It’s an epicenter of commerce, but an Everett neighborhood’s new name is tied to unique geography, not shopping.
On Wednesday near the Everett Mall, the Twin Creeks neighborhood will celebrate its fresh identity with the dedication of a new sign. Everett Mayor Ray Stephanson and other city officials are expected at the 3 p.m. ceremony at the west end of SW Everett Mall Way near the Olivia Park Road intersection.
Twin Creeks was once known as the Everett Mall South neighborhood. The switch happened more than a year ago, a change sparked by the complaint of one neighbor.
“She didn’t like living in a neighborhood named after the mall. That was the genesis of it,” said Michael Trujillo, who serves as chairman of both the Cascade View and Twin Creeks neighborhood associations.
Along with the mall and other businesses, the neighborhood includes many single-family homes and apartments.
With that resident’s opinion as a mandate, Trujillo began researching alternative names. He was helped by Wendy McClure, the city’s liaison to the neighborhoods. Everett has 19 named neighborhoods, each with representation on Everett’s Council of Neighborhoods.
Twin Creeks is bordered by Everett Mall Way to the north and 112th Street SE to the south, with I-5 and Evergreen Way as its eastern and western edges. The city has annexed much of the area, but Trujillo said there are residential pockets in unincorporated Snohomish County.
At the group’s ice cream social last year, Trujillo said a contest was held to cull ideas for names. A name including “Cedars” was suggested, but that could describe much of Everett.
Twin Creeks may stump anyone new to Everett, or familiar only with today’s landscape near the mall. What creeks?
Tom Murdoch, director of the nonprofit Adopt A Stream Foundation, said forested wetlands covered what is now the mall’s western parking lot. The headwaters of Silver Lake Creek are there, he said. Now largely covered, Silver Lake Creek cuts under I-5 and empties, through an underground pipe, into Silver Lake at Thornton A. Sullivan Park. The outflow finds its way to North Creek.
And North Creek is the second of the new name’s “twin” creeks. Murdoch said its headwaters are north of Everett Mall Way. It flows through McCollum Park, site of the Northwest Stream Center, past Mill Creek Town Center, Canyon Park and the UW Bothell campus, and into the Sammamish River and Lake Washington.
Trujillo, 65, said one of his neighbors, a longtime resident, drew a map of the area showing North Creek, and told him he used to go fishing there.
The hand-drawn map also showed the neighborhood’s former street names, familiar to long-timers: Seventh Avenue SE was once Farmers Road, and 112th Street SE was Stockshow Road.
The new Twin Creeks sign, on the south side of SW Everett Mall Way, is on property in the Evergreen Forum Retail Center, a strip mall containing FedEx-Kinko’s and a Baskin-Robbins ice cream shop. Coast Real Estate Services manages the property and worked with Trujillo in placing the sign.
Trujillo has been active for years in Everett’s Council of Neighborhoods. He oversees the Cascade View Neighborhood Association, for his own neighborhood, and hopes a new leader will step forward for Twin Creeks. Trujillo wants Twin Creeks neighbors to get involved, get to know one another, and renew efforts to care for their homes and prevent crime.
“I want people to be proud of where they live,” Trujillo said. “It’s a renaissance for the neighborhood.”
Julie Muhlstein: 425-339-3460; muhlstein@heraldnet.com.
Sign dedication
Everett’s Twin Creeks neighborhood will dedicate its new sign at 3 p.m. Wednesday at the west end of Everett Mall Way near the Olivia Park Road intersection.
The public is welcome; parking is available at the FedEx Office, 530 SW Everett Mall Way.
For more information, call Michael Trujillo at 425-750-9547 or go to http://everettwa.org/default.aspx?ID=176.
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