials said they would operate flights with a 76-seat Bombardier Q400 aircraft, a high-speed turboprop that it calls among the quietest commercial aircraft in the world today.

[mhays]

I've never understood why there isn't already commuter service from Paine Field. Why isn't the huge convenience outweighing the NIMBYs?

[taiwanesedrummer36]

Originally Posted by mhays

I've never understood why there isn't already commuter service from Paine Field. Why isn't the huge convenience outweighing the NIMBYs?

Cause Mukilteoans rather drive their fancy Mercedes all the way to Sea-tac showing off their riches to the rest of us that are wasting precious money and time to drive all the way to Sea-tac.

And Mukilteo thinks with Paine Field commercial service, not even the fancy golf courses or mixed-use urban villages will save them from becoming like the areas around Sea-tac (such as Burien or Seatac).

Either way, SnoCo is a letdown.