Submitted by Bob Warfield.
On Monday, 3 March, The Suburban Times led with a piece by City of Lakewood calling attention to a proposal to build 390 apartments with typical amenities and ground floor commercial space on a ten-acre parcel, located generally behind the Target store at Lakewood Towne Center, and extending over the existing Barnes and Noble store to Main Street. While compliant with city municipal code, the very nature and location of this proposal in the absence of a grander inspired vision for defining comprehensive development likely forecloses the possibility of ever achieving such worthy excellence for Towne Center at the heart of Lakewood’s urban core.
Plans for this “Alliance Apartments” proposal are available at City Hall or by request, on line in PDF format. Please take the time, make the effort to review and understand what’s at stake. You don’t have to be an architect or an engineer to get the picture. Your views are important and matter.
Here’s my view: This project would abolish the classiest retail store in Lakewood. Lacking integration with a revitalizing Towne Center vision that might include a new library and the spirited invitation of a public concourse and park, it would drive a stake in the heart of that prospect, a vision that once had wings. Instead, we’ll see a fancy ghetto hemmed by asphalt and endless bays for parking that no amount of landscaping or façade can redeem.
Send a letter or email to the city. The deadline for record comment is soon, Tuesday, 19 March. A public hearing remains to be announced.
If you take a look to the North you can see our future. Dense development anywhere there is Transit, creating a community of worker bees commuting with no connection to the cities and towns where they reside. Seattle as the center of our universe. We can do better. Yes to public parks, libraries, public gathering spaces, bike paths and walking trails. Yes to a designated commercial area of shops, restaurants, and theaters. Community is important to our happiness, health, and safety. Plan carefully for the city you want to live in.
It’s all a matter of getting money through taxes instead of spending it on what defines the standards of a town, isn’t it? We are still waiting for the replacement of the public library. Education and culture usually are the first victims when it comes to making money-saving or -gaining decisions. And a hearing only works if somebody is willing to listen.
I have lived in Lakewood all my life and I don’t remember voting on increasing density by triple or more over a number of years. I have been told that the state has mandating this increase. Did our elected officials fight this mandate? Do they think this is a great idea? You drive around and the traffic is horrible. Who is allowing all the density? And how can we slow it down.
Yes, our city did try to fight this, as well as other. It fell on deft ears, both Republican and Democrats. Now, these local governments should take the state to court for taking local rights away. We also need new planning and community development staff that have a vision and don’t just run from one warehouse development to the next or one apartment building to the next. We also need staff with a vision for our quality of life.
$$$$! It’s euphemistically called “expanding the tax base”! Kinda like a pride of lions looking at a herd of zebra and deciding to “expanding the protein base”.
What follows is a list of email addresses for the Lakewood City Council. The first one is the Mayor, the 2nd is the Deputy Mayor, and the remainder are for the rest of the council:
Jwhalen@cityoflakewood.us; Mmoss@cityoflakewood.us; Rpearson@cityoflakewood.us; Pbelle@cityoflakewood.us; Pbocchi@cityoflakewood.us; Mbrandstetter@cityoflakewood.us; TLauricella@cityoflakewood.us
COPY the above string of addresses and PASTE them into the TO area of your email to the addressees.
Having recently lived in a high rise, hastily and cheaply built, but expensive apartment in University Place, we could hardly wait to move. Just look at the fiasco by Tacoma Community College on Mildred. What an eyesore ! ! ! The developers sure are making big bucks. I can’t imagine the parking and traffic jams. More traffic lights? ?
Also, take a look at the one on 6th Avenue across from Goodwill. Same catastrophe. It looks like a jail. Also take a look at Bridgeport Way in University Place at the “jail” created across from Chipolte – the developer sold it for $30 million. Again, parking and traffic jams and another traffic light to slow things down and out.
These so-called housing units do nothing for neighborhoods and only bring in commuters who don’t live and support their towns.
How would you like to have a high rise constructed on your property line? Don’t laugh – it’s happening.
It is called “Lakewood Town Center” for a reason. I have been a big supporter of the Lakewood City Council for years. I think our council has lost the city vision. It started with the city losing its library with absolutely no plans for a replacement. Now this development. I think the city council has lost its way. It has forgotten the whole premise for the establishment of this city. If we wanted to be another Tacoma we would
have never split from Tacoma. The Town Center is supposed to be just that. No high rises were ever anticipated. Has the city council even evaluated that land as a possibility for the new library? I agree that the Lakewood City Council needs to fight this
I could not say it any better than those before me. This is an atrocious idea. We have once again become the City of apartments. Is this the solution to “affordable housing” that accompanies every new housing structure?