Everett ideal for UW branch

AS a key member of the team searching for sites for the two previous University of Washington branch campuses, I would like to offer some lessons that might help as the UW looks for a new location in Snohomish County.

In the 1980s and early 1990s, I worked for TRA Architects. Together with NBBJ, we conducted a site-selection-analysis process for the just-approved UW branch campuses. This essentially involved creating "templates" for workable campus layouts, and then testing suggested sites. The UW had determined that it could afford two branch campuses, one north and one south of the main campus. The UW preliminarily identified a half-dozen potential sites for each campus. All of the sites were suburban.

To make a short story of a long analysis, I suggested an alternative way of looking at the site-selection process. I suggested that the UW see itself as a key participant in a larger regional growth pattern. I also suggested that the newly developing Puget Sound Regional Council's "Vision 2020" and its transportation network be part of the thinking.

This led to our suggestion to Tallman Trask, UW vice president for finance and development, that there be three branch campuses. These campuses would be located north, south and east of the main campus as a reflection of current regional growth patterns. We also recommended that the campuses be urban, not suburban, and that they be transit-related.

Specifically, we recommended locations in the Tacoma warehouse district; something similar in Everett to the north; and, near Redmond Town Center to the east. All three of these sites could take advantage of existing transit, infrastructure and future Sound Transit light-rail lines.

In addition, in Tacoma and Everett, branch campuses could function to help re-energize languishing downtowns.

The Tacoma warehouse district was greeted with some skepticism. However, an analysis of a few of the warehouses showed that they could work for basic classrooms. Specialized facilities (labs, etc.) would require new buildings, more fitted to their unique purposes. Look at the results!

The Bothell campus resulted from a compromise. We recommended Everett, with a third campus in Redmond at a later date. The UW felt honestly that it could build only two campuses, not three. For political reasons, it felt that it had to go both north and east.

Unfortunately, the resulting Bothell campus, while attractive and well done, reinforced our regional reliance on automobiles. It also removed farmland and impacted wetlands unnecessarily. All of these negatives inevitably will be part of suburban proposals currently being considered.

I believe that the messages from the analysis done almost 20 years ago still hold true. We need to:

• Locate branch campuses as part of a regional planning process;

• Make sure that they are or will be supported by transit patterns;

• Use them as economic engines to enhance our existing communities.

Since then, a few new issues have been added into the mix:

• The need for sustainability in the face of regional growth is now greatly apparent;

• The loss of farmland and green space is a particularly critical issue;

• Our pollution contribution to global warming through use of automobiles has gotten much worse.

• There is significant migration back into our cities (by young people, retirees, professionals);

• We are becoming Puget Sound-based, as opposed to Lake Washington-based.

All of this suggests that we should be focusing on Everett — and then perhaps Bremerton, since significant growth has occurred west of Puget Sound.

We should not be grinding up more farmland for buildings, parking, roads, power lines, data centers.

We're in the 21st century.

It's no longer a novel idea to think of the UW and the Higher Education Coordinating Board working with Sound Transit, the Puget Sound Regional Council and other regional groups to locate the next branch campus(es). We're all in this together. Our tax dollars support all of these efforts. We need to think regionally as we act locally.