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closeBellingham developer Ted Mischaikov knows hot prospects, and he likes what he sees on Samish Way.
“This has the most potential for urban development in the next five to 10 years than any other urban village in Bellingham,” he said.
He shared his assessment Thursday with 40 or so people who gathered for a public work session on the idea of creating an urban village along Samish Way from Interstate 5 to Maple Street.
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MEETING SET
What: Public discussion of alternatives for a Samish Way urban village.
When: 6 to 8 p.m. July 10.
Where: Elks Lodge, 710 S. Samish Way.
Details: Darby Galligan, 778-8389 or dgalligan@cob.org.
That’s from the International House of Pancakes north to Mac’s Motel, as the car flies.
What makes the string of gas stations, restaurants and motels a curse in some people’s eyes — its easy access to the freeway, downtown and Western Washington University — is also a blessing when it comes to turning the asphalted stretch into an appealing mix of homes and businesses, Mischaikov said.
For an urban village to work there, he said, Samish Way needs to become friendlier for walkers and bikers, while not killing its convenience for people behind the wheel.
“Go with the flow,” he said, “don’t fight the flow.”
Samish Way is the city’s main urban-village squeeze these days, coming on the heels of the city’s recent approval of a village plan for Old Town.
Previous work sessions on Samish Way dealt with streets, trails, plazas — the eyeball side of good urban design. On Thursday, Mischaikov brought his perspective as a developer.
He talked about the need for a premier attraction — perhaps a well-known retailer — to anchor the middle of the urban village, to go along with the attraction of Sehome Village at the south end and a yet-to-bedetermined magnet at the north end.
He would have been remiss if he didn’t talk about profit and loss.
In that realm, he said the city should create a regional stormwater system for Samish Way, one that developers would contribute to as they take on projects, rather than pay hundreds of thousands of dollars for individual storm-water controls when they turn a large parking lot into something much more interesting.
Storm-water controls are just one of many costs that developers must cover if urban village dreams are to become a reality in our lifetime.
A FEW NUMBERS: An Old Town study done for the city said apartment buildings wouldn’t pencil out there, but said condo projects could provide “entrepreneurial return” (one of several ways to measure profit) of nearly 11 percent to nearly 14 percent.
That’s a bit on the low side — especially since lenders are so tightfisted these days — but could be higher if land in Old Town sold for less or if the city invested more in infrastructure there.
If Samish Way is to develop as quickly as Mischaikov thinks it can, the city will need to be as creative about its parking and storm-water regulations as it should be about nice-looking streets, buildings and sidewalks.
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