City mayors talk about tourism, development, future of their respective cities

Published 8:30 am Thursday, June 2, 2016

North Bend and Snoqualmie are very different cities, but it was their common qualities that stood out when Mayors Ken Hearing and Matt Larson gave their respective state of the city addresses at the Snoqualmie Valley Chamber of Commerce lunch May 25. Both cities are vying for tourism and both are anticipating major new developments within their borders in the near future.

“We want to be the premium outdoor recreation destination,” said Mayor Hearing, talking about the city’s vision. “That sounds to me like tourism.”

The challenge, Hearing continued, is in creating living-wage jobs from the tourism industry, without diluting that brand.

Snoqualmie has a natural tourism draw in Snoqualmie Falls, but Mayor Larson envisioned the city attracting more, and different types of tourists in the future, particularly through development of the former Weyerhaeuser mill site into a wine, or oenology, center.

While that development is at least a year away from starting, Larson shared “One of the more exciting announcements this year,” is the development of Snoqualmie’s Lots 11 and 12 on the Snoqualmie Parkway. Plans include “a 45,000 square-foot grocery store that’s a week or two away from being able to announce, with proprietor, and a 14,000 square-foot Bartell Drugstore next to that and another restaurant located on that site… and a fuel station,” Larson said.

That development is projected to increase the city’s revenue by about $200,000, and more, importantly, to diversify the city’s revenue stream, Larson said.

“Over 47 percent of our revenue is property tax because we don’t have that diverse portfolio of revenue including things like sales tax,” he explained. Two other developments, primarily residential will also bring one-time revenue into the city, the buildout of Pulte-owned Lots 27 and 28, and the Salish expansion, construction of up to 175 homes off Tokul Road.

North Bend is also looking forward to an increase in sales tax revenue, as well as closing a chapter in the city’s history.

“A couple of years ago, we had a gas explosion,” Hearing said, adding that this was one of the things he’d never wanted to say as mayor. “And now we have a Phoenix,” he added.

On the site of the explosion, a new three-story retail and residential development called the Phoenix is being planned, with 5,000 feet of retail space on the ground floor, and two stories of housing, 32 units in all.

A planned hotel along North Bend Way near the outlet stores has also been progressing. Hearing couldn’t give specifics on construction dates, but said “I know it’s coming.”

None of the audience of 100 plus people specifically asked about truck parking in the city, but Hearing volunteered his own observations.

“It’s not our issue… this is not a local transportation problem, this is a problem created by the federal government,” he said, as well as the state government, which require drivers to rest after a number of hours on the road, but make no provisions for their parking needs.

Hearing noted that the city is responsible for regulating land use and so is within its legal bounds to prohibit additional truck parking.

“There’s no specific public benefit to truck parking,” Hearing said. “They carry everything they need with them. They don’t need to stop at any K-mart or any place along the road.”

For more information on North Bend, visit http://northbendwa.gov.

For more on Snoqualmie, visit cityofsnoqualmie.org.