Published March 2001

Downtown Everett attracting public,
private sectors

Real estate investors are tying up properties. City officials are busy making plans. Designs are being finalized. Public meetings are under way.

Downtown Everett is experiencing a heightened level of interest from both private and public investment in its core and along its waterfront. If you’ve been in Palm Springs for the winter, you’ve missed some of it.

The Port of Everett’s well-publicized plans to redevelop portions of the waterfront and expand the marina are well into the predevelopment stages. Identifying the right mix of marine, retail, commercial and residential uses is the task at hand right now for the two primary sites.

The uniqueness of a waterfront amenity is something that should attract interest from investors and change the look and feel of portions of Everett’s waterfront forever. The new development also may create enough critical mass to make the waterfront more than just a destination location for retail. The game plan is for private investors to lease the port’s land to build on — but under the “structure” of a planned development.

Look for a mix of marine-related development closest to the pleasure-boat docks on 14th Street, and commercial, retail and residential mixed on the interiors. Hotels, parks and museums are all possibilities, too.

The recently announced city-sponsored sports and events arena is more than a dream at this point. Everett has scored strong in preliminary feasibility studies and appears to have the necessary political support behind the effort to make this happen.

For real estate investors and downtown businesses near the proposed Hewitt and Broadway site, the purposely limited parking in the plan should mean more business — particularly after 5 p.m. — for storefronts within about a five-block radius. The arena’s proximity to the Transit Center just a few blocks to the southeast helps support the notion that people will walk between the two, creating a new dynamic for businesses located along this stretch of Broadway as well.

Private investment is finding downtown Everett a good buy and promises to potentially upgrade the street appeal of storefronts and buildings that have been all but forgotten. Images of a Hewitt Avenue as an east/west version of the resurgent Colby Avenue in the downtown core could be a reality if the interest is sustained.

The rumor that Boeing may relocate a portion of its employees from Renton to Everett would, if true, have very positive effects on residential and retail in south county, but indirectly to downtown as well. Boeing expects to save millions by consolidating functions and staff in Everett, so the possibility is very real if the savings are this significant. The “multiple effect” of Boeing jobs is always strong as new Boeing dollars often trade many times over in the local economy.

There are a number of other movements — some publicly known and some just street talk — that suggest investors seem to have solid feelings about downtown Everett these days. But it’s the interest from such a variety of local and outside investors that makes this potential run so unique and, possibly, more long lasting.

Tom Hoban is CEO of Coast Management Co., a property management company with offices in Everett, Bellevue, and Boise, Idaho. He can be reached by e-mail to tomhoban@coastmgt.com.

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