Ideas presented for future of Arlington's downtown

Planning for the Arlington downtown area continues as students presented some of their initial ideas for the corridor during a meeting on Feb. 11.

The city has contracted with Western Washington University’s Sustainable Communities program to provide plans for the future of the Olympic Avenue downtown area.

In the fall, students and staff from the program met with local residents to get a sense of what the community hoped for.

“If you were at the two meetings that we did and the students grabbed ideas from us, today you’re going to see how they synthesized those ideas for a potential downtown Arlington,” said Arlington Mayor Barbara Tolbert.

Students have been working for a few months on the plans.

“We are in the middle of the second course, the winter course, of this planning studio sequence,” said Western Washington University professor Nicholas Zaferatos.

“This winter the students were beginning to develop some big concepts, and before getting too far with those ideas we felt the need to get in contact with the community,” he said.

Staff and students hoped to gain feedback on the direction of their plans.

Plans included increased density in the downtown core, including use of mixed use building and town homes and other high density village concepts.

Students hoped to utilize the Centennial Trail more and enhance it in a variety of ways, including with more murals and by allowing more ‘dual frontage’ restaurants and shops that travelers could stop by.

They also hoped to keep the historic character of the downtown area.

All of the ideas presented were only potential goals to work around, nothing that would be set in stone anytime soon.

Some in the audience were concerned that the changes would change too much of Arlington and didn’t want to see the town grow.

Although city planners have to prepare for growth per the state’s Growth Management Act.

“What drives this whole growth model is that the state requires that every community must plan for population projections that the state produces,” said Zaferatos.

“They hand it over to Snohomish County and the county negotiates with every city about how to portion it out,” he said.

By state projections Arlington is scheduled to see continued increases to its population.

“Growth will happen,” said Zaferatos.

“The question is: how are we going to grow,” he said.

Statewide the goal for city planners is to avoid sprawl, he said, so that towns should shoot for increased density rather than spreading outward.

“Density and infill is a much more efficient form of development,” said Zaferatos.

He acknowledged that there were advantages and disadvantages to density, but one of the advantages is that it gives areas more capacity for public transportation.

The student’s plan also included an underground parking garage to help the downtown area growth.

The total number of parking spots that would be in the downtown under the plan is still being calculated by students.

City Council member Debora Nelson also acknowledged resident’s worries about a changing city.

“It’s hard to grow in a city. Things change,” she said.

“I have to think about governing for everybody. Now, 50 years from now is where my perspective has to be. This is really important, for me, to hear this,” said Nelson.

The Western Washington University program intends to return in about four weeks to present another draft of their ideas.

More updates about the process are available at arlingtonwa.gov/646.