Nov-2017

198 199 saved up to get some of these projects done under budget.” “We also purchased property from the school district when it relocated up north and we’re surplussing that property to private development. And as property values have increased, it’s given us an opportunity to actually make money on those surplus property sales that we’ve been able to fold back into our revitalization.” Major parts of Bothell’s redevelopment scheme were intended to be remedial. “We used to have several state highways that came to an ugly in- tersection right in the middle of our downtown that wasn’t very conducive to pedestrian or bicycle traffic. It was intended to be a fast arterial go- ing through town,” Leonhart says. “In addition to investing to remedy that situation, we also have been investing in the environment because we have a lot of contamination associated with the car-oriented businesses that used to be along the state highway, as well as a couple of dry clean- ers that have left some solvent contamination in our downtown. The city took on a real leadership role to purchase these properties and begin the contamination remediation that was necessary in order to make them available for redevelopment.” “We also had a historic stream that ran under our downtown area in a pipe and as part of working could be. “The city’s downtown revitalization that we’ve been undergoing started with an effort in 2006,when the City Council appointed a stakeholder group to work with the City’s boards and com- missions to transform Bothell from a place that people would drive through to a place where people would come to; to build the community and make it a better place for people to meet and have a sense of common ground,” says Erin Leonhart, the Bothell’s Public Works Direc- tor. “That’s really the key to the downtown revitalization –making it more of a living community than just a pass-through area.” “The vision in the plan was a very audacious one,” Leonhart continues,“and it gave us a foundation to generate some private investment on top of our public investment.The City, the state, and the federal government have invested about $150 million of public money in Bothell’s downtown, and that has generated about $500 million in private investment in the last ten years.” Leonhart recounts that Bothell was able to take ad- vantage of a few fortuitous opportunities that helped get the city’s redevelopment plan on track.“The State of Washington has been very reluctant to pursue tax increment financing, however they did somewhat of a pilot about ten years ago; they called it LIFT–Local Improvement Financing Tool,” she explains.“The City of Bothell was one of three or four cities that were awarded some LIFT funding, and we used that to start some of the major projects in our downtown. The State is paying back bond funds–we’re essen- tially doing a 50/50 split on the payback of those bonds through the tax increment financing mecha- nism.That was a large part of it.” “One of the other opportunities that Bothell cap- italized on was our downtown plan was completed around the downturn of the economy and Bothell had saved up capital funds to start our revitalization. And when we did start, it was when we could get some of these projects done at less expensive rates than you see now because the Great Reces- sion made the contractors hungry for work. So, we had the opportunity to capitalize not only on state contributions, but also the money that the city had BOTHELL, WASHINGTON BY THE NUMBERS TOTAL AREA: 14.38 square miles POPULATION:  44,370 LABOR FORCE: 25,000 UNEMPLOYMENT: 3.5% 2016 MEDIAN INCOME: $81,972 ERIN LEONHART