LAKE STEVENS — As a teenager, Karen Alessi used to bring her boat across Lake Stevens every day and walk to Mitchell’s Pharmacy downtown.
"I’d get some ice cream and sit on a stool and listen to what was going on, and so did everybody else," she said.
But the pharmacy moved up the hill to what is now Frontier Village, and later was sold to a drugstore chain. Part of the old pharmacy still exists in the Lake Stevens Historical Museum.
"The soul of the city moved up there with the pharmacy and the sodas," said Alessi, a City Council member and a member of the Greater Lake Stevens Chamber of Commerce’s Economic Development Committee.
Residents "want the soul of the city back," she said. "It used to be a town where you could walk and talk and shop and buy things, and the town began to slowly go away."
Alessi is pushing to bring back the community’s soul by revitalizing downtown with more business, residences and public access to the lake.
Alessi and Bob Craven, co-leaders of the chamber committee, recently reviewed the Lake Stevens Towncenter plan with the City Council, library and park boards, and the planning commission. All agreed with the plan in concept.
Now the city must figure out how to make it a reality.
"I’ve always believed that we have a jewel in this particular area, and we should maximize it as much as we can," Mayor Lynn Walty said of the lake. "The chamber plan does leave a lot of lakefront in green space, and that would be a real asset."
He envisions a time when he and others could rent a paddleboat, have an ice cream cone and relax along the shore. The mayor said it doesn’t make sense for residents to have to go elsewhere for waterfront fun.
"We have a beautiful setting. A lot of people from out here go into Everett or Mukilteo all the time just for waterfront," Walty said.
The city needs to provide opportunities for activities that build good memories for residents, their children and grandchildren, he said.
"But it has to pencil out for everybody," Walty said.
The next step is for city and chamber officials to meet with professionals to find out how to proceed. That might include seeking public and private grants, and getting businesses to buy into the concept and invest in development, Walty said.
Next month, the chamber plans a meeting to get the process started.
"I appreciate what they have done, taking the bull by the horns and looking at it from another set of eyes," Walty said. "There are things in there I’d never have thought of because I’m so practical. I wouldn’t have had the dreaming side. To cluster that much stuff in one area — it reminds me of the old downtown centers I grew up with on the Eastern seaboard."
Among the key elements of the plan:
Jan and Lorrie Larsen already have applied to build one of the retail spaces for Larsen Financial Services, and they plan to live in an apartment on the second floor and have a rooftop garden.
"We won’t have to pay those big gas prices to go down to the office. We’ll just have to go down the elevator," said Lorrie Larsen, who has lived in Lake Stevens since 1963.
The melding of businesses and living space provides more security, because you are always around both, she said.
But businesses that open downtown have to show a profit, the mayor said.
"We’ve got to talk to some professionals about how much it’s going to take," Walty said. "It’s still the early stages for me. At times, I feel overwhelmed. But I like it. I can’t throw rocks."
Reporter Cathy Logg: 425-339-3437 or logg@heraldnet.com.
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