If you’re shopping at Fred Meyer in Lacey, you’re now in the city’s ‘midtown’
Seattle has its SoDo. Olympia has a downtown. Now Lacey is about to start calling one of its business districts “midtown.”
Where’s midtown? It’s home to Huntamer Park, Lacey City Hall, a mental health hospital, the Lacey campus of South Puget Sound Community College and a number of formerly vacant office buildings that are now bustling with new tenants. The area is bordered by I-5, College Street, Pacific Avenue and Sleater-Kinney Road.
The full name is Lacey Midtown, an innovation district, said Lacey Mayor Andy Ryder.
What role does innovation play? Ryder points out that midtown is home to the community college, the Thurston Economic Development Council and is also next to Saint Martin’s University and its Lacey MakerSpace, a destination for entrepreneurs needing access to industrial equipment they may not otherwise be able to afford.
The new branding is expected to appear this spring in the form of midtown banners and midtown logos on utility boxes, plus other enhancements. The city has budgeted $50,000 for those expenses, finance director Troy Woo said.
“All great cities have great districts and we’re hoping this will be a great district for a long time,” Ryder said.
But not everyone supports the new brand and, for the moment, it doesn’t include the adjacent South Sound Center.
How did Lacey arrive at midtown?
This area of Lacey, which Ryder considers the heart of the city, was once thought to be its “downtown.” The city even worked on a Downtown 2000 plan, which established design guidelines and development standards for the area, according to city information.
But the Great Recession waylaid those plans and hollowed out the office buildings on Woodland Square Loop, resulting in about 250,000 square feet of vacant space.
The city then embarked on a new strategic plan, which produced 25 actions for the city to take, including the brand identity program. The plan got a huge assist from MJR Development, a Kirkland-based company that bought the vacant buildings and wooed tenants to them, including Rick and Marie Nelsen, who now operate two businesses there: Ricardo’s, a steakhouse, and Royce Marie Bean Bar, a coffee shop.
The midtown idea also got an instrumental push from Lacey Planning Commissioner David Wasson, who pitched it to Lacey City Council during a work session last spring. Wasson wanted the brand to reflect the geographic center of the city and be simple enough to help visitors find the area.
“I mocked up a little thing at work and brought it to that meeting,” he recalls. The council agreed with the idea last spring and voiced support for it again in September.
‘It’s silly’
Not everyone supports the idea of midtown. Longtime Lacey resident Ken Balsley writes about the city and serves on its parks board. He also served on the historical commission for 13 years and has run for city council.
“My concern for and roots in this city run deep,” he said.
Balsley said he has urged city officials to reconsider the name midtown, calling it “silly.”
“It will mean nothing to most people,” he said.
The better name, he said, is Woodland Square, which takes into account the city’s history — the area was once known as “Woodland” — and it signifies a gathering spot.
“I will make fun of it every chance I get,” Balsley said about midtown.
What about South Sound Center?
The midtown boundaries fall just east of the shopping center, which has been a part of Lacey as long as the city has been a city.
Lacey’s community and economic development director, Rick Walk, said it could be added to midtown as the center redevelops. For the moment, midtown and the shopping center are on two very different trajectories.
Midtown is bustling with activity and new business while the shopping center has remained largely unchanged for years. A Bank of America branch was recently renovated and Starbucks has occupied a new building on the east edge of the mall site, but Sears, which has been an anchor at South Sound Center since 1966, is set to close in early February.
A Chicago-area business called Transformco, which operates Sears, could not be reached about the future of the property. Capital Development Corp., the landlord for the shopping center, also could not be reached.
‘I like the idea’
Ricardo’s owner Rick Nelsen supports the idea of a new brand like midtown because without it “nobody really knows it’s an area,” he said. He sometimes tells visitors his business is in the Woodland Square Loop area of the city, or is off College Street on Seventh Avenue.
But only southbound traffic on College Street can access Seventh Avenue — a lane divider blocks northbound vehicles, Nelsen said.
That could change if the city follows through on an idea to put a roundabout there.
“I’ll support that in a heartbeat,” Nelsen said.
This story was originally published January 19, 2020 at 6:00 AM.
