Published March 2005

New venue, ‘new image’
Lynnwood Convention Center to attract events,
bring sense of identity to city

Snohomish County Business Journal/JOHN WOLCOTT The new $34 million, 55,000-square-foot Lynnwood Convention Center opens April 30.

By John Wolcott
SCBJ Editor

The new Lynnwood Convention Center is nearly ready for business, with an April 30th grand opening planned. Government officials, the center’s staff and the local business community couldn’t be more excited.

“This marks a major milestone in Lynnwood’s history,” Mayor Mike McKinnon said at the site’s groundbreaking a year ago.

Mike Echelbarger, chair of the Lynnwood Public Facilities District in charge of the convention center project, said, “This project has been a long time in coming ... our efforts to locate a convention center here date back to the late 1980s.”

The $34 million, 55,000-square-foot conference facility — at 196th Street SW and 37th Avenue W., only a block from Interstate 5 — is expected to make a major impact in south Snohomish County.

Annual revenues for the center, from meetings, conferences and events, are expected to reach $13 million annually. The estimated 40,000 people attracted to the facility each year also will stimulate significant retail sales in the area, including the recently expanded Alderwood mall with nearly 250 stores.

The Snohomish County Tourism Bureau expects more local hotel nights will be tallied by “destination” tourists and conferees, those who come for meetings or trade shows and then stay over for shopping, sightseeing and visits to the soon-to-open Future of Flight Aviation Center and Boeing Tour facility at nearby Paine Field. Area restaurants, movie theaters and the Everett Events Center also should gain business from the new convention center.

“We’re getting a lot of promotion help, too, from the South Snohomish County Chamber of Commerce, which has offices in the shopping center next to the convention center,” said the convention center’s general manager, Eddie Tadlock, who is now on the chamber’s board of directors.

Also, Lynnwood’s new convention site is the northeast anchor for the community’s future 400-acre “city center” development of medium- to high-rise buildings. The new downtown core plan is being studied as a way to replace aging buildings now on the site and prepare the city for future growth as people and businesses continue to move north from King County. The convention center fills only a corner of its 13-acre site, leaving space for future expansion, including an adjacent hotel.

“We really want the convention center to help create a sense of identity for the city,” Tadlock said. “Lynnwood has the Alderwood mall image, but this will add a new image.”

Tadlock said the new facility will draw conferences, meetings and events because of many factors, including its site at the confluence of I-5 and I-405; its 55,000 square feet of spacious and flexible meeting space and its banquet seating for up to 950 people, with theater-style arrangements up to 1,200. As many as 67 8-by-10-foot exhibit booths can be easily accommodated for trade shows.

He said another attraction is the center’s more than 600 free parking spaces and Lynnwood hotel rates that are 25 percent lower than those in Seattle.

The center also offers the most advanced technology systems available, including high-speed Internet access, wireless service throughout the facility, state-of-the-art audio-visual equipment and on-site support for audio-visual, electrical and telecommunications by a trained media team.

“We have in-house catering services, with modern, spacious kitchen facilities serving both floors and a resident executive chef, so conventions will get top-quality food and service,” Tadlock said, noting that the center focuses on serving local farm produce, Washington state wines and fresh seafood. “We also buy local furnishings and from local vendors as much as we can, including printing services.”

There will be about 10 full-time employees at the facility, but events will bring in 40 to 50 part-time staff to serve at various activities. Those are opportunities many people like, he said, because “a lot of the people in this business are entertainers, performers, students, local residents or trained hospitality service people who prefer the flexibility of working part time.”

Already, several groups have booked space including the Lynnwood Rotary, Run to Win, SRA McGraw Hill, a Brides Club Inc. wedding show, Community Services for the Blind, Lynnwood Honda, Fluke Corp., Master Builders Care Foundation Benefit Auction and others. Even the events staff at Microsoft likes the proximity of the Lynnwood Convention Center for the kind of special events they usually schedule in Seattle. Now, there’s another venue.

Tadlock is going to develop a local presence for artists in the convention center, with rotating displays, and his plans for the grand-opening ceremonies include a diversity fair.

“People will be amazed to discover how many different cultures are represented by Lynnwood residents and businesses, including Korean and Vietnamese residents,” he said. “There are all sorts of culturally diverse groups and associations who are excited about this event and the new center.”

As the convention center construction draws to a close, Tadlock is spending more and more time talking with events planners, trade associations and other groups to “get Lynnwood on the map.”

Many conventions are already booked elsewhere up to two years out, but local groups are filling in the calendar in the near term, he said, and marketing will expand rapidly once the building is operating.

“One of the features we think people will really like is the interactive floor lighting display in the lobby,” he said.

Designed by Seattle artist Rick Mullarky, it’s the only display of its kind in the nation. A series of glass bricks built into the floor, forming a square, are back-lit with very bright red, green and blue light-emitting diodes. Each brick has a sensor that allows the floor to “react” to the presence of people when they walk or stand on it.

By programming the glass bricks from a nearby control room, and linking to Internet sites, stepping on individual squares will display corporate logos of companies meeting at a convention, information from the center’s staff or places to visit during a stay in Lynnwood.

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