Covington, Washington

COVINGTON, WASHINGTON will be built around.A lot of the commercial activity will be two-story in nature, and I think it’s going to be one of the largest shopping complexes in south King County.” Most of the parking for the shopping center will be underground.Vehicles will enter off of Hwy. 18, where the road will dip down with entrances for underground parking.Then the road will rise up and continue out to the southeast to connect to Hwy. 516. Covington CityManager, Regan Bolli, says, “We’re pretty excited about it.The push to really get it going, and the trigger for the initiative, is a $50 million road project–the Covington Connector –linking 204th Street north from Hwy. 516 in the downtown up to the LakePointe urban village and tie into Hwy. 18 that bisects the community.We’re about 60 percent designed and also in property acquisition for that.” The City received $24 million from the state to help with the road project. Covington is also doing something that’s only been done once before in Washington State–establishing a Community Fa- cilities District. Located on the LakePointe property, the planned District will help leverage funds, so the City can bond to build public infrastructure; essen- tially, the road and a hoped-for transit center at the facility.Meanwhile, another major development the Council has been visioning for many years is a Town Center, something the young City of Covington was not built around, unlike traditional older communi- ties. “We’re working to create a Town Center,” says Bolli, “that would help identify us as a community and give a public cultural gathering spot for our City and the entire region.We’re working with the Kent School District that just moved from the Covington Elementary School in the downtown area into a newly-built facility.We have a Right of First Offer to purchase 8.5 acres from them. We secured $1.2 million in seed money from the state for the purchase, and are working to partner with a private developer to put in a City Hall, a community center, and a large public plaza, an- chored by a lot of commercial space.” Hart adds,“Council felt that we needed a Town Center that was walkable to residences, retail, offices, and medical facilities. So we engaged the community in a planning process that identified new goals and policies to be placed in our com- prehensive plan.And then,we rezoned all this area into multi-story,mixed-use development that requires ground floor retail with either res- idential or office space above.We also put in all kinds of zoning regulations with design standards. Our first project to come under that newzoning