ARLINGTON — When Snohomish County’s economy grows strong once again, Arlington expects to be a prime site for economic development. Even while the economy languishes, the city continues to get things done in preparation for the coming recovery.

“While we’ve had our ups and downs, we’re still moving ahead,” said Vic Ericson, Arlington’s economic development manager for the past five years. “We’re developing a new marketing plan for downtown Arlington and we’ve merged our two chambers of commerce — Arlington and the (annexed) Smokey Point area — into one chamber to represent both areas.”

Ericson also is proud of the city’s $4 million street paving and lighting upgrade a couple of years ago along N. Olympic Avenue in Old Town Arlington. While there are some empty storefronts in the century-old downtown commercial area, many existing businesses continue to thrive and new ones keep coming.

“Old Town has restaurants, antique stores and ice cream parlors but there are many other businesses, too. We recently honored several of them for upgrading their properties in line with the city’s downtown improvement guidelines that came out of our revised downtown plan, which we developed with the University of Washington’s Northwest Center for Livable Communities,” he said.

Improvement awards went to owners of the remodeled Stillaguamish Square shopping center, Flowers by George, Co-Op Supply and Arlington Hardware, among others.

To keep drawing locals as well as tourists to the city’s core, Arlington’s Downtown Merchants Association plans parades, car shows, street fairs and other events, he said, including activities linked to the annual Arlington Fly-In. The annual July aviation event is the third largest of its kind nationally, drawing 50,000 people each year during a week of air shows, booth displays, aviation displays and fireworks.

“Downtown is doing OK even in this slow economy, although it’s a long way from vibrant,” Erickson said. “What’s important is that the city has heart because the people here are so involved and so linked to the town. Having heart, a population that cares about their community and each other, that’s essential for attracting people and businesses.”

So many projects are happening in the city, in fact, that Mayor Margaret Larson created a large poster showing an aerial view of the city marked with green tags for recently completed projects and yellow tags for current projects.

“I use this at the chamber and other meetings to show people all of the activities going on,” she said. “We have so many that it’s hard to see the aerial photo now.”

Among the many completed projects are an expanded airport office with a pilot’s lounge and headquarters for the state’s aviation division, the Olympic Avenue Master Plan and a major expansion of Cascade Valley Hospital. A variety of pending projects also dot the board.

At Smokey Point, the city’s major retail shopping center adjacent to I-5, construction began in January on a new $8 million Walmart superstore that is expected to open by October. Ericson said he’s already talked with national companies who want to build stores near the Walmart site.

Just north of downtown, a multimillion-dollar expansion of the city’s water treatment plant is underway to meet future growth projections. It will use the same state-of-the-art membrane purification technology installed by the Tulalip Tribes’ for their Quil Ceda Village shopping center.

Since 1980, greater Arlington’s population has increased by 450 percent, raising the population to more than 15,000, a number that is expected to double by 2025, according to the city’s Web site data.

At the same time the city has experienced an increase in commercial and industrial growth. One of Arlington’s biggest advantages, Ericson said, is that unlike many small towns it has a large industrial work force that keeps jobs at home.

“The most significant growth has occurred at the city’s airport, where more than 2,000 people are employed. There are some substantial companies there, as well as many smaller businesses that have regional to global markets,” he said.

That includes MicroGreen, a high-tech firm producing new environmentally friendly plastics; Silicon Energy, a solar panel manufacturer that outgrew its space and moved to Marysville earlier this year; Outback Power Systems, a provider of solar power systems for remote parts of the world; and a variety of aviation-related businesses.

“We’re also pursuing development of our 89-acre airport business park on 172nd Street NE,” Ericson said. “The commercial real estate market is flat right now but the city is keeping in touch with real estate agents who work with companies that might come here. It’s a city project that has all of the permits and development plans approved. It’s going to be a major growth area for the city.”

The Arlington Airport Business Park has space designated for aerospace, general commercial, business support, retail, offices, research and development and light manufacturing uses.

Because the five-lane stretch of 172nd Street NE from I-5’s Smokey Point interchange ends just east of the Walmart site, one of the city’s major focal points is working with the state Department of Transportation to develop a new east-west road grid between Smokey Point Boulevard and 51st Avenue NE, a two-lane, north-south roadway linking Arlington and Marysville.

“We really want to develop other east-west road grids in that area to reduce traffic congestion,” Ericson said, noting the city has a steering committee working on the park’s development.

Overall, Arlington’s economic development planning involves a variety of challenges, from promoting Old Town’s charm and business center while managing the retail growth at Smokey Point and its related traffic impacts, plus expanding the city’s water, police and fire services.

Ericson said Arlington will continue to grow because “people love the small-town lifestyle,” the rural and mountain scenery, the ability to “shop and work where they live” and the city’s “heart, the feeling of community and working together that comes from caring about the town.”