Demo removes eyesores from future light rail path

LYNNWOOD — The Black Angus is toast, the furniture warehouse liquidated.

Demolition next to the Lynnwood Transit Center last week helped clear the way for light-rail construction to start in the year to come. But that wasn’t the prime motivation for doing it now.

“The reason we’re taking down these structures is because they were attracting vandalism,” said Kimberly Reason, a Sound Transit spokeswoman. “We were receiving complaints and it was costing us money to keep chain link fences around them. They were tagged pretty heavily.”

Security personnel had been spending extra time patrolling the vacant buildings, which the agency acquired through eminent domain.

Concerns about criminal activity on those lots should largely disappear along with the 1982-vintage restaurant and the blocky concrete warehouse from 1980.

Look for heavy construction on light rail into Snohomish County to start sometime in mid-2019.

The Lynnwood Link Extension is supposed to be finished by mid-2024. Plans call for new stations at the transit centers in Lynnwood and Mountlake Terrace, plus two in Shoreline.

Early next year, expect crews to start moving utilities at points along the future 8.5-mile light-rail path from Northgate. There’s also clearing and grading before anything new gets built.

Once under way, construction work is bound to disrupt parking and traffic in Mountlake Terrace and Lynnwood.

The Terrace City Council, at its Monday meeting, is preparing to consider a zoning amendment to allow a temporary commuter lot along 236th Street SW, east of the transit center, where there are now houses on a cul-de-sac. The lot would make up for 230 transit center parking spaces displaced during construction.

When light rail reaches Lynnwood, Sound Transit promises an average trip of 28 minutes to downtown Seattle and an hour to Seattle-Tacoma International Airport.

Noah Haglund: 425-339-3465; nhaglund@herald net.com. Twitter: @NWhaglund.