More kudos are coming in for Mill Creek Town Center.
Just two months after the city of Mill Creek received a development award from the Puget Sound Regional Council, the city received another honor in the mail from the Washington State Department of Trade and Economic Development for Town Center.
The newest award recognizes the city’s achievement for entreprenurialship and innovation, city community development director Bill Trimm said. The city applied for the award in November of last year.
“We’re real happy with it,” he said.
While sharing a name similar to Redmond Town Center, the 27-acre Mill Creek Town Center is different in that while it is a cohesive development, it is not a shopping center like Redmond’s development is. Mill Creek Town Center not only includes shops, but offices and residential development.
The development, however, is only partially complete, with more commercial, residential and office space still to be constructed. Among those new developments is the Cottages at Mill Creek, an 89-unit residential development on Main Street west of Merrill Gardens Retirement Community. The first building, Mill Creek Court, a combination of office space with a Curves for Women location and a restaurant, opened in 2003.
Another way Mill Creek Town Center differs from its Redmond namesake is that the development has come about because the city has partnered with the private sector on the project. For example, city staff promoted the concept to developers all over the West Coast, and staff also met with the executive boards of certain developers and companies, such as University Book Store.
Also, Mill Creek Town Center has been built by a variety of developers, who are working under a set of design guidelines established by city staff and approved by the Planning Commission, Design Review Board and City Council.
“Everybody ought to be proud of it,” Trimm said about Town Center. “We took raw land and with 10 years of planning and design we’ve made something beautiful and functional.”
In addition to the state and Puget Sound Regional Council awards, Town Center has also received accolades from the American Planning Association, the Planning Association of Washington and the Snohomish County Economic Development Council.
Mill Creek Town Center has become a popular project for officials in other cities around western Washington to come and examine. So far, Trimm has talked and met with officials from Kent, Monroe, Woodinville and Edgewood about Town Center.
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