Washington State Development Thread

[USAPatriot]

Spokane: Convention Center Expansion



The Spokane Public Facilities District board was to receive a final detailed report this week on plans for an estimated $60 million to $70 million expansion of the Spokane Convention Center, which the district expects to put before voters next year.

The project calls for the construction of about 91,000 square feet of new floor space on the downtown convention center's "east campus," adjoining the Group Health Exhibit Hall, which was completed in 2006.

Read Article: http://www.spokanejournal.com/article.php?id=6750

[USAPatriot]

LONGVIEW: Port of Longview master plan includes new berth, demolition of grain terminal

The Port of Longview should demolish an aging grain terminal and dock and build a new multi-purpose berth to handle a variety of cargo, consultants told port commissioners Tuesday.
Consulting firm HDR Engineering Inc. also warned that Millennium Bulk Logistics could cause train congestion at the port if the company expands its proposed coal export facility without rail upgrades.
Port officials applauded the recommendation to replace Berth 4, which has been virtually unused for two decades, and install a 1,000-foot "omni" terminal designed to handle bulk cargo.
"It's an eyesore. It's a dock that needs to go," Port Director Ken O'Hollaren said.
The proposed new berth was part of the first public presentation of the port's $230,000 master plan, designed by HDR Engineering Inc. of Portland.
Port officials have talked before about demolishing the grain elevator, built in 1927 and one of Longview's oldest structures. It's a more pressing topic now, O'Hollaren said, because the port is running out of storage space for bulk cargo, such as logs. Port officials say they haven't decided yet if they'll move forward with razing the elevator or how much the entire project would cost.
"It's pretty obvious this is an area of opportunity. What's not obvious is the funding," Port Commissioner Bob Bagaason said.
Kurt Reichelt, vice president of HDR, said the port has more than enough rail capacity to handle current traffic. The port is also capable of handling six trains per day to the EGT grain elevator opening this fall along with the proposed one to two trains daily at the Millennium site on Industrial Way, he said.
However, Reichelt said the port would be close to exceeding its rail capacity, leading to delays that could hamper cargo transport, if an additional three trains per day would be routed through the port. In that event, Reichelt said the port might need to add a second crossing over the Cowlitz River, along with other improvements already proposed by the Longview switching yard and Burlington Northern.
Millennium officials have discussed expanding the coal terminal to accommodate as many as four to five additional daily trains, but the company has not made a formal application for the upgrade.
HDR also recommended that the port set aside land near the current administration building for a replacement structure which would include space to hold community meetings.

Read Article: http://tdn.com/news/local/article_8f...cc4c03286.html

[USAPatriot]

PIERCE COUNTY: Agencies form alliance to manage growth related to Lewis-McChord

More than a dozen local agencies are forming a regional alliance to better manage the area’s military-related growth.

The creation of the South Sound Military and Communities Partnership is the first of 46 recommendations contained in the Joint Base Lewis-McChord Growth Coordination Plan.

The plan, released in December, calls for closer collaboration between the West Coast’s largest military installation and surrounding communities. It recommends several ways to address stresses on housing, roads, schools and social services around Lewis-McChord.

Lakewood City Manager Andrew Neiditz said forming the partnership is a signal that the growth plan won’t be left on a shelf to gather dust.

“If we can work off this plan, then this region can speak with one voice, which has not been the case,” he said. Lakewood managed the federal grant that paid for the growth plan.

The partnership will work to carry out the plan’s recommendations, join with state and federal officials to secure funding and serve as the point of contact on troop deployments and other Lewis-McChord activities that affect surrounding communities.

The 14 partners include Lewis-McChord, Thurston and Pierce counties, local cities, the Clover Park School District and the United Way of Pierce County.

Virtually all the agencies had a seat on the steering committee that guided the plan’s development. The agencies are in the process of signing the agreement, which takes effect May 1.

Each agency is expected to contribute up to $2,500, or more if it wishes, this year to get the partnership started. The plan estimates expenses of between $130,000 and $170,000 a year, which includes administration and costs to hire consultants and commission studies.

The partnership’s first task will be to establish a five-year work plan to implement the growth plan’s recommendations. Recommendations include expanding access to medical care, child care and after-school programs for military families; helping local businesses secure military contracts; and improving the Lewis-McChord stretch of Interstate 5 to relieve congestion.

DuPont City Administrator Dawn Masko, whose community has many military families and retirees, said the collaboration has value because individual cities like hers can’t address the complex issues alone.

“I think there’s strength in numbers,” she said.



Read more: http://www.thenewstribune.com/2011/0...#ixzz1GB78GnpF

Read more: http://www.thenewstribune.com/2011/0...#ixzz1GB705LHK

[USAPatriot]

MOSES LAKE: New Retail Center

MOSES LAKE - The ASPI Group is building a retail center on property along Aspi Boulevard, in Moses Lake, to serve an undeveloped retail area.
The ASPI Group is a major landowner near the Grant County International Airport.
It is expected the 12,000 square-foot building will be completed in mid-May or the end of May, said Kim Foster, the ASPI Group's corporate counsel, on Wednesday.
The site is located across from the Moses Lake Senior Living Community on Patton Boulevard.
It is estimated 8,000 Big Bend Community College students, Grant County International Airport employees, nearby businesses and residents would use the new stores, Foster said.
"For them, there's just not a lot of lunchtime food opportunities out there," he commented.
Foster is working with potential tenants to fill the building.
Some possibilities include a restaurant serving sandwiches or teriyaki, real estate office and dry cleaner,
The retail center offers a "great opportunity for a health-related tenant" to benefit the senior living complex, he said.
There is no emergency medical facility or state Labor and Industries testing site available in the immediate area, he said.
Such facilities could benefit the industrial workers at the airport.
Foster described the new center as "very high quality," using a textured, colored, concrete block on the exterior. Steel canopies are coordinated with the block's color.
"It will look very first-class," he said. "As the first building leases up, our intent is to add a second building of similar design. The second building presents an opportunity for a tenant to have it custom-built to their specifications."
Ever since Moses Lake Senior Living Community was built, ASPI Group has had two or three different third-party developers come to them, wanting to further develop the area.
"For whatever reason, it never materialized, so we decided to do it ourselves," Foster said. "When the SGL plant was announced, we said 'there has to be a need for services there.'"
But one of the interested developers had a stroke and decided not to proceed with the project.
A second developer, a Canadian, decided not to start any more projects in the US.
Mike Brown, project manager at the Tualatin, Ore.-based Russell Construction, the retail center's builder, said the company has completed other projects for ASPI Group.
The projects include constructing Doolittle Drive, a road going into the transit authority site and the Coca-Cola building on Patton Boulevard.
"We've had a presence in Moses Lake for awhile," Brown said.
Russell's Moses Lake-based superintendent, Michael O'Halloren, called the retail center project "a long time coming.
"Then you have the fiber plant, which will draw a lot of people," Brown said. "With the fundamental project, you have a lot of spin-off."

http://www.columbiabasinherald.com/n...cc4c002e0.html

[USAPatriot]

State's small towns are getting smaller
BY JACK BROOM
THE SEATTLE TIMES
http://www.yakima-herald.com/stories...etting-smaller

ENDICOTT, Wash. -- Take the two-minute drive from one end of this wheat-country town to the other with Mayor Verne Strader, and he'll show you where Endicott once had a drugstore, hotel, tavern, jail, hardware store -- even a small clinic.

"We don't have a big draw now, not like a Walmart or anything," said Strader. "But we still have a caring community where people rely on one another."

Tucked along a railroad line between rolling hills of green and tan, Endicott has less than half the population it did nearly a century ago.

But residents say the town's story is not just about what it has lost, but what it has managed to retain; a list includes its school, post office, three churches, a county library branch open nine hours a week and a combination grocery-deli that holds two community buffet dinners a month.

Although the 2010 Census showed Washington state's population rose 14 percent in the past decade, the number of residents dropped in 71 of the state's 281 incorporated cities and towns. More than half of the shrinking cities are east of the Cascades, and more than three-quarters were small to begin with, with populations less than 5,000.

Their decline reflects a long-standing shift away from farmland and toward more densely populated urban and suburban areas.

"I think it may be just a matter of time until a lot of these small towns could just close down," said Dan Helt, 67, a wheat farmer and former teacher.

He remembers coming into town with his dad in the 1950s. "The restaurant was going. The barbershop was going. Other stores were going, too. The place was alive."

Still, he has no desire to leave. "It's quiet. It's peaceful. And when things get rough, people pitch in and help one another out."

Settled largely by German immigrants and incorporated in 1905, Endicott hit its peak population of 634 in the 1920s, and in the past decade fell from 355 residents to 289.

In a town where the size of the high-school graduating class once dropped to a single student, dealing with a declining population has triggered creative solutions, such as partnering with a nearby school district to offer combined middle and high schools, while preserving separate elementary schools to keep the youngest students close to home.

Endicott's population plight is the rule, not the exception, in Whitman County, where 13 of the county's 16 incorporated cities lost residents in the past decade. Meanwhile, the overall county population went up, due largely to a 20 percent increase in Pullman, home of Washington State University.

A half-dozen towering gray grain bins in the middle of town show Endicott still hosts a crop wholesaler, Whitgro. It also has a new well and reservoir, financed with federal help. And it has what some residents describe as a relaxed pace of life.

"One nice thing about the town is, you don't need to worry about getting run over by a car crossing the street," smiled Phillip Simon, 79, as he finished a deli sandwich at Endicott Food Center and gestured toward the empty street outside.



Losing best, brightest

Not only does Endicott have no traffic congestion, it has nary a traffic light.

There's not even a tavern -- a staple of small-town America. Customers can buy beer at Endicott Food Center, but anyone wanting a frosty one served across a counter needs to go about 15 miles north to St. John, or to LaCrosse, about the same distance southwest.

Several factors have contributed to a population decline that began generations ago.

As far back as the 1920s, increased auto ownership made it easier for folks to travel the 16 miles to shop at larger stores in Colfax or 35 miles to Pullman, eroding the market for Endicott merchants.

Modern farm equipment vastly increased the acreage a single farmer could cultivate, decreasing the number of individual farms -- and farm jobs. And more recently, some believe federal subsidies for farmers to keep land out of production for wildlife habitat and erosion control have contributed to a loss of jobs.

As Endicott's population wanes, it also ages: residents younger than 18 accounted for 36 percent of the population in 2000, but 19 percent last year.

The town's situation has a familiar ring to University of Nevada history professor Richard Davies, author of the 1998 book "Main Street Blues: The Decline of Small-town America."

Davies, who grew up in a small Ohio town, notes that many U.S. presidents are from small towns, which he believes instill a sense of responsibility, accountability and community not duplicated in suburban neighborhoods.

What's regrettable, Davies said, is not just how many people leave, but which ones.

"Invariably, towns end up losing some of their best and their brightest," he said, adding that promising young people often need to look to larger cities for successful careers.

Aileen Johnson, 86, concurs. She grew up on a farm outside Endicott and has lived in town since the late 1940s. "Young people graduate from high school or college, and whatever it is they want to do, they don't stay here."

Case in point: Endicott High School (alma mater of former Gov. Mike Lowry) had six students in its final graduating class, 1987, and not a single one still lives in town.

The previous year, the high school had one graduate, Dan Starrett, whose photo hangs in the hall as the Class of 1986.



A schooling compromise

The fact Endicott still has a school at all stems from an arrangement crafted in the late 1980s that made it a "cooperative school district" with St. John, which also is losing population.

Under this system, each town technically has its own school district, and students can attend elementary schools where they live. Once they reach middle school, they all go to Endicott, where they're the Endicott-St. John Wildcats. Then in high school, they go to St. John, becoming the St. John-Endicott Eagles.

"A school is at the center of a town's identity, part of its lifeblood," said Rick Winters, superintendent of both districts, who arrived after the system was put in place.

One of the more unusual aspects of the school pairing sounds like the start of an algebra problem: At 7:50 a.m. each school day, one bus leaves Endicott with high school students bound for St. John, while another bus leaves St. John with middle-schoolers headed for Endicott.

They meet at a gravel pit halfway between the two towns, where the two buses swap passengers, then head back to where they started. At the end of the day, the process is repeated

Even with the joint operation, the area's shrinking population creates difficulties for the schools. Winters said the combined enrollment for Endicott and St. John, now about 260, is down about 40 students from five years ago, a drop that translated into the loss of three faculty and staff positions.

Another focus of Endicott activity is the library, housed in a 1906 brick building that at various times had been a saloon, a jail and city hall.

Endicott provides the building and the Whitman County Rural Library District provides the resources and the time of librarian Caroline Morasch, who keeps the library open 1 to 6 p.m. Tuesdays and 9 a.m. to 1 p.m. Fridays.

Some library patrons come for the high-speed Internet access, some to borrow books or DVDs, and some for story sessions for kids, arts-and-craft classes for adults or how-to sessions on topics such as writing a résumé and looking for work.

Barbara Strader, wife of the mayor, is heading a committee seeking to raise $120,000 -- through dinners, raffles and other activities -- to fix up the old building inside and out.

A half-block away is Endicott Food Center, another gathering place for locals. Jenny Meyer, 55, has operated the store for 22 years and drives a school bus three hours a day "because it's a guaranteed paycheck."

She feels the effects of Endicott's slipping population at the cash register.

"Especially in the last few years, it's been a real challenge," she said. "I just keep plugging away and hope that tomorrow I make enough to pay yesterday's bills. That's the way it is in a small town."

[USAPatriot]

YAKIMA: Empty Store Fronts In Downtown Yakima Filling Up

To an outsider, it may look like downtown Yakima is struggling. For sale and for lease signs can be seen almost everywhere.

"A lot of store fronts empty, kind of like Ellensburg downtown," said John Belford, an Ellensburg resident.

We only counted 12 empty buildings in 77 blocks. Plus, after talking to building owners and the Committee for Downtown Yakima we learned the downtown is doing better than it looks and is growing. They told us property values in the downtown are actually up by ten percent while dropping in bigger cities like Seattle.
"You may see a lot of empty business, but there's currently a lot of new stuff coming in," said Matt Klaus.
Buildings that were completely vacant two years ago, now have only two spaces left; it just shows how the number of vacant buildings are really decreasing in Yakima. But it's not happening on its own. Klaus and his crew have been working for six years keeping the downtown clean and beautiful. That includes planting more flowers and people are noticing.
"I think it looks pretty nice,” said Belford. “I think what they've done down through the town with the planters and all that I like."
But, tourists aren't the only ones, business are seeing it, too, and want to move in. Joe Mann owns eight buildings downtown including the old Pacific Hotel, vacant for the last 15 years, he recently bought it and now has three businesses running out of it.
"I think it is fun and it kind of saves our heritage for the next generation," said Mann.
The trick now is keeping the momentum, filling more empty spaces with businesses and getting more people to shop downtown.

Read Article: http://www.kimatv.com/news/local/118720414.html

[USAPatriot]

http://www.krem.com/news/local/Offic...128918908.html

German carmaker BMW and a European carbon manufacturing company are celebrating the opening of a new plant in Moses Lake, Wash., to produce carbon fibers for the automotive industry.

The SGL Automotive Carbon Fibers plant is a $100 million partnership of BMW and SGL Group, one of the world's leading manufacturers of carbon-based products.

Washington Gov. Chris Gregoire lobbied hard for the plant to be built in her state, where cheap hydropower from central Washington's Columbia River dams is drawing more high-tech companies and manufacturers to the region.

BMW chairman Norbert Reithofer says Washington's cheap power from renewable resources and its renewable energy incentives were factors in the decision to locate in Moses Lake.

The plant currently employs about 80 people, but expansions are planned.

[SJM]

I love looking over these articles, thank you for the work you do to put all this together!

[USAPatriot]

Silerdale Incorporation? New City in Kitsap County?

Kitsap Sun Feb-2-2012

As Kitsap County planners work to adjust eight of the county's urban growth boundaries, they face a new challenge that could slow a vote on Silverdale incorporation and possibly drag Poulsbo into the dispute.

The county's renewed efforts to study growth trends and draw up new urban growth boundaries are "commendable," according to a motion filed by the group that appealed the county's 2006 comprehensive plan. But ongoing efforts to create a new city of Silverdale provide evidence that urban growth areas should be declared invalid until the work is finished, the group said.

The motion was filed by the Suquamish Tribe, Citizens for Responsible Planning and South Kitsap resident Jerry Harless, who make up the group that won a court battle against the county.

As a result of the Court of Appeals ruling, the state's Growth Management Hearings Board ordered the county to increase the density of housing in its urban growth areas. The increased density presumably will shrink the urban growth areas to accommodate the same projected population.

Since the ruling, the county has moved forward with a more precise analysis of growth trends and has begun to draw alternative urban growth boundaries. Following two workshops, the first public hearing on the alternatives will be at 7 p.m. Monday in the Kitsap County Commissioners Chambers, 619 Division St.

Until the urban growth areas are approved, Silverdale residents should not attempt to incorporate, said attorney David Bricklin, who represents Kitsap Citizens for Responsible Planning.

To avoid such problems, those involved in the incorporation effort had considered limiting the city boundaries to the urban growth area that existed before the disputed changes. But the boundaries submitted in the annexation petition include at least three residential areas added in 2006.

Kitsap County officials maintain that the 2006 revisions should not affect the Silverdale incorporation. The incorporation boundaries are significantly smaller than the 2006 UGA boundaries, noted Eric Baker, special projects manager for the county. There should be plenty of room to shrink the larger UGA boundaries without affecting the city boundaries, he said.

If the growth board invalidates the Silverdale urban growth area, then the Boundary Review Board for Kitsap County would need to decide whether the incorporation can legally go ahead. The petition for incorporation has been certified, but the Boundary Review Board has yet to schedule a hearing on Silverdale's proposed city boundaries.

It also isn't clear when the growth board will issue its decision on the invalidity question.

"I wish I had some clarity about this," Baker said, "but I don't think anybody does. This is brand-new territory."

As for Poulsbo, Shelley Kneip, deputy prosecutor for the county, argues that the city's urban growth boundaries were left unchanged by the 2006 comprehensive plan, which was appealed. The city's boundaries were altered in 2002, when nobody raised any formal objections. Nor was Poulsbo listed as an issue during the recent appeal, she said.

"Petitioners cannot now devise new arguments for issues they failed to raise in their initial appeals," Kneip wrote in a brief. "Petitioners cannot use the remand process to raise issues that were settled 10 years ago."

But Bricklin contends that the county used the same minimum density for Poulsbo as it did for the other urban growth areas — the ones found out of compliance with state law — so Poulsbo's urban area remains larger than it should be.

As stated in the petitioners' motion, failing to address Poulsbo at this time "introduces an internal consistency in the plan that is precluded by (state law)."

[USAPatriot]

New biggest building for Spokane.

http://www.kxly.com/news/spokane-new...z/-/index.html

"Walt and Karen Worthy, the owners of the Davenport Hotel, announced Wednesday their newest plans to build a new hotel across the street from the INB Performing Arts Center.

The new hotel - set to become the largest in Spokane - will be built across Spokane Falls Blvd. from the Performing Arts Center, which it will face, in what is now a parking lot. The plan calls for that lot to move underground, with a new parking garage to be built on the east side of the hotel.

"It's going to be the largest building in Spokane by a long shot," Walt Worthy said at a press conference with his wife Karen, where they announced their plans for what will become the largest hotel in Spokane.

"It's a U-shaped hotel, just like the Davenport, and the rooms will be much the same size, we will be almost 500 square feet in each room," he added.
The hotel will be 15 stories tall with 700 rooms and a total of 550,000 square feet complete with retail space, restaurants, several ballrooms, an indoor pool and a spa. A skywalk will be built to connect the hotel to the convention center."