McMenamins Requests to Join BIA

We haven't had much to report on the McMenamins Elks project lately - things have been in a bit of a holding pattern while the McMenamins search for investment funds to complete the project.

Now, although we don't have news of any new investors, we do have a little something that could be a hopeful sign to report: McMenamins has requested that their property be added to downtown Tacoma's Business Improvement Area.

The BIA has been around for a quarter of a century now, and encompasses more than 80 blocks of downtown Tacoma real estate. The BIA provides security, maintenance, and streetscape improvements for those blocks. Those services are paid for by property owners within the area, who pay a voluntary annual fee to supplement publicly-financed services.

The BIA footprint currently stops just south of the McMenamins property. It can be modified, but such a move requires a public hearing and the support of at least half of the property owners currently represented by the BIA. A resolution on this week's City Council meeting agenda would set a public hearing on the issue for Tuesday, March 18, 2014, at 5:30 p.m.

Assuming they get support from other property owners currently in the BIA, we can likely expect to see the Elks property added to the BIA.