June 6, 2013 – Source
The city of Kent this week completed the sale of a downtown property to Goodman Real Estate, a Seattle development company that plans to build a five-story apartment building with retail on the site.
Four floors of housing over street-level retail is a different development model for suburban Kent, which has been working for years to give its downtown more of an urban feel.
Goodman paid Kent $902,000 for the nearly 1.75-acre site at Fourth Avenue North and West Smith Street. Combined with the cost of demolishing an unfinished parking garage, the sale is worth $1.2 million, city officials said.
The project will have 176 “urban-style” apartments and 3,100 square feet of retail. In a nod to its proximity to Kent’s commuter rail station, the project will be called the Platform.
Goodman has several projects under development in Seattle. Company President and CEO George Petrie said it’s “pioneering” to build this kind of project in Kent. He hopes to have the market-rate project open in a year.
Petrie said his company is working with a national retail tenant that could occupy the commercial space, and is adjusting the building so it will have outdoor seating.
A previous developer, Ben Errez of Plan B Development in Bellevue, had started building a 355-stall garage that was to be part of a residential condo and retail project. Work stopped in 2007 when the lender withheld funds.
Kent Mayor Suzette Cooke said the property was an eyesore even after the city took control of it through foreclosure in 2010 and tore the garage down. She said Goodman’s project will complement Kent Station, an open-air shopping center, and the ShoWare Center sports and entertainment arena.