Auburn’s 2001 downtown development plan suggested a pedestrian thoroughfare or promenade, starting at the edge of City Hall Plaza, extending south along the west side of South Division Street and ending at Third Street Southeast.
To prepare the way for retail businesses and restaurants to take root along the promenade, city planners realized they would have to widen the sidewalk on the western side of the street, lay down new pavement, add street grates and potted plants, install new lighting and do a lot of underground work.
Last week the City of Auburn asked qualified consulting firms versed in design and construction engineering to submit proposals for engineering and design work on the needed above- and below-ground improvements for the promenade.
David Barron, economic development manager for the City of Auburn, said hiring a consultant is really about having the promenade project ready to go should federal funding that the City has applied for materialize.
Barron said the promenade proposal recently bested six others put forward by rival cities in a competitive forum recently hosted by the Puget Sound Regional Council. The PSRC acts as sort of a regional clearing house for the federal Economic Development Agency, a division of the United States Department of Commerce, and a first-place opens the door to project funding.
“The City wants to be ready, not to mention the fact that the utilities in the downtown corridor need an upgrade,” Barron said. “So if our vision were to come true, of five- to six-story buildings, retail on the ground floor and residential and perhaps offices above, it would put a demand on utilities, and they would need to be up to spec.”
The promenade predates developer Spencer Alpert’s five-block Auburn Junction proposal by seven years, but Barron said it could be incorporated.
“We had this idea well before Alpert, but the way we see it is that it integrates well with the plans Alpert has as well,” Barron said. “Alpert is very much in favor of the promenade going forward. It helps us from the perspective of economic development to set the table for other developers and developments and other retailers.”
Auburn Junction would be a green, mixed-use, urban village spread out over 27 parcels with underground parking and walkways, an “upscale commercial and residential dominated project,” featuring ground-floor retail and restaurant facilities incorporating open space.
Its main features would be as follows:
• Condominium housing – from smaller studios and 1-bedroom units to units for families
• Lifestyle retail and entertainment – includes higher-profile restaurants, speciality retailers, and possibly a theater complex
• Flexible commercial space – commercial uses of office-flex space, lodging, educational settings and/or work-live potential on the ground floor and upper stories.
It calls for village green promenades to the north and northeast connecting to Main Street and Auburn Regional Medical Center and a green trail extending southeast to Safeway and south and west to the Sound Transit station. It incorporates a central open space called Auburn Junction plaza and underground parking connecting each of the facilities. Landscaped islands could incorporate large boulders, a waterfall and reflecting pool. It would be built in four phases over a four-year period.
Barron said he has been in regular contact with the EDA to learn whether the South Division Street Promenade project has received approval from the regional office.
“They are putting the final touches on their submission to the folks in DC for their concurrency,” Barron said. “Once DC has a chance to look at it, and hopefully concur, they will say ‘You have the green light, here are the forms you need to fill out, here are the questions you need to answer.’
“…Obviously, we need to have the design element in place so the EDA can award it us. This engineering design is really important. You have to have it done whether you have funding or not. We have estimates, and we have a fair idea of what it should look like. But so much of the work is underground. It’s actually easier to work on the surface and figure out how the brick pavers fit together than to do the underground work,” Barron said.
