Everett aims for a delightful downtown

Published 9:00 pm Wednesday, September 28, 2005

EVERETT – Ideally, someday Everett will be like an Oreo.

On either side of the city – its riverfront and waterfront – will be sweetly developed shorelines.

And the cream in the middle? If all goes well, it’ll be a delicious downtown.

With preparations for the city’s shoreline developments well under way, city leaders have turned their spotlights on creating a plan for downtown.

City planners have enlisted the help of several firms, and they’re also calling on residents for input.

More than 200 people have responded to the city’s downtown survey. Everett’s planning director, Allan Giffen, said the city will continue to accept surveys – available at www.everettwa.org – until Oct. 31.

In addition, the planning commission is having a series of public hearings, calling on residents to help guide the plan.

About 105 people attended a Sept. 20 meeting, held at Everett Station to accommodate the crowd. Though the meeting was billed as a public hearing, it was more like board-game night, with attendees playing a sort of urban planning Pictionary.

Residents took turns standing and calling out their suggestions for downtown, whether it was something they’d like to stay the same or something they’d like to change.

As soon as a suggestion was broached, urban designers made marker drawings to represent the suggestion and pasted them on the wall.

“Preserve the city’s historic buildings … everything deserves a chance to live,” one woman called out.

An architect drew a historic building – presumably a preserved one.

“Build the highest buildings on the highest ground to preserve views,” a man said.

An architect drew a hill with the tallest buildings at the top.

After the say-and-draw, residents were led to several long tables with large maps of downtown. They were divided into small groups and given markers to draw their own version of downtown zoning.

MAKERS, the Seattle urban planning and architecture firm the city has hired to help with the plan, ran most of the meeting.

“We just try to make it interesting,” said Bob Bengford, a partner at MAKERS. “It’s kind of a way that people can see their ideas. It’s a way for them to see that we’re listening to them and responding to them.”

Giffen said it’s nice to attract such a large crowd to a planning commission meeting for a largely uncontroversial topic.

“I think there’s a lot of people who are excited about downtown and the potential for some positive redevelopment happening,” Giffen said. “My read of the people who were speaking and those who have called, they’re all kind of looking at things positively and truly excited about the opportunity to plan downtown.”

At the meeting, Giffen gave a sneak peak of the downtown survey, which so far has some surprising results.

Of the 200 people who have replied so far, 115 said they visit downtown five or more times a week to dine, attend events, visit a government office, shop or work.

Respondents named downtown’s strengths, including Everett’s museums, theaters, the Everett Events Center, historic buildings and pedestrian friendliness.

Some of downtown’s cited weaknesses included vacant buildings, poorly maintained buildings, lack of variety in shopping and dining, lack of a quality hotels and lack of housing choices.

The survey asks what downtown people would most like Everett to resemble. With choices such as Seattle, Tacoma, Portland, Ore., and Vancouver, B.C., there’s no clear winner so far.

The No. 1 response to that question so far is “other,” Giffen said, with write-in candidates including Chelan in Eastern Washington.

The next highest response? People want downtown Everett to resemble downtown Bellevue.

The survey isn’t particularly scientific. The people who already use downtown are the ones most interested in the survey, which may skew the results, Giffen said.

It does give people a chance to weigh in and share ideas, he said.

“If we don’t plan for what we want, then how do we know what we want when somebody shows up with a particular project?” Giffen said. “Then we’re choosing to let others plan for us. We needed a more comprehensive idea of what we wanted our downtown to be.”

Reporter Jennifer Warnick: 425-339-3429 or jwarnick @heraldnet.com.

To help

It’s not too late to help shape downtown Everett’s future.

The next planning commission public workshop to refine the vision for downtown will be at 6:30 p.m. Oct. 25 in the Weyerhaeuser Room at Everett Station, 3201 Smith Ave.

Another workshop meeting to discuss downtown transportation and parking issues will be at 6:30 p.m. Nov. 29 at the same location.