The Woodinville Schoolhouse District: A Placemaking Case Study

 

The story of the Woodinville Schoolhouse District embodies a lot of the “typical” placemaking story, while also having some very unique features. It is also a wonderful success, and a story of revitalization to be celebrated. It is a case study of the type of work that I aspire to do in every site.

 

The Situation 

I began working with the City of Woodinville, Washington in January 2017, and until 2019 I served as the City’s lead real estate development advisor for the Civic Campus (now the Schoolhouse District), working directly for the City Manager and Council. 

The four-acre Civic Campus, about 40 minutes northeast of Seattle, consisted of the brick Old Woodinville Schoolhouse (first built in the 1920s and then significantly expanded in the ‘30s and ‘40s), the Carol Edwards Center (a rec center built in the 1960s and ‘70s), and various associated parking lots, drive lanes, and storage areas. Both main buildings were desperately in need of reinvestment and repair. The Schoolhouse was literally falling apart, with plaster tiles falling from the ceilings. 

The Vision

The City had an ambitious vision for the site. It was to be the heart of their re-emerging downtown: a community gathering place with open spaces and plazas, a place for impromptu meetings and events, restaurants and retail, and potentially other uses. The Schoolhouse would remain and be restored to mint condition. The YMCA, which ran classes out of the Carol Edwards Center, should remain on site and potentially expand, though the “CEC” might be demolished.  

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The vision was believable because of the site’s adjacency to the City’s beloved soccer fields, City Hall, and Sammamish River/Wilmot Gateway Park, and because it was at the historic and geographic heart of the City.  

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Challenges

But the city council and staff knew there were challenges associated with achieving this vision. First and foremost, it had been attempted before, without success. The City had a stack of studies dating back to at least 2001, showing how the Civic Center might be redesigned and reconstructed. There were site plans, artist’s renderings, engineering drawings, cost estimates, and bound reports. 

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One daunting conclusion of the previous analysis was that it might cost the City a significant amount to reinvent the Civic Campus: the studies that assumed the most extensive work pegged the City’s cost at $20 to $25 million, in 2001 and 2013 dollars respectively. The City knew that these estimates might be low since the adaptive reuse of historic structures, environmental remediation, new construction of plazas, parking, and commercial structures would all cost money. The past analysis was also discouraging. If those extensive efforts had not resulted in significant change, why should this one? 

 

A New Strategy: PPP

I began working with the City in this context. Central to our new way of looking at this property was that the solution for the Civic Campus (later called the Schoolhouse District) would be a public-private partnership or PPP, in which the City, real estate developer(s) yet to be determined, tenants such as the YMCA, and others would all contribute to and enable redevelopment of the site. 

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The City would not carry the entire burden itself; rather, it would benefit from partnerships with others who were expert in their fields, including in design, financing, construction, and operation. This was a departure from past planning work, which typically assumed that the City would lead everything from cosmetic and structural repairs to the Schoolhouse, to the construction of parking structures, to designing and maintaining landscapes.   

 

Because of the site’s relatively modest size, my assumption was that we would need to find a single master developer and that the City’s relationship with this developer would perhaps be the one most critical to realizing the City’s vision. It would also be complicated in part because the vision implied a mix of public and private uses on the site. 

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I worked closely with the Seattle office of architecture firm VIA/Perkins Eastman to evaluate the site and prepare redevelopment concepts. VIA did a wonderful job creating drawing and imagery that helped residents envision what the site could be like in the future. These were provided to the Council, staff, and the public, who gave us feedback, which as always ranged from the very enthusiastic to the outright negative. 

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The redevelopment concepts helped me, VIA, and the City wrestle with issues such as height and density, design, “must haves” versus “nice to haves,” and City cost, budget, and risk. In my opinion, it is important and too rare for each design concept to be linked to cost, risk, and other ways the project could affect the fiscal and general health of the City. If this doesn’t happen, the Council is likely to order the most extravagant and expensive option, only to be surprised by the bill later. 

 

Finding a Development Partner

Once residents and Council had selected a preferred alternative and at least one other acceptable alternative, I began marketing the Civic Campus to highly qualified developers. 

This involved the creation of a Request for Qualifications, website, and advertisements. I called or met with nearly 20 development and design firms. The RFQ delineated the responsibilities that we anticipated the developer and City would take on, as well as the vision and goals that the developer would be required to meet: the Schoolhouse would remain and be restored; the site would be a community gathering place; the YMCA and recreation options would remain and expand; etc. 

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In late 2017, the City Council selected Main Street Property Group as the City’s preferred development partner, based on the quality of their submittal and the mixed-use development that they had completed in other suburban Puget Sound cities.  

 

Relationship Consultant 

I’ve sometimes been called a relationship consultant. When a developer is first selected by a City, it feels early, it feels like the dating phase. The City and developer are excited, but are also testing whether this project is a good fit. 

 

If the vision is to become real, the partners will need commit to each other and coexist for decades—as long as the buildings of the Schoolhouse District exist and are occupied by a mix of public and private uses. 

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Therefore, during 2018, I worked with the City and Main Street to conduct due diligence and negotiate the development agreements necessary for the parties to cement their relationship, including a development agreement, purchase and sale agreement, lease, and joint use/common area agreement, as well as a sublease agreement to the YMCA. These documents defined the roles and responsibilities of the City and developer/owner, the contents and quality of the Schoolhouse project to be built by the developer, and how the parties would approach construction through long-term operation. 

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The project broke ground in 2019 and celebrated a grand opening in 2021. The current value of the project is at least $100 million.  

 

The Schoolhouse District  

In 2022, I was fortunate to return to the Woodinville Schoolhouse District with my family—about a year after the project had officially opened. 

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I knew that the project had already succeeded in some regards. The Woodinville farmer’s market had relocated to the Festival Street that now ran between the Schoolhouse District and ballfields—an indication that the project was fulfilling its role as a community gathering place. The YMCA had expanded, added new outdoor play areas, and was offering early childcare, a severely undersupplied service in suburban Seattle. The ground floor spaces in the Schoolhouse building and “Wine Walk” were filling in with several restaurants, numerous wineries, and a café. And the 260+ apartment units looked lovely based on the photos advertising.  

 

When we arrived at the Schoolhouse, I was thrilled to see that it was being well used by the community. We saw parents enjoying coffee while their kids played in the adjacent park and plaza space. We saw many dog walkers talking with other dog walkers. People relaxing on the “grand staircase,” overlooking the action on the ball fields. Equally importantly, I was able to get a photo of my four-year-old next to the district’s basset hound statue—the city’s unofficial mascot. 

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When we see people using places, and unique expressions of local identity, we know that place making has been successful.  

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The Schoolhouse District is now undeniably a gathering place for Woodinville’s residents, one of the City’s rare historic sites, and a place where people can meet, gather, dine, live, relax, and recreate. ​

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By the Numbers

• 30,000 square feet of new retail space

• Restoration and renovation of the
  18,000 square foot Historic Woodinville Schoolhouse

• An acre of new public outdoor spaces

• Expanded YMCA space including childcare facilities, via renovation and
  new construction 

• 264 residential units

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Awards

• Mixed-Use Development of the Year, NAIOP of Washington State, 2022 

• National Multifamily Project of the Year, Multifamily Executive, 2022