EVERETT – A year ago, Bob and Karyn Zigler moved from their longtime home in Marysville to a small apartment in the Nautica, a downtown Everett building with a rooftop deck offering panoramic views of the water, mountains and city.
“My husband was sick of the yard work,” Zigler, 56, said.
When the Nautica announced months ago that it would convert its apartments to condominiums, the Ziglers were among the first to buy.
“People my age want to downsize their living quarters and upsize their fun,” she said, looking out over Possession Sound from a second-floor window inside the Nautica.
The Ziglers are among the first to vote with their feet.
City officials are touting a plan they hope will bring thousands of people like the Ziglers into the city’s downtown.
Simply called “The Downtown Plan,” it’s scheduled to be considered by the City Council on July 19. The plan’s goal is to maximize downtown Everett’s potential by creating an inviting environment for business and residential growth.
“The main message here is that the city is focused on quality redevelopment downtown,” city planner Allan Giffen said.
Some worry that in trying to clean up its image, Everett risks becoming an “antiseptic” city that only the well-heeled will call home.
The Downtown Plan is only the latest in a long line of growth directives, but it comes at a time when the city has invested heavily in becoming a cultural hub.
Much has changed in a city once known for deserted downtown streets, drug busts and prostitution. Now the focus is upscale condominiums and tony nightlife.
More than $1 billion in public and private money has been spent on downtown development in recent years.
The Everett Events Center opened its doors nearly three years ago, amid controversy over whether the city should demolish historic buildings that had been neglected by property owners and left to crumble.
The first wave of upscale condos, shops and restaurants are expected to open next year at Port Gardner Wharf.
A second waterfront development, announced last week, will replace a former door factory with condominiums and marinas.
Snohomish County government offices remain downtown instead of setting up shop elsewhere.
Now, the city’s downtown streets are primed for more.
The Downtown Plan sets strict design guidelines. It also calls for incentives to attract more private investment. If those strategies are followed, it predicts a growth boom over the next 20 years.
Benjamin Pfiester, a real estate analyst from Lake Stevens in his late 20s, said he is considering purchasing a condo either at the Nautica or Port Gardner Wharf.
“Here, you can walk to everything,” he said. “We wanted to look in downtown Everett.”
People such as the Ziglers and Pfiester are expected to flock to Everett. City officials expect downtown will need at least 2,000 new apartment or condominium units. Similar growth is expected in the lodging, retail and business sectors.
Chance to do it right
The plan is needed because there won’t be a second chance to manage and shape the city’s growth, officials said.
“It’s about trying to find the right blend of uses to support what we believe the downtown will be 20 years from now,” Everett Mayor Ray Stephanson said. “I think we’re emerging from a government and financial center to a more residential, urban living setting.”
Zigler said she and her husband moved downtown to be a part of the change.
“Everett is just on the cusp of exploding,” she said. “It’s where Bellevue was 20 years ago.”
Zigler is a human resources consultant. From her home office, she walks to downtown eateries for breakfast or lunch with friends. She and her husband enjoy dinner downtown before a concert or game at the Everett Events Center.
She’s ready for more.
Over the past two years, hundreds of Everett residents have helped city planners by filling out surveys and attending workshops. The Downtown Plan is filled with drawings and ideas from those meetings.
Residents envisioned downtown streets sliced in two by landscaped medians.
Attractive street lamps would illuminate wide sidewalks. People want shops filled with customers who live in condominiums above them. Buses could shuttle residents between saltwater beaches to the west and a bustling riverfront to the east. Along the way would be stops at parks and downtown attractions.
Just getting the plan this far already has cost the community about $100,000, Giffen said.
“The $64 question is, is this once again going to be another plan that we spend taxpayers’ dollars on that goes on the shelf?” Stephanson said. “I’m absolutely committed to having this be an action document.
“Once the plan is adopted, there are very specific public investments that will encourage private development.”
Port Gardner Neighborhood Association member Bill Belshaw said he has attended workshops addressing city growth for the past 30 years, but the meetings for this plan have been the most effective.
“When it comes to implementation, of course, that’s another story,” he said.
Councilman Paul Roberts served as the city’s planning director for 15 years until 2003. This plan builds on those that came before, and helped attract the investors who have sparked today’s progress, Roberts said.
“Things may not happen with great precision, because it’s difficult to predict with great precision what will happen,” Roberts said.
Public to bear cost
The new plans would add bike lanes to stretches of Hoyt Avenue and California Street. Sidewalks throughout downtown would be widened or landscaped.
Those investments don’t have a price tag, but the plan calls for the costs to be borne by the public.
One of the first changes the city expects to make under the plan is the installation of parking meters throughout downtown.
Money raised would help pay for the street improvements. The plan calls for creation of a Transportation Management Association. Its job would be to supervise parking and other downtown concerns.
The plan specifies that new buildings would need decorative elements and outdoor shelter such as awnings. Bicycle lockers and shower facilities would be a fixture in larger buildings, a step to encourage more commuting using human power.
Outdoor lighting and signs will have to meet as yet unspecified design standards that will require an “upscale” appearance.
The plan dangles carrots for developers: flexible building sizes and heights.
The plan rewards developer compliance with design standards by allowing bigger and taller structures, Giffen said.
Laws adopted this year to ban teen clubs, second-hand stores, churches, tattoo parlors and other businesses from the ground floors of buildings within much of downtown survive in the plan. That disappoints some who otherwise fully support the blueprint.
“There are so many places for adults to go out and enjoy the downtown, but we should create a place for teens as well,” said Charlene Rawson, a single mother and one-time City Council candidate.
Rawson attended many of the downtown plan workshops, and recently convinced her boss at Guaranty Mortgage Company to open an office in downtown Everett.
“I’d like to be able to walk to work,” said Rawson, who lives in the Port Gardner neighborhood, which includes part of downtown. “I just think Everett is the epicenter of what’s happening right now.”
Councilman Ron Gipson, a vocal advocate for small business owners, said he avoided workshops on the downtown plan so he could objectively review the final proposal.
“I can’t support any legislation that would discriminate against anyone,” he said. “We have an ordinance that says ‘No teen clubs.’ To me, that’s wrong.”
The plan’s design standards should be achievable by any developer, he said.
“If standards are going to hinder some developers just because certain people want those standards, that’s not right,” Gipson said.
The city doesn’t favor any particular property owners or developers, Giffen said.
“Retail is designated where it makes sense to have retail, no matter who owns the property, as long as they meet the codes,” he said. “They’re all welcome.”
Some residents fear the city’s refreshed downtown will push out anyone not moneyed enough to buy their way back in.
Everett is turning into an antiseptic city, available only to those with extra cash, said Shirley Marrow, 71, a lifelong city resident and volunteer for a weekly soup kitchen hosted by First Presbyterian Church on Rockefeller Avenue.
With planned restrictions on churches, food banks, homeless shelters and other services, people who most need help will be relegated to outlying areas, she said.
“I want Everett to improve, but not at the expense of others,” Marrow said.
Reporter Krista J. Kapralos: 425-339-3422 or kkapralos@ heraldnet.com.
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