By Bryan Corliss
Herald Writer
The Alderwood Mall would get three new parking garages, two new stores for anchor tenants and an open-air shopping plaza, under redevelopment plans filed with the city of Lynnwood.
The mall would grow to about 1.5 million square feet of retail space, according to the plans filed by mall owners General Growth Properties of California.
That would make it the largest shopping center in the Puget Sound area.
The three-phase expansion would be “a catalyst project” that would “anchor Lynnwood and Alderwood as centers of commerce,” said David Kleitsch, the city’s economic development director. “We’re very, very excited.”
The owners are working on the studies needed before permits for the project can be issued, said Lee Michaelis, a Lynnwood city planner. Work on the first phase isn’t likely to start until the fall of 2003, he said.
General Growth isn’t commenting on the proposal.
But plans filed with the city so far show the first phase would involve knocking down the former Lamont’s store, now occupied by The Gallery, and building a new store of at least 160,000 square feet for Nordstrom, which would then move out of its 125,000-square-foot building.
After Nordstrom moves, its former store would also be demolished, making room for about 200,000 square feet of what’s being called a “lifestyle component.”
That would be a collection of stand-alone shops clustered around an open-air pedestrian plaza.
These are “fairly new concepts” for malls, Kleitsch said. They tend to attract up-market furniture, home furnishing and clothing stores, which would change the mall’s merchandise mix, he said. He compared it to recent development at Bellevue Square and at Seattle’s University Village.
The later stages of the Alderwood project also would see construction of a new 150,000- to 160,000-square-foot building for an as-yet-unnamed new anchor tenant, and the addition of two sit-down restaurants adjacent to the food court.
Existing anchor tenants JC Penney and the Bon Marche would get larger spaces. Penney’s two-level store would grow from 159,000 square feet to between 205,000 and 215,000 square feet. The Bon would grow from 220,000 square feet to between 265,000 and 275,000 square feet.
And the new parking structures would add a net of 1,600 new parking spaces, giving the mall room for nearly 6,800 cars, the plans show.
The Alderwood expansion won’t hamper the city’s efforts to develop a new town center, Kleitsch said.
The town center project would feature a mix of commercial and residential property, as well as retail space, Kleitsch said. Given that, “Both can co-exist as far as tenants are concerned,” he said. “If anything, they’re complementary.”
You can call Herald Writer Bryan Corliss at 425-339-3454
or send e-mail to corliss@heraldnet.com.
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