While the pursuit of parkland on Edmonds’ waterfront hasn’t gained traction, some councilmembers continue to push the city to explore options for more public involvement in the privately held redevelopment project.
Public-private partnerships, comprehensive plan rewrites and other options seem to be on the table.
“I think most people are looking for more possibilities,” said council president Michael Plunkett, who has put the issue on the agenda for February’s retreat. “I’m hoping that we can develop a road map for the process that leads to a decision.”
What the city will pursue, if anything, is anybody’s guess. But what will happen with the property, at least in the immediate future, is in the hands of developers Al Dykes, who owns the Antique Mall site, and Bob Gregg, who owns the Skippers property.
The port’s Harbor Square property won’t redevelop for another 10 to 15 years, port director Chris Keuss said Tuesday.
For his part, Gregg isn’t trying to be coy, he said. Gregg attended Tuesday’s council meeting, where Keuss spoke about the project and answered questions from the council.
Gregg said he was ready to lay out a rough project timeline for the site – with “plans and information about where we would like to be” – if the councilmembers had asked him directly. Gregg was not on the agenda, but no councilmember asked him any questions.
“I do not want to be secretive. If the city asks (what we are thinking), we will tell,” he said after the meeting. “There is not much sense in them plowing down the (hypothetical) path.”
Saying he didn’t want to communicate with the city through the newspaper, Gregg wouldn’t detail his plans to a reporter, but did say that if the city doesn’t take solid steps in pursuit of a plan, he’d present plans for his property before the end of summer.
The idea of parkland – dismissed Tuesday as a “straw man” by councilmember Steve Bernheim – seems to have lost its steam.
Instead, Bernheim suggested said an ideal goal should be to explore options.
“People do not want to retire that property,” he said. “People are suggesting that alternate uses be considered and that public uses be among those.”
Different models of controlling development have emerged.
Mayor Gary Haakenson believes the power of a contract rezone keeps the size and type of development in the city’s control.
“If somebody wants to design a project with five story buildings, the council can say ‘No, thank you,’” he said Jan. 18. “It is totally in control as to what gets built there.”
At the Jan. 15 council meeting, councilmember Deanna Dawson suggested the city should explore purchasing land on the site and exploring a public-private partnership.
That’s an idea Gregg has supported in the past, albeit in a different part of town, he said Tuesday.
Earlier this decade, he advanced a proposal for a public-private partnership along Main Street east of Third Avenue, he said. The city had little interest. The possibility of a partnership now is colored by that experience, he said.
“I’m skeptical that this town would do something like that,” Gregg said.
Without a lot of in-house development experience, or other expertise, it isn’t immediately obvious why the city would pursue such a partnership, councilmember Ron Wambolt said Jan. 22.
“I don’t know what we would bring to it other than money, and we don’t have a lot of that,” he said.
Reporter Chris Fyall: 425-673-6525 or cfyall@heraldnet.com
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