The Parks & Built Environment Committee of the Everett City Council met on Wednesday, October 8, 2025, at 5:00 PM in City Council Chambers. The committee, co-chaired by Councilmembers Rhyne and Vogeli and including Councilmember Zarlingo, discussed three major agenda items: vacant storefronts and big box store policies, park and park amenities naming policy updates, and South Everett grocery access initiatives following the Fred Meyer closure. No public comment was accepted. The meeting adjourned at 5:57 PM.
Good late afternoon at residents of Everett Washington. This is the Parks and Built Environment Council Committee. Today is October 8th. It's 5 p.m. and we are here in Everett Chambers. Thank you to everybody who's joining today. For uh folks listening in at our committee meetings. We don't accept public comment, but if you have any comments that you'd like to provide, uh, feel free to email us or join us at our 6 30 uh general meeting. Uh tonight we have a packed agenda. Uh so we have lots of uh work continuing uh from some previous uh efforts that this council committee's been up to. Uh so first on our agenda tonight is uh vacant storefronts, facade maintenance, downtown revitalization and vacant big box stores. So I think what started as an initiative from um our group uh for our work plan for the year to address uh vacant storefronts downtown, then expanded a little bit to talk more about uh vacant uh blighted properties that are near downtown, which have been attracting unwant unwelcome behaviors. And then now with the recent announcement of the Kroger closure, I'd like to expand that work even further to address uh potential uh policy uh policy work that we can implement to address uh vacant storefronts or vacant big box stores to avoid any unintended consequences of those being closed. So um uh Jennifer, did you have an update for us? I know we're gonna be talking uh also on the agenda later, we're gonna be talking about the South Everett groceries access initiatives and updates from staff. Uh, but so we'll probably hold off on the part of the conversation where we talk about that site specifically and ways that the city's working to um hopefully reactivate the space. But want uh for the this part of the agenda, let's talk more about any policy work that the city might be considering moving forward. I don't have a specific update. Um, but I do have um we added this at the last end of the last meeting to get this on your agenda again. Um, I know that uh our economic development director kind of shared, I don't know if counsel vice presidento has seen them, but he um shared some kind of policy questions or specifically around the vacant big box stores part of this conversation. Um I don't have any other policy updates, but would could walk through some of the things that Dan had shared. They're also potentially kind of relevant for other type, you know, limitations on what is impacted by this and um or what the policy goals are. So yeah. Great. Um, if we could take a quick step back for the the work that the council, this committee was working on for our downtown vacant storefronts, uh, a lot of that was on pause so that uh interns could the city could do uh an inventory of vacants, vacancies downtown. But uh, we learned recently that the interns weren't brought on uh to do that work. So um the body works was stalled for that uh lay of the land to come through, but we'll stop that. I guess I'm excited about a loss of what kinds of next steps we should be doing for that specific avenue of this body of work. Uh I think and tell me if I'm wrong, um, I think I missed a meeting previously when the downtown business association was here and talked to us. And were they have we asked them? Did they answer us about how many vacant storefronts there were? I mean, it's sounding like no, that hasn't been answered because the sounds like no, that hasn't been answered. Uh well, they had shared that the there's an 8% vacancy rate downtown, which um, but they weren't quite able to answer how they're measuring vacancies, because I think even just you know, walking a block, we can see more than less than 10% of uh vacancies downtown. So uh they didn't have that same inventory of like more specifics of which businesses, which block, um, and maybe if there's um a trend in uh building owners or um if there's any other trends that we should be aware of of like where those businesses are located, which might alter our approach to it. So yeah, council members are lingo. Yeah, just a brief note. I walked around downtown some this weekend and paying some attention to that. And uh, one of the things I noticed was that there were two or three places that are currently not exactly vacant because a business is coming. They're working on that. That's a work in progress. So that may be part of that difference between what our perception of it is and some statistics, but I think the probably the best way to know more is to ask those experts because I'm I'm nowhere near there myself. Is there I can't imagine that if the interns were not available this time around, they won't be available if there's a next time around. So, yes, we need a different avenue of figuring that out, is what I am saying. Well, and also just understanding better, I think what council member Ryan was talking about. What are the most effective measures we can do? Um, maybe a conversation with uh economic director, uh development director Ernesty on that. I gathering two or three angles on that probably will get us better able to find out is is it more data that we need to get, or in terms of vacancy rates or where they're concentrated, or is it what are the measures we want to try to take? Um, because some of those measures we probably want to take anyway, if we feel like we hear from um from Dan Ernesty, or we hear from downtown Everett, what what would be the most effective, then we may want to work on that no matter what the statistics, whether we have them or not. Just gonna put this snark out there. It's almost like we need a policy person in our office for this type of thing.