After nearly two years of inactivity following completion of the city Justice Center, an approved Angeline Road apartment complex will soon advance Bonney Lake’s downtown plan. Furthermore, the city has agreed it shall improve surrounding roads to support the development.
Following a public hearing, the City Council voted May 14 to approve the sale of two parcels of land to Tarragon subsidiary Renwood LLC, for a purchase price of more than $1 million, plus $200,000 for ownership of the city’s right-of-way on the property. The agreement passed unanimously after Councilman Mark Hamilton successfully lobbied for language firming up the city’s commitment to improve surrounding roadways within five years — changing a “the city may” to a “the city shall.”
“I don’t know if you’ve driven on those roads lately, but I think they’re the same as they were in 1949,” Hamilton said, referring to the three-way intersection of Angeline, the old Sumner-Buckley Highway and Veteran’s Memorial Drive East.
The land sale to the company owned by Tarragon — a property management company that is itself a subsidiary of Investco — is the first step toward green lighting a 186-unit apartment complex across three parcels of land.
“Investco as an entity has owned (one parcel on Angeline Road) for about 30 years,” Senior Development Manager Charlie Laboda said. “Through the process of trying to get that permitted, we realized there were two city-owned parcels adjacent to it.”
Tarragon approached the city with an offer, leading to the sale approved in May; Renwood LLC filed its development application later that month. If the application is approved, the company would like to break ground in August, Laboda said. Construction thereafter is expected to take 22 months.
Renwood LLC has modeled its designs for the apartments after the Four Lakes complex standing in the nearby Lakeland Hills neighborhood of Auburn. Amenities will include one- to three-bedroom apartments, pool, exercise and recreation centers and a community living room.
A popular topic of concern at the May public hearing was how the development would affect nearby public trails. The city had recently broken ground on the Fennel Creek Trail east of Angeline in April and construction continues on the walking path.
Under the sale agreement, the city requires Renwood to grant a public pedestrian access easement and construct a walking trail open to the public. The construction will grant a credit on a portion of the company’s mitigation fees owed to the city.
As for the city’s obligations, Renwood’s $200,000 payment will go into a reserve account to be used for improvements to surrounding roadways, including portions of 186th Avenue East, 88th Street East and 184th Avenue East. Improvements will include widening, pavement rehabilitation or overlay, improved signage, intersection upgrades, pedestrian facilities and street lighting.
In an email responding to questions about the city’s downtown plan, City Administrator Don Morrison wrote that he considers Bonney Lake’s downtown as five basic areas: the North Downtown region surrounding northern Main Street, South Downtown where the newly opened Franciscan Medical Pavilion resides, the commercial core Triangle immediately south of Main Street, the Civic Center east of Main Street and sitting between Veterans Memorial Drive East and state Route 410, and the Southeast Housing region that will be occupied by the Renwood project.
“The ‘Triangle’ will probably take the longest to redevelop,” Morrison said. “There are currently 12 or so different property owners in the triangle and it may take many years before a coordinated development can take place. In the interim, Sound Credit Union and (Dairy Queen) have improved their properties. The Civic Center is still anticipated to be the site of the new (city hall) and accompanying plaza and public buildings, along with retail bordering Main Street. Timing will depend on the continued growth of the city and available revenues.”
Morrison noted that progress on downtown Bonney Lake’s redevelopment slowed since the beginnings of the 2008 recession, but work was picking up again.
“It is hard to put a percentage on the overall redevelopment of the Downtown, but I would guess about half of the downtown plan has been constructed or is planned (or is) underway,” he said. “When the current Downtown Plan was adopted, the thinking was that it would take at least 20 years or more to complete the transformation of the Downtown. The concept drawings in the Plan itself used the year 2022 as a target date.”
