Urban Land Institute visits Lynnwood for a parks study

27 Feb, 2022 by Phong Nguyen

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The Urban Land Institute (ULI), in partnership with The Trust for Public Land (TPL) and the National Recreation and Park Association (NRPA), are leading the 10 Minute Walk Campaign (Lynnwood Campaign) — a national movement working to ensure that everyone has access to a high-quality park within a ten-minute walk of home. Campaign partners are working with cities throughout the country to advance their goals and commitments around improving equitable access to high-quality parks.

Parks, Recreation & Cultural Arts received a planning and technical assistance grant from NRPA to support the creation of a measurable action plan that will accomplish the city’s 10-minute walk goals and has been offered the opportunity to further leverage technical assistance by hosting a ULI National Study Visit from February 26-28, 2020. This 2.5-day visit brought together national and local ULI members as well as other national experts to develop recommendations for the development of new parks along with mixed-use developments within the City Center area in Lynnwood. A set of study questions, developed by the City of Lynnwood and ULI, guided the scope of topics examined during this visit.

One of the main objectives was to understand the different perspectives from stakeholders when it comes to access to parks in the area. Several stakeholders, including the members of the Lynnwood Business Consortium, were invited to participate in this study visit with the Urban Land Institute panelists. This study visit focused on the City Center while also focusing on the discussion of access to parks.

Economic Development Director of Everett, Dan Ernissee suggested that the City should look into acquiring the largest piece of property within City Center and to help incentivize all the furniture retailers like Dania and Anna’s Home Furnishings to move out of City Center and closer to Alderwood Mall where they could all be together. Similarly, he recommended that the City should try to assist in the efforts of moving all the thrift stores closer to Highway 99. This plan would help alleviate traffic congestion by reducing and removing auto-oriented retail businesses out of City Center to make new room for urban development:

Phong Nguyen

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