For more information contact: Rhonda Rosenberg, KCHA, Communications Director, (206) 574-1185; Elaine Kraft, Office of King County Executive, Communications Director, (206) 296-4063; Tim Trohimovich, City of Redmond, (425) 556-2417

October 10, 2000

ACHIEVING "SMART GROWTH" THROUGH INNOVATIVE PARTNERSHIP: It's Eco-Logical

FRIDAY, OCTOBER 20, 2000
10:30 a.m. to Noon, program begins at 10:30 a.m.
2650 152nd Ave. NE, Redmond • Site of former Overlake Park & Ride next to Group Health Hospital
EXCELLENT PHOTO OPPORTUNITY – CONSTRUCTION IN PROGRESS!

King County Executive Ron Sims and U.S. Congressman Jay Inslee to celebrate the construction of the first development of its kind in the U.S.—linking affordable housing, a day-care facility and a park-and-ride transit center on a single site near the Eastside’s high-tech employment centers.

Seattle– Love and marriage. Horse and carriage. Housing and transit?
To encourage better land use, increase transit use, and create stronger communities, King County, the King County Housing Authority, the City of Redmond and the Federal Transit Administration don’t want one without the other. They have joined with other nonprofit and private partners to undertake an innovative Transit-Oriented-Development in Redmond, Wash.

U.S. Congressman Jay Inslee, Redmond Mayor Rosemarie Ives, King County Executive Ron Sims, and other partners will celebrate this SmartGrowth initiative at a groundbreaking event on Friday, Oct. 20.

The transit-oriented development will combine:

• 308 units of moderate-income workforce housing
• a 4,500 square-foot day care facility and
• a Metro park-and-ride transit center
–located within a stone’s throw of the Microsoft campus and other major Eastside employers.

"At last, it will be possible for families who work in this community to live in this community," said Mayor Ives. "Because of the skyrocketing costs of housing on the Eastside, we’ve been struggling to find ways to keep our city affordable to our teachers, medical assistants, clerical workers, and service workers. This project is a bellwether in real estate development."

County Executive Sims agrees. "This development represents the intelligent use of County-owned land. By thinking up – creating affordable housing and child care on top of a former park-and-ride lot – not out, we’ve tripled the use of this valuable space. This development is an important piece in helping Redmond keep its urban center vital while making it easier for King County to achieve its growth management goals. By locating the transit center with housing and near jobs, more Redmond residents can take advantage of our County-wide bus system. The idea is completely eco-logical." Sims said the County is sponsoring several other such projects, making use of Metro Transit’s convenient routes and success at getting people out of their cars and onto the bus.

"This is an important model," said King County Housing Authority Executive Director Stephen Norman. "Partnering private capital with public resources allowed us to create a new approach to appropriately accommodate this region’s growth."

KCHA administers a range of quality affordable rental housing programs for residents of King County, as well as providing homeownership opportunities to lower-income working families. The Authority serves more than 12,000 households, including families, the elderly, disabled persons, and other special-needs households.

The Transit-Oriented Development Section of the King County Department of Transportation has been working on bus-related TOD joint development projects since 1998. Other King County projects are underway in Renton, Seattle and Shoreline. A TOD is a compact, mixed-use activity area centered around a transit station that, by definition, encourages residents, workers, and shoppers to drive their cars less and ride mass transit more.