MARYSVILLE The site once proposed for a NASCAR track is now part of Marysville, annexed by the City Council at their Feb. 12 meeting, drawing a big Woo-hoo from chief administrative officer Mary Swenson.
Closing the Smokey Point Gap means the city can start working to attract tenants that will build light industrial and manufacturing plants on the 687-acre site west of the Burlington Northern-Sante Fe railroad tracks and directly south of the Arlington city limits.
The site will be ground zero for a new phase in the citys economic revitalization, according to Mayor Dennis Kendall, who noted that the area will not host any residential developments as one property owner had desired.
The goal is to attract commercial enterprises that will pay family-level wages and balance the recent influx of retail businesses opening in the city limits. One goal is to get a piece of the global work on Boeings 787 airliner, and Kendall wants to convince European partners that it makes sense to be located in Boeings back yard.
This is the job generation area for the city, Swenson told the Council after the unanimous vote. There is no longer a gap and its a big woo-hoo!
Council member Carmen Rasmussen seconded her thoughts.
A couple years from now we will look back and realize how important it was, Rasmussen said.
There are currently about 50 residents on the plot of land, mostly property owners who have lived there for some time, and a few land developers hoping to cash in. Mike and Patricia Beardsley have lived on their 51st Avenue spread since 1998 and he told the Marysville Planning Commission in September that This is my toe-tag house.
Patricia said earlier this week that she and her husband are happy to be part of Marysville but they dont look forward to being in a business park. Now their dreams of retiring on their spread may be wearing the toe tag.
I dont mind being annexed in, but were concerned about what they would build., she said. We dont want to be next to a wrecking yard, and weve got Copart next to us.
That salvage operator doesnt create too much noise but has auctions on Mondays that draw lots of truck traffic, and Beardsley doesnt want more. She said the annexation process has been fair but so many important decisions got put off for later, its hard to keep score. Her children are grown but if the nature of the neighborhood changes, she and her husband wont stick around.
If it goes commercial or industrial well move.
As for the attempt to get a slice of the aerospace pie, John Monroe of the Snohomish County Economic Development Commission said the swath of land is clearly the biggest chunk of raw, buildable land left in the county. According to the retired 777 program manager, in two to five years the Smokey Point area will be targeted by commercial interests. A company called Sound Air moved from Woodinville quarters to Snohomish in recent years and Goodrich Aerospaces 20,000-square foot building at Paine Field is the last large manufacturing structure to be built in the county, due to the lack of available open space.
The logical place to go is north, Monroe said. I think theyll begin to make some of those moves.
As for 787 suppliers from around the world, he thought some composite material subcontractors might be tempted, but overall proximity is over-rated, he said. Monroe pointed to Rolls-Royces Mississippi test facility and Voughts plant built in South Carolina. A 787 landing gear manufacturer is working in Gloucester, United Kingdom, and CND Zodiac, a Marysville composites manufacturer, ships fuselage ribs to Kawasaki Heavy Industries in Japan.
We havent seen the rush of 787 suppliers up here, Monroe said.
To add insult to injury, Monroe said he has taken three aerospace manufacturers to tour the former NASCAR site and all were impressed by the flat land, adjacent freeways and rail access. He also took one to the former Hewlett-Packard plant at SR 9 and Soper Hill Road.
Unfortunately on two of those tours we got tied up on I-5. Its hard to convince someone that its great to be just miles away from Everett when it takes you an hour to get there, Monroe laughed. I can tell exactly thats what two of the three of them said.
For EDC researcher John Doolittle, the gap could be a goldmine. He spends part of his time building maps showing available land and sending out pitches to potential clients, and responds to enquiries from businesses looking to locate in the area. He works closely with the Washington State department of Community, Trade and Economic Development to lure commerce to the county. He catalogues available properties to show businesses.
That property will go into our mix. Well try to promote that property for the use that its intended, Doolittle said. Its a big deal for us, because thats property that wasnt out there before that we can show to these companies. Its something that we can add to the attractives. Its definitely going to be attractive to us.