Imagine living in a community that encompasses almost every service or retail store you regularly need within walking distance, as well as open space and public transit.
Public planners and professional developers, including Michael Weinstein and Lyle Landrie, are banking on that urban center ideal becoming common in Snohomish County. As a result, one new urban center is under construction, and another will break ground soon.
The county’s Department of Planning and Development Services has spent three years creating an urban center demonstration program designed to achieve growth goals in a practical way.
"An urban center is a mixed-use, higher-density, well-constructed community," said Karen Watkins, program manager for the county. "Research shows that people who usually want to live in urban centers are from four groups: singles, seniors, single-parent households and starter households."
The main attractions typically are convenience and affordability, she said, adding that "affordable" in Snohomish County means a house up to $200,000.
"These communities are typically affordable because they are smaller than single-family houses," Watkins said.
An effective urban center must also have attractive, accessible public spaces, large sidewalks and other pedestrian-friendly features, easy access to public transit and a mix of uses.
Weinstein, a Seattle-based architect and urban planner, is developing The Esplanade at Mill Creek, a 14-acre community at 148th Street SE and Seattle Hill Road.
"I’m developing this way to blend the very best attributes of the urban situation and the things that are still positive about living outside the city," he said. "Snohomish County, or any of the rapidly growing areas, are places of sort of broken dreams. People typically went to there get away from traffic and have affordable houses and open spaces."
The Esplanade, which is on a Community Transit bus line, will feature 200 condo and townhome units, a large child care facility, a European-style central plaza with gardens and fountains, and walking trails. It also will include 30,000 square feet of retail and office space and an 80-unit complex for active older adults that will include a concierge service and covered parking.
Construction on The Esplanade’s first buildings — its townhomes, which will be built by Pageantry Communities of Washington — is to begin in the coming weeks. The community is in the final stages of planning.
The Esplanade is technically an example of a village center, Watkins said. A village center applies the urban centers concept to a more out-of-the-way population cluster. Watkins added that the county hopes village centers will help accommodate growth while limiting the sprawl of single-family subdivisions.
Weinstein, a member of the county’s urban centers committee, clearly envisions The Esplanade and similar developments as oases.
"In Mill Creek now, you have nothing but a sea of single-family rooftops that go on forever," Weinstein said. "When you think about the best of urban living, you think about having the things you need close by. You think about stopping by a cafe around the corner without having to get in your car."
Weinstein is in the initial stages of planning another village center on the Bothell-Everett Highway near 190th Street SE. It will be called Zocalo after the main plaza in Mexico City.
Six-acre Newberry Square LP, under construction on Ash Way just north of 164th Street SW, is the county’s first demonstration community. It will be co-managed by Lynnwood’s Sundquist Homes LLC.
Landrie, the project manager for Newberry Square, said it will feature 124 high-end apartments in two buildings with an open plaza between them and a small park behind them. It also will include 18,000 square feet of retail space, 11,000 square feet of office space and a covered breezeway connecting residents to a signaled crosswalk to the 164th Street SW park-and-ride.
Watkins noted that an urban center can have more than one community. For example, Newberry Square is part of a vast urban center that ranges along 164th from the Mukilteo Speedway to past Martha Lake.
From a planning standpoint, the urban center concept offers an appealing way to control growth, Watkins said. For developers, the concept shows promise of profitability.
Weinstein already has leased at least 65 percent of The Esplande’s office and retail building.
"The real world is telling us this makes sense," he said.
Landrie said businesses also have expressed strong interest in Newberry Square’s office and retail spaces.
"I think it’s an idea that’s in its infancy and is going to become very popular," Landrie said, citing Juanita, Auburn and Renton’s revitalized downtown as examples of King County cities that have benefited from urban center planning.
"The business community has seen the success in King County. Every project applicant who has come in to us has already known of some business that wanted in," she said.
Other areas designated as future urban or village centers on the county’s map include the area around 128th Street SE and I-5, including both the neighborhoods near Mariner High School and those to the east near Puget Park Drive-in; the Lakewood area north of Marysville and west of Arlington; the area around Airport Road and Highway 99; and the area near the Mukilteo Speedway and Highway 99.
So far, Watkins said public response to the urban center concept has been largely positive, although neighbors near the 128th Street urban center have expressed opposition to high-density housing, she said.
She is hoping to persuade doubters by showing off Newberry Square when it is complete, which should be late this fall.
Weinstein said the county’s first few urban-center communities must succeed.
"These projects can’t afford to fail from the point of view of the county," Weinstein said. "The development community is like a herd. If something fails, it will not go near the idea again for a long time. If it succeeds, a great number of players will want to follow."
Kristin Fetters-Walp is a Lake Stevens freelance writer.
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