MOUNTLAKE TERRACE — Arbor Village opened last year, becoming the first large-scale, mixed-use residential and retail development in the city’s Town Center.
The $19 million development at 23609 56th AVE W. Suite 100 aims to revitalize the city’s downtown core. Arbor Village mixes 123 units with one- and two-bedrooms with eight retail spaces. It was built by Mountlake Terrace’s Afco &Sons under the leadership of CEO Yuko Abe and her family.
Carl Colson of Bothell was the project’s design architect. Weber Thompson was the architect of record, designing interior units and creating the final construction documents.
In late May, Arbor Village received a VISION 2040 award from the Puget Sound Regional Council, which gives annual awards to recognize regional innovations in managing growth and sustaining quality of life.
Colson, 59, has worked for 35 years as an architect across the country and started his own firm in 2001. He discussed Arbor Village and the recognition it received.
Q: How and when did you become involved in this development?
A: I’d done a mixed use design for another piece of property down the street that never got built. That client ended up canceling the project because of the downturn in the economy. The owners of Arbor Village saw what I had done and liked that and they hired me.
Q: Arbor Village is the first project of its kind to be developed in Mountlake Terrace’s Town Center. How would you describe it?
A: I see Arbor Village as being a major shot in reinventing or reinvigorating Mountlake Terrace. The city is a diamond in the rough, a great location, close to Seattle, with easy access to a park and ride, with great parks and good schools. This project has sparked a lot of interest in the downtown center.
Q: What kind of examples does Arbor Village set for others hoping to start and complete similar developments in or near the city of Mountlake Terrace?
A: I think it shows that mixed use projects and multi-family projects with a higher density do appeal to people in our area and not just 20-somethings in Seattle. I showed this project to a number of major developers in Seattle and they all said no, a project like that doesn’t fly outside the Seattle area.
To my knowledge, all but two of the units are leased right now. It proves that you don’t have to be in South Lake Union or Ballard or even Northgate to have a successful project.
Q: What made Arbor Village different from other projects you’ve worked on?
A: One of the real challenges of mixed use is how do you keep separate the retail customers and retail uses from the residential uses and residential tenants. You want to keep them separate for security reasons. You don’t want shoppers wandering through the halls of the building but you want to make it seem warm and inviting so that was a real challenge to provide that segregation of uses.I’ve definitely worked on buildings with different uses before but never to this scale.
Q: Arbor Village is called a catalyst project, implementing the city’s Town Center vision for a livable, compact downtown that promotes housing choices, is walkable and transit oriented. How does its design promote this vision?
A: This project is extremely livable. It’s a very highly dense project and I designed it in such a way that each of the units really has quite a bit of privacy. There’s careful placement of windows for privacy and the covered walkway projects far enough to give residents on the second floor some privacy. The two elevators are able to access the ground floor very quickly and I think the way the garage is laid out is extremely functional and secure and allows residents and visitors to get out quickly.
Q: The Puget Sound Regional Council awards are intended to recognize regional innovations in managing growth and sustaining quality of life. How does Arbor Village accomplish these things?
A: I think one of the things about Arbor Village to me is that the style of the building is sort of a classic style. It’s not built in 2013 contemporary mode that may fade out and become somewhat outdated.
The way I interpret 2040 is it also promotes redevelopment within existing areas so we don’t have to keep expanding outwards into the countryside.
Q: What does this recognition mean to you?
A: I was extremely pleased because as a small firm it’s not always you get the chance to work on projects where there’s recognition and I really appreciate the recognition. I also really appreciate the client’s willingness to select me as design architect and also the city’s rezone on this.
I drive by this project three times a week because it’s on the way to where I’m going and I always look and think, ‘Wow, that came out of my head. I designed that.’ It brings me a lot of pride.
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