The Army Street Project
The Army Street Project area includes a vacant parcel of approximately 0.25 acres fronting on the southerly side of Holly Street in the block surrounded by Central Avenue and Bay Street and the BNSF rail tracks that is currently owned by the BPDA and is intended to serve as the catalyst for a larger development. The City of Bellingham acquired this parcel in 1961 and conveyed ownership of the parcel to the BPDA in March 2010. Other parcels in the Army Street planning area are owned by seven separate property owners. These properties are strategically located but the feasibility of improving these vacant or underutilized properties is restricted by terrain and access constraints that could be solved, with multiple benefits to the property owners and the Downtown District and the Old Town District, if assembled and developed together for a master-planned, mixed-use complex.
This project is ranked as the number one priority for the BPDA largely because it’s at the hub juncture of the three BPDA Priority Areas defined in the City-BPDA Operating Agreement as priorities for BPDA operations (Downtown District, Old Town District and Waterfront District), within easy walking distance connecting all three areas. The Army Street Project would require a collaborative development program and plan combining the interests of these multiple owners into an integrated development project, including a mix of mutually supporting development projects.
BPDA Strategic Plans have advocated a master-planned development for the Army Street Project of approximately 1,500,000 sq. ft. of mixed urban use, including public and private sector projects undertaken in phases. This development concept would require a difficult assembly of mulitple properties for an estimated 20-22 acres, including property in the block bounded by Central Avenue/Chestnut-Roeder/Bay Street/BNSF RR tracks, and property owned by the Port of Bellingham in the northerly portion of the vacant Georgia Pacific property across the BNSF RR tracks and Chestnut-Roeder. The contemplated mix of uses included a major parking structure raising the grade of a development pad (the upper deck of the parking stgructure) to the level of Holly Street. This upper deck would provide an urban plaza with mixed use buildings (possibly a mix of office/residential/retail) and span the BNSF RR tracks and Chestnut-Roeder to physically interconnect the northern portion of the GP property (in the Waterfront District), the Downtown District and the Old Town District. Other institutional and public uses were proposed as destination "place-making" component projects to anchor and support mixed-use development to be undertaken by the private sector with this conceptual strategy.
Revised Army Street Project Concept
View a video of the BPDA's presentation on April 23, 2012 to the Bellingham City Council on the Army Street Project. Click on the little white square at the bottom of the screen where the timer is and drag it to the right until the timer on the left says 134:40. This will take you right to the beginning of the presentation. Link to City Council COMMITTEE meeting of April 23, 2012.
The BPDA more recently advocates a scaled back version of the Army Street Project that focuses on the assembly and redevelopment of most of the block bounded by Holly Street, Central Avenue, Bay Street, and the BNSF RR tracks, as included in the original Army Street Project concept. This urban mixed-use development would be programmed for an estimated 300,000 sq. ft. - 500,000 sq. ft. of building projects for a mix of office, multi-family residential, commercial services and institutional uses developed as a destination activity center. This building complex would be on the upper deck of the parking structure raised to the level of Holly Street and providing for a significant urban plaza on this upper deck.
This revised Army Street Concept would neither include nor preclude a future structure spanning the BNSF RR tracks and Chestnut-Roeder to connect with the northern portion of the GP site owned by the Port of Bellingham. This future connection and the development of the GP property would be determined by and undertaken by the Port depending upon their development program and plans for future development of that property.
Likewise, development of this revised Army Street Project concept would have significant spin-off benefits to the Downtown District and the Old Town District, while potentially benefiting future projects undertaken in the Waterfront District by others. The assembly of multiple properties for this Revised Army Street Project Concept would still be required, but only including those generally bounded in the block fronting on Holly Street (as for the original Army Street Project Concept) without requiring or relying on an assembly including a portion of the GP site southwest of Chestnut-Roeder.
This Revised Army Street Project could be undertaken independently but in parallel with the redevelopment of the GP property by the Port and other developers. It is expected that the reduced scale for the Revised Army Street Project strategy would decrease capital cost, increase feasibility and potentially accelerate development of the lesser project, while creating earlier spin-off benefits enhancing redevelopment prospects and feasibility for other properties in the Downtown District and the Old Town District.
