North Downtown Subarea Plan and EIS gets $50,000

As noted in last week’s City Council meeting notes, Tacoma has been awarded $50,000 to complete work on the North Downtown sub-area plan and EIS. That $50,000, along with $25,000 in cash and in-kind matches from the City will fund the planning process in that part of downtown, replicating the work being done in the MLK and South Downtown sub-areas. The project is scheduled to kick off in October of this year, and wrap up by the end of 2013.

The area covered by the North Downtown sub-area includes the downtown commercial core and the Foss Waterway, and extends north to include St. Helens and the Stadium District. Together with the South Downtown and MLK sub-areas, this means that all of Tacoma’s downtown area will be covered by these sub-area plans and EISs. The goal here, as with the two planning processes already begun, is to develop an area-wide long-range plan, including pre-development consideration of environmental and community issues. The ultimate goal is to address environmental and community issues up front, including pre-development environmental reviews, and addressing community concerns, “ultimately reducing development uncertainties and risks for future projects and defining implementation time lines.”

The grant is a part of $1.6 million in investments announced by the Washington State Community Economic Revitalization Board (CERB) this month. The CERB focuses on creating private sector jobs in partnership with local governments by financing infrastructure improvements, as well as providing limited funding for studies that evaluate high-priority economic development projects.

If we’re going to have all of downtown Tacoma covered by these plans and pre-development environmental studies, it’s important that community concerns come up now, rather than after the fact. So, what are your concerns?

Read more on Tacoma’s sub-area plans and EISs previously from Exit133.

Read the full press release from the State of Washington Department of Commerce.