LYNNWOOD – Imagine Lynnwood without Alderwood mall.
Mike McKinnon, the city’s mayor, is one of the longtime residents who can.
“It was just vacant land,” he said. “In fact, in 1969 I used to ride my motorcycle on that land.”
Alderwood’s construction and opening in the late 1970s has since radically transformed the city’s central area, once home to just chickens and homesteads.
Now, with a larger Nordstrom store, all-new outdoor areas studded with upscale stores and trendy restaurants, and a soon-to-open 16-screen cinema, the renovated mall will draw more shoppers and their dollars, Alderwood’s owners predict.
That includes at least some shoppers who often head south to University Village and downtown Seattle.
“I’m excited about going,” said Gretchen Bonadore, a Monroe resident who said she is looking forward to checking out the expanded mall. “I don’t know all the stores that will be there, but it should be fun to investigate.”
She won’t be alone.
“It’s going to bring a lot of new people into Lynnwood,” McKinnon said.
Alderwood is now a 20th-century mall with a 21st-century makeover. The additions are meant to transform it into a “lifestyle center,” an idea that’s literally raising the roof at older shopping centers around the country.
The Puget Sound area is home to two such lifestyle centers, which opened at the beginning of the trend in the late 1990s, Redmond Town Center and the redeveloped University Village in Seattle.
Since then, the trend has exploded. At the start of 2002, only about 30 lifestyle centers existed in U.S. malls. By the start of this year, there were more than 100, according to the International Council of Shopping Centers.
The idea is to place select retailers and restaurants near an outdoor garden plaza, attracting an older crowd to shop and hang out.
“The underlying issue is that retailing is always a mirror of society. As demographics change, as consumers change in their interests … it is reflected in the way they shop,” said Dick Outcalt, co-owner of Outcalt &Johnson: Retail Strategists in Seattle.
Borders, Pottery Barn and Williams-Sonoma are among the retail names that are opening stores at The Village. As one might guess from that mix, the centers appeal to people other than the stereotypical mall crowd.
“For many malls, they primarily appealed to teenagers as a gathering spot,” Outcalt said. “They still will, but the lifestyle-oriented, outdoor reinvention of shopping appeals largely to baby boomers who have grown up with malls and frankly are bored with them. And they find these lifestyle centers to be exciting, different and fashionable.”
Additionally, Snohomish County’s population growth and the growing number of residents with above-average incomes justify Alderwood’s expansion as a smart move, Outcalt added.
Designers who fashioned The Village lifestyle center and The Terraces, a cluster of restaurants on the opposite side of Alderwood, took into account what local shoppers said they wanted in surveys, said Bob Michaels, president and chief operating officer of General Growth Properties, the Chicago-based owner of Alderwood.
While General Growth has added lifestyle centers and similar new additions to some of the other malls it owns across the nation, Michaels said Alderwood is one of the biggest and, in his opinion, one of the best.
“Once it’s all open and operating, it’s going to do very well,” he said.
Lynnwood, incorporated in 1959, existed well before Alderwood mall, but there’s no question that the city would be vastly different without its center of retail commerce.
“We’ve got a critical geographic location” at the northern junction of I-5 and I-405, said David Kleitsch, Lynnwood’s economic development director.
Because of that unique location, Kleitsch thinks Lynnwood would still have been a hub for other types of economic activity. But Alderwood has acted as a huge magnet for the development of surrounding retail stores. It also has put millions of dollars in sales taxes into city coffers.
Mike Bailey, Lynnwood’s finance director, said the city received $2.7 million in sales tax revenue from Alderwood in 2003. That’s in spite of the fact the city receives only a slim percentage of sales taxes; the state gets the bulk. Sound Transit, Community Transit and other agencies also benefit.
“But it’s important money to the city,” Bailey said. The mall, he added, generates about the same amount of sales tax to the city as all of Lynnwood’s car dealerships combined.
The new additions, McKinnon said, could boost the city’s take of the sales tax by $800,000 annually.
Employment at the mall is similarly important to the area. After all the new businesses open, Alderwood’s tenants will employ about 4,000 people year-round, with many more temporary workers during the holidays.
The additions and renovations to the mall will add another $100 million or so to Lynnwood’s tax base, Kleitsch said, quoting estimates from building permits filed by General Growth Properties. The construction cost of the project was at least half that amount.
“That private investment in Lynnwood puts us on the map with other retailers, office brokers and developers,” Kleitsch said. “It’s truly a great thing for Lynnwood.”
One of the downsides of attracting more shoppers is the traffic they create. But Kleitsch and McKinnon said the mall and the city are prepared for the additional vehicles.
The biggest thing the mall did was build two multistory parking garages to add capacity and make up for parking spots lost to the new shopping wings. An underground parking garage will serve moviegoers at the new Loews Cineplex theater when it opens early next year.
Alderwood also presented a traffic management plan to improve the entrances and exits to and from mall parking lots.
The public works department better coordinated traffic signals in the area, and for special events or busy weekends, the signals can be adjusted from city offices, McKinnon said.
The mayor added that the reconfiguration of the I-5 interchange at 196th Street SW, which was completed earlier this year, also has helped. Additionally, he’s still hoping to convince the state Department of Transportation that Lynnwood needs another freeway exit leading directly to the mall and the city center.
Community Transit will do its part by distributing thousands of brochures and tickets for free rides to employees and shoppers in November, said Tom Pearce, a CT planning specialist.
The mall already is among the most popular destinations for bus riders. Twenty-two CT buses an hour go by the mall on weekdays, and 16 buses an hour go by on Saturdays, Pearce said. Sound Transit also provides some service to Alderwood as well.
Steve Epple of Mill Creek, like many others, is looking forward to seeing the completed areas of the mall open and running. He has a keener interest than many, however; he was the principal architect in charge of the Alderwood project for Seattle-based Callison, the world’s largest retail design firm.
While Callison has designed many other lifestyle center additions, it was a challenge to translate the big ambitions of General Growth into a practical, affordable project, Epple said.
“The main challenge was there was a fairly tight budget to handle the interior of the mall, the Terraces and The Village. There was a lot expected and a lot of unknowns,” he said.
Epple said there also was some worry about how many people would want to use an outdoor shopping area in such a rainy climate. Callison convinced the mall’s owners by showing them how many people come to University Village and downtown Seattle in all sorts of weather.
“Generally, I think everyone’s pretty happy with how it turned out,” Epple said, adding that he and his family will check out the finished product soon. “I’m sure we’ll be over there the weekend after it opens.”
Tamera Wachter, Alderwood’s spokeswoman, said she didn’t have any estimates on how many more shoppers a week are expected after the additions open. Normally, the weekend already attracts flocks of shoppers to the mall.
“In our view, Alderwood is going to be a home run,” said Outcalt, the retail consultant. “Their timing is terrific. The last exciting place to shop was Redmond Town Center, and now Alderwood mall is going to be the darling of the retail scene.”
Reporter Eric Fetters: 425-339-3453 or fetters@heraldnet.com.
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