Published October 2003

Newberry Square: Innovative
community design

By John Wolcott
SCBJ Editor

Controlling urban growth has become more than just a city issue in Snohomish County. Lately, it has become a prime focus for county officials, too.

Facing the challenges of urban sprawl that have frustrated many city governments, Snohomish County has taken on the task of guiding population and project growth in county areas that are close to city boundaries.

After months of study, public meetings and talks with developers two years ago, the County Council passed its Urban Centers Demonstration Program ordinance in August 2001 to encourage “innovative, well-designed, well-sited, mixed-use, higher-density development” in contrast to single-use developments or retail strip malls.

Now the county’s new urban plan is taking shape in Lynnwood with the start of construction on Newberry Square. The high-density, mixed-use development is the first high-density urban center project to be approved by Snohomish County under the new zoning laws. If it’s as successful as its supporters anticipate, other urban center projects in unincorporated parts of the county are expected to follow.

“We held nine public workshops and many other meetings about urban centers and ‘transit/pedestrian villages,’ so we think this new zoning that Newberry Square is using will have a lot of benefits to citizens, the county and developers,” said Karen Watkins, manager of the county planning department’s Urban Centers Program.

What makes the project at 164th Street SW and Ash Way even more unusual is that it was made possible by cooperative discussions between county officials, the County Council, developers, real estate brokers, the Snohomish County Economic Development Council and the public.

The mixed-used community project on the six-acre site will include 18,617 square feet of retail space on the east side, parallel to Ash Way, with 33,511 square feet of office space, including a medical office; 10,130 square feet of commercial space that includes a day-care center; and 123 luxury apartments.

The developer of the project is Newberry Square LP, with Sundquist Homes LLC in Lynnwood as co-manager. The design team was led by Fuller-Sears, Seattle architects, with Weisman Design Group of Seattle as the landscape architect.

Sundquist Project Manager Lyle Landrie described the project as “pedestrian friendly … a one-stop shop with residential, retail, medical and dental (services)” with exceptional access to I-5 and the Ash Way park-and-ride lot.

“We believe this is a good cornerstone for the county regarding this new Urban Centers development concept,” he said.

Landrie said urban center planning and permitting procedures were smoothed out in the Newberry Square project so the next developer will “find the process streamlined. ... As (Snohomish County Executive) Bob Drewel said at the July groundbreaking, this is a good example of the county and private sector working together.”

Watkins said projects like Newberry Square are “ideal designs for quality urban developments (that) … create new communities to meet the goals of the Growth Management Act and also fulfill consumer needs in a new and innovative way.”

She said 17 developers showed interest in the concept of urban center projects during the public meetings and noted that real estate agents at the Newberry Square groundbreaking ceremony several weeks ago said they thought the commercial and residential space should be highly marketable.

Watkins considers the county-zoned land adjacent to Lynnwood an “ideal site” for the Newberry Square project for several reasons:

• The development creates a high-density urban center where people will have the option to work, shop and live in the same community.
• For those who have to travel farther to work, the Newberry Square development is adjacent to Sound Transit’s 1,000-car Ash Way park-and-ride lot at the I-5 and 164th Street SW interchange, less than a mile from I-405 and only a couple miles from Highway 99.
• Sound Transit and the state Department of Transportation are investing $50 million in new freeway access ramps that will allow bus and carpool traffic to link to the Ash Way parking facility instead of traveling over a maze of city arterials as they do now. The improvements, including new freeway access ramps at 44th Avenue SW for a park-and-ride lot there, are expected to pare 30 minutes off bus round-trips to Seattle. Both sets of ramps are due to open by late 2004.
• The site is within a mile of the Alderwood Mall and downtown Lynnwood, and about three miles from Mill Creek.
• Across a shallow green valley of trees and fields west of the site, Opus Northwest’s multimillion-dollar Northpointe business park is being developed. The first building is occupied and many more are planned for the large site, which would offer a variety of future jobs close to Newberry Square residents.
• Also, much of the county-zoned property along 164th Street SW west of I-5 is relatively undeveloped, presenting an opportunity to create future high-density, mixed-use developments with a sense of community rather than long blocks of individual retail stores and shopping centers similar to those along 164th Street SW on the east side of the freeway.

One of the key players in the development of the 2001 Urban Centers Demonstration Program was the Snohomish County Economic Development Council. Vice President Michael Cade credited the EDC’s former Urban Centers Project director, Steve Clagett, as being “a visionary guy” who helped educate government leaders, developers, landowners and citizens about the advantages of using high-density urban centers to discourage sprawling development in southwest Snohomish County.

Clagett, who left the EDC when his grant-funded role was finished, helped to influence the creation of the county’s Urban Centers Demonstration Program ordinance that now allows for high-density, master-planned mixed-use developments at I-5 and 164th Street SW, I-5 and 128th Street SW, at Airport Road and Mukilteo Speedway intersections off Highway 99, and on Highway 527 between Mill Creek and Bothell.

Even though Newberry Square is just beginning construction, interest in the urban center concept has already focused the County Council’s attention on another new ordinance that would create a “transit-pedestrian village” zone in the north Lynnwood area, including land along 164th Street SW. Future developments in that zone would be required to adhere to the county’s new high-density, urban center requirements.

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