LAKE STEVENS – When Patrick McCourt started Barclays North Inc. more than 16 years ago, he and his wife, Stephanie, rented a 900-square-foot space near the Tom Thumb grocery store south of Lake Stevens.
Today, the expanding development company takes up about 15,000 square feet between two office buildings, the newest of which will officially open this week.
“The market here, obviously, has driven the growth,” said McCourt, the company’s chairman and chief executive.
Barclays North has evolved from a company set up to develop an Everett neighborhood into one that’s working with the state’s largest homebuilder and planning a $156 million condominium project in Las Vegas.
Projects directed by Barclays North dot Snohomish County, including the Haggen stores in Arlington and Marysville, the All-Star Fitness building in Monroe and the Lake Stevens Station retail center.
In all, it has developed nearly 700 homes and 34 commercial projects that total more than a half-million square feet of commercial space.
In 2000, Barclays North planned and built its first large headquarters office building along South Lake Stevens Road. A second office building right next door to the first is now finished, and a third office building will be built by the year’s end.
By that time, Barclays North should have about 70 employees, up from 54 now, said Tony Kastens, the company’s president.
Despite Barclays North’s success, McCourt didn’t originally set out to establish a development company in Snohomish County. In fact, he didn’t even plan on staying long.
A native of Wisconsin, McCourt lived in Alaska for 20 years, where he weathered several boom-and-bust cycles as a real estate developer. Then he came south to broker a property deal for a friend, resulting in the development of the Glenhaven area in southwest Everett.
“We rented a house; I didn’t think I’d stay. But I liked the weather,” he said.
To establish an ongoing business here, the McCourts began buying property in the Lake Stevens area, where they and most of the company’s executives live.
Demand for new homes heated up in the county in the mid-1990s, and Barclays North was active in residential construction until about 2003.
Now, with bigger builders dominating the home sector, the firm is more focused on commercial development and securing land for other home-building companies.
Last year, Barclays North and Quadrant Homes signed a master lot development agreement worth more than $100 million. McCourt said his company has about 3,500 home lots, primarily in Snohomish County, in various stages of development.
On the commercial front, McCourt sees plenty of opportunities as well, he said. With few empty lots left in the large business parks such as Everett’s Seaway Center and Mukilteo’s Harbour Pointe, he thinks new sites will be needed to host the county’s growing collection of biotechnology companies and educational institutions.
However, lack of suitable infrastructure and land availability can be big hurdles to such development locally, he said. Because of rising land costs and development restrictions, Barclays North has cast its eye elsewhere as well.
“We look around and say, if we’re going to keep going as a company, we need to look at other regions, other areas and other states,” McCourt said.
With that in mind, the company started work on a project in Sun Valley, Idaho. But its biggest out-of-state deal is the Streamline Tower, a 251-unit condominium project in downtown Las Vegas. That should be done in time to host a New Year’s Eve party in December 2006, McCourt said.
Reporter Eric Fetters: 425-339-3453 or fetters@heraldnet.com
Barclays North Inc.
Headquarters: Lake Stevens
Number of employees: 54
Founded: 1989, by Patrick and Stephanie McCourt
Web site: www.barclaysnorth.com
New digs: Barclays North Inc. will mark the official opening of its new headquarters building, 1825 S. Lake Stevens Road, at 10:30 a.m. Thursday. County Executive Aaron Reardon is scheduled to take part and talk briefly about local economic development opportunities. .
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