What do you think of when you think of Issaquah? Do you think of the big Salmon Days event? The Costco headquarters? The beautiful Olde Town neighborhood? Maybe you think of the great school system!

 

On June 14th, SeattlebyDesign’s Chris Kallin attended a private presentation by Jen Davis Hayes, Issaquah’s Economic Development Manager. Developer’s and tier-1 tenants were the primary audiences, but Chris learned a lot of information that might be of interest to the residential real estate investor and/or owner-occupied homebuyer!

Chris would love to share the full presentation for any interested readers, but here are a few interesting tidbits that you won’t find in the presentation:

– Issaquah boasts more C-Level executives than any other area of the Puget Sound. Astonishing, given some of the more high-profile neighborhoods one might think of first.

– Currently, 70% of the Issaquah valley floor is covered in asphalt. City planners aim to change this dramatically, by requiring structure parking in key areas and for projects of a certain scale.

– The City of Issaquah has lifted their 1.5-year moratorium on new commercial development. The goal during this time was to develop a comprehensive view of a future-Issaquah and to produce an architectural fit / urban design manual. The requisite zoning changes align with the prescriptive objectives.

– Just 9% of residents currently live and work in the city. With several anchor tenants dramatically increasing their footprint (e.g. Costco’s doubling of its corporate office space), planners hope to see this figure improve dramatically. One of the ways they aim to increase this is to add “play” to the live-work-play equation. Projects that provide entertainment value are sure to get more support from the City of Issaquah than others ignoring this element.

– A review of the presentation reveals a number of residential real estate opportunities. Areas of interest might include the area of likely ST3 light rail expansion, the soon-to-be improved transit center, and the several roads being added to the area, including at least one overpass connecting the two halves of the city bisected by I-90.

Please contact Chris Kallin if you’d like more information or a copy of the city’s presentation! You can email him at chris@seattlebydesign.com.

And if you’re interested in making an investment in the area, be sure to check out the Issaquah Active Projects Map: http://bit.ly/2KJNCnd