Lynnwood CBD Visioning
South Snohomish County Chamber of Commerce, Lynnwood Community Development Department, and City Council, Lynnwood, Washington

We recently worked with the South Snohomish County Chamber of Commerce, Lynnwood Community Development Department, and City Council on a CBD visioning process involving 150 downtown property owners in a series of planning and design charrettes.

The Lynnwood central business district was developed in the 1960-1970s as a series of single story commercial and retail strip mall structures that had realized economic life-cycle returns. Chamber of Commerce and City Council members, however, were not sure the extent to which property owners and the public would support potential redevelopment efforts – especially higher density urban mixed-use projects.

We conducted hands-on charrette sessions with the property owners evaluating present conditions and market potentials, creating development ideas, identifying and prioritizing action plan requirements. We also created a computer-generated video illustrating the concept impacts on downtown traffic, parking, streetscapes, building heights, and development densities.

The chamber and city recently used the visioning and video results to enter into a joint venture program to develop and complete detailed plans, development regulations, capital facility programs, and other implementing provisions.