College officials see 19% growth coming

Shoreline Community College is proud of its lush tree-lined campus, the large old-growth area of trees at the entrance, and its history in the community.

But many buildings on the campus are old and in need of renovation, there are some parking and traffic problems, and both the college and the state foresee that with just under 5,000 students today, the college will probably grow by about 19 percent over the next 10 years.

To better understand how to manage the growth that is predicted, the college is in the process of developing a facilities master plan that not only looks at where to locate future development on the campus, but also looks at reorganizing the layout of the campus, water run-off issues, traffic patterns and parking, as well as how the college can become more of a community asset, said Shoreline Community College (SCC) president Holly Moore.

This appeals to neighbors, who have had to contend with traffic and parking problems in their neighborhoods for quite some time.

“Anyone who has been on either Greenwood Ave. N. or Innis Arden Way when people are coming to class or leaving class knows, you get stuck in traffic for 20 minutes trying to get up or down either one of those roads,” said Nora Kristjansson, president of the Shorewood Hills Homeowners Association.

“We’ve even had the post office stop delivering mail because cars were parked in front of mailboxes,” she said.

Rainwater running off community college parking lots into the neighborhoods may be causing erosion said Jay Biagi, a resident of Shorewood Hills II subdivision and past president of the homeowners association. “These issues need to be addressed.”

Over the past several months college officials have been hard at work developing a draft concept for a master plan that looks at projected growth and ways to address some of these issues.

The college foresees the need to grow by about 200,000 square feet over the next 10 years. In doing so, the college wants to maintain and enhance buffers between the college and the community by replacing buildings to increase the density of the campus and minimize outward sprawl, said Tim Williams, a consultant for the college who works with LMN Architects in Seattle.

Convenient and accessible parking facilities are also important in the master plan, including the proposal for a parking structure on campus to discourage parking in surrounding neighborhoods. The parking structure could be located furthest away from neighborhoods and allow the college to return a portion of the rustic parking area off of Greenwood Ave. N along the Boeing creek side to natural and mitigated habitat area, Williams said.

In addition, “the master plan requires a complete analysis of campus hydrology, and strategies are being developed to bring the campus into compliance with the latest requirements for storm water detention and retention. A number of the planned facilities on campus would limit, change or reduce the water running off of the campus,” he said.

But the most exciting feature of the draft plan, Williams said, is the proposal of a NCAA-sized baseball diamond, soccer field and a 500-seat outdoor amphitheater along the western edge of the campus, where a gravel parking lot is located above Shoreview Park. These facilities would be available for community use when not being used by the college.

“We want to become a model of environmental sustainability,” said Shoreline Community College president Holly Moore, “and we also want the college to become more of a community hub.” Building an amphitheater, baseball diamond and soccer field along the property line that both the college and the community could use, would be an asset for the community, she said.

This proposal also helps address an existing boundary dispute between the city and the college, Williams said. The college charges a parking fee for the gravel lot that currently straddles the boundary line between city and college land, and city parks and recreation director Wendy Barry said the use of park land for parking and collecting a fee is not condoned by the state. The proposal to co-develop the land into public fields and an amphitheater would be a proper use for the land, she said. Whether it is something the city would be willing to help co-develop is still being negotiated.

SCC is required to create master plan by the state Board for Community and Technical Colleges, which oversees capital funding requests, and by the city of Shoreline, which oversees the zoning of the college. The college is currently zoned as residential, and any capital improvement or development projects on the campus require conditional-use permits from the city, said Rachael Markle, planning manager with the City of Shoreline.

It is important that a master plan be developed with public input and the city approve the plan and issue a zoning overlay, so the college can move forward with its changes without seeking individual permissions for each project, she said.

There are several critical areas surrounding the college like steep slopes, Boeing Creek, and the fact that the campus is located in the middle of a residential neighborhood, Markle said. Part of the master planning process will involve the development of an environmental impact statement (EIS), to analyzing the overall environmental impact of the changes proposed in the master plan. The EIS process requires that the college collect public input and analyze the overall environmental impact of the changes proposed on the campus.

Right now the college has about $300,000 budgeted for the master plan, said Pamela Rose, director of facilities, planning and operations at SCC. The environmental impact statement alone will cost about $90,000.