FEATURE ARTICLE, MAY 2004

NEXT STOP: KENT STATION
Tarragon Development spices up south Seattle suburb with mixed-use project.
Brian A. Lee

Whether by road or rail, it will be easy to get to Kent Station. However, with all the lifestyle/town center will have to offer, it won’t be easy to leave.

Located 15 miles south of downtown Seattle, the $100 million Kent Station project will feature 470,000 square feet of mixed-use development in a dynamic, town center setting.

Named after the King County Sound Transit commuter rail station it encompasses, Kent Station is the product of a public/private partnership between the city of Kent, Washington, and Seattle-based Tarragon Development. The 18.2-acre Kent Station project, located 15 miles south of downtown Seattle, will support 470,000 square feet of mixed-use development, most of which will be retail. The $100 million undertaking will also include entertainment, residential, educational and office components and potentially a hotel property.

Tarragon Development will break ground this month on the 10-acre first phase of Kent Station, which will showcase entertainment and lifestyle-based tenants. Anchored by a 60,000-square-foot, 14-screen AMC Theatre, Kent Station will feature a branch campus of the Green River Community College and a number of restaurants and retail shops. Callison Architects of Seattle is the project designer with Blatteis Realty Company handling the leasing. The target date for Kent Station’s opening is summer 2005.

“This will be the focal point for what we call southeast King County, which is the fastest growing corridor in the county,” says Maria Royer, senior vice president and managing partner at Blatteis Realty Company. She notes that Kent Stations’ metropolitan statistical area comprises King, Pierce and Kitsap counties, home to approximately 3.5 million people. Kent’s trade area consists of approximately 160,000 residents with an average household income of $91,000. “There are probably three restaurants in all of Kent’s trade area, so it has a huge restaurant expenditure potential. There’s a huge leakage to South Center Mall, which is about 8 miles away. There are no other theaters [either], and that’s why AMC Theatre is very bullish about the market and the project. It’s going to be the only lifestyle center in all of south King County,” adds Royer.

In 2001, the city of Kent purchased the property with the aim of redeveloping its downtown. As the seventh largest city in the state of Washington, Kent had much to gain from making its city core a destination spot for its nearly 100,000 residents and the countless other rail line and freeway visitors. The city of Kent issued a request for quotation to the development community, and Tarragon Development, having plenty of lifestyle retail experience and a strong development presence south of Seattle, was selected in October 2001.

Formed in 1995 by Joe Blattner and Evergreen Capital Trust, Tarragon Development is primarily a commercial development company that focuses mostly on retail and mixed-use projects in the Puget Sound area. The portfolio developer maintains ownership of 85 to 90 percent of the properties it develops. “We do some acquisition and repositioning of assets as well, but we mostly perform ground-up development and more opportunistic-type projects where we purchase land in a very raw state and move it through entitlement, construction, lease-up and then manage it in perpetuity,” says Blattner, president of Tarragon.

Tarragon just reached lease stabilization on Lakeland Town Center, its 132,000-square-foot grocery-anchored shopping center in Auburn, Washington, just south of Kent. The center, which sports a contemporary design and pedestrian-oriented setup, is currently undergoing a 10-acre expansion. The development’s Main Street feel, wide sidewalks and awnings are indicative of the developer’s people focus. Lakeland Town Center is part of a 4,500-home, master-planned community that features an elementary school, a large public-private infrastructure project and 40 acres of parkland.

About 2 years ago, Tarragon completed the 150,000-square-foot mixed-use Saffron development, which features retail space over structured parking with 100 residential units. The award-winning urban village-type project is located in the city of Sammamish, Washington, a half hour east of Seattle.

“Blattner’s company has demonstrated the ability to develop all different product types and has been successful at it,” says Royer. “I think that adds great depth to a product like Kent Station because you’re looking at it from a lot of different angles.”

Tarragon Development realized that a destination downtown project like Kent Station must not only cater to the customer’s retail and service needs but also appeal to visitors on an aesthetic and social level. “The idea is that it’s a true lifestyle center in that you park your car once and after that it’s a pedestrian experience,” says Blattner. Surrounding a 22,000-square-foot plaza area in the center of the city, the Kent Station project will incorporate a lifestyle shopping center into Kent’s current Main Street environment. Royer emphasizes the focus on developing a project that is consistent with the downtown and that, in turn, the citizens can relate to. “We’ve been very careful about the design to make sure that it’s authentic, real and not contrived, that it encompasses elements of Kent’s history so the community can embrace it,” she says.

Blattner sees Kent Station becoming a major catalyst for the surrounding area. Conversely, its environs will guarantee that the mixed-use development doesn’t experience mixed results. Outdoor retailer REI is based near Kent with Boeing Aerospace, Flow International and Sysco Foods having a major presence in the city. “There’s some substantial employment in the area but there are also some residential properties that because of this project are being rezoned to other commercial uses,” says Blattner.

“It’s a big city, one with 100,000 people, and it’s got millions of square feet of R&D, office and industrial space,” adds Royer. “So you have this kind of Mayberry feel in a modern city with outskirts that are very dense.”

As if there weren’t enough developmental advantages, Kent Station can boast of a tremendous location with great accessibility. These factors, combined with the favorable market characteristics, surely had Tarragon’s planners smiling. “It’s a really unique situation because there’s major infrastructure that surrounds all four sides of this property,” says Blattner. James Street and Smith/Kent Kangley Highway, the two key east-west traffic arteries feeding the trade area, run to the north and south of Kent Station. Just minutes west of the development are Interstate 5 and SF-167, a four-lane highway, which make up the main north-south corridor connecting south King County to Seattle. On the east side of the property is the new King County Sound Transit commuter rail station, which is linked to an 870-car parking garage.

“It’s like all the stars, moon and everything aligned for this site,” says Royer. “You’ve got a great developer, you’ve got a city that is a willing participant, you have infrastructure and you have strong demographics. You wouldn’t be able to accomplish this without the demographics.”

©2004 France Publications, Inc. Duplication or reproduction of this article not permitted without authorization from France Publications, Inc. For information on reprints of this article contact Barbara Sherer at (630) 554-6054.