New guidelines another step in attracting developers to 20th

By Meghan Erkkinen

Fife Free Press
merkkinen@tacomaweekly.com
Published on: July 31, 2008

Over the past year, the city of Fife has steadily progressed toward its vision of making 20th Street a downtown, pedestrian-friendly area.

The city council’s latest decision came at its meeting July 8, when council members approved street design standards that will make it more pedestrian-oriented. This decision comes after one made last December that made the 20th Street corridor between 70th Avenue and 54th Avenue a commercial mixed-use zone.

So now the city council has the rules in place to get the businesses and the street corridor they want. There’s only so much the city can do to promote its vision before developers have to step in and actually make it happen.

“We can build a framework,” said Councilmember Kim Roscoe, but developers actually have to buy the land and build. “I really want this to be something for our citizens,” she added.

“I think really what this does is sets the table,” said area resident Dave Boitano.

But the city isn’t just going to sit back and wait for the developers to come. Some developers already have projects underway, and the city staff must engage them in conversations in the hope that the developers will agree to align their projects with the new standards.

Two large projects are already underway along 20th Street. The developers of one of the projects, on the south side of 20th Street near 70th Avenue, has already changed its project to fit with the new community mixed-use zone; now the city will return to the developers to see if they’ll agree to redesign the street area.

The second is an office building project on the north side of the street. The city will have to approach the developers of that project, too, to get them to comply with the new standards.

The city will have its own changes to make to comply with the new standards, too. An improvement project already underway between 54th and 63rd streets will need some design adjustments before construction can resume next year.

Even as the city works to tweak these projects, there are other things the staff will work on to fine-tune its vision. The next big step is to create design guidelines. While the street design standards dictated that the sidewalks should have room for benches, trashcans, signage and lights, the design guidelines will dictate what those will look like.

“The design of the signs, just like the design of the streets and lights, needs to be pleasing,” said Community Development Director Carl Smith. “Those elements are really the core of the rules that will help development be pedestrian-oriented.”

These design guidelines are just another way the city hopes to attract developers. By adding trees, streetlights and inviting benches, for example, the city hopes to create an environment pleasing to pedestrians – and thus, to developers.

“If your neighbor paints their house, even if you don’t paint your house it tends to improve the value of your house,” Smith said. “This is going to improve the value of the property and it’s going to encourage developers to build. If the city adds the infrastructure it really creates an incentive for private investment.”

The design guidelines won’t need to be approved by the council, but the city staff will present them before both the council members and the public to get feedback.

“We’ve really done a lot to encourage the downtown that we want and the rest has to happen from the private side,” Smith said. “There are no guarantees. We’re reliant on the private side to come in.”

Story Tools

This Week's
Front Page