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Section: Dan Voelpel

Building a neighborhood, milk and all

DAN VOELPEL; THE NEWS TRIBUNE
The same people who inked a deal to bring you Tacoma’s first downtown grocery store also will bring you the second downtown grocery store.

This one will sit on the northwest corner of South 25th Street and Yakima Avenue.

Please hold your applause.

“I don’t understand why everyone focuses on the grocery store,” said Casey Ingels, co-managing director of Metropolitan Real Estate Development, with only a tinge of incredulity.

“Well, I do,” he admitted. “But to us, that’s not why these projects are important. They’re important because we’re about building neighborhoods, not grocery stores.”

And you can’t have a desirable urban neighborhood without a neighborhood market. (Call it the strawberry milk factor. More on that later.)

Many other urban developers, who have contented themselves with the safer profits from pure condominium or apartment towers in Tacoma, haven’t clued in to M-RED’s formula. Don’t you wish they would?

M-RED’s unnamed $42 million neighborhood-making project will break ground in June on the sloping lot of an area rife with new view town homes and old Tacoma Housing Authority apartments, but nary an urban service – except at the Christ Life Center Church across the street.

The previous owners, a Gig Harbor investment group that had assembled adjacent parcels, marketed the site for 39 more town homes.

M-RED had other ideas it kept secret. The company closed on the $2.8 million purchase of the one-acre site eight days ago but had its development and leasing team in high gear for months, said Gwen Ingels, co-managing director who oversees operations and finance.

“We just have to pick the exterior materials and we’re ready to go,” she said.

On that acre they’ll dig down for 253 indoor parking stalls, add a coffee shop next to the grocer, leave additional Yakima Avenue ground-floor commercial space, then top it with three floors of 98 apartments and three floors with 66 condominiums.

Despite the high hillside view location, the condos will sell for a lot less than you might think in a market known for developers who seem to scrabble and gouge for the same high-end niche.

Ten studio condos with approximately 467 square feet will sell for $156,460 to $165,801, according to the company’s project summary.

The apartments will rent for $760 a month for a studio to $1,520 a month for a two-bedroom unit with a den.

“What’s missing from Tacoma is ‘affordable,’” Casey Ingels said. “You look at the median income of a family of four and wonder what they’re going to buy.”

But why 69 apartments?

M-RED’s Yakima Avenue site falls three blocks outside the University of Washington Tacoma’s current master plan boundary.

With the university’s transformation this school year to a four-year school, the demand for affordable student rental housing nearby will likely explode over time.

“We’re definitely targeting U-Dub students,” Casey Ingels said.

Yeah, yeah. But what about the grocery store?

“Retail is an amenity for the residents here,” he said. “The ability to walk to this corner from all of the town homes around for groceries. … And on a nice day, it would be nice to walk down and have a cup of coffee.

“I think it’s sad to have these high-density residential cores with no plans for walking retail. If you want a community downtown, you have to have some amenities to support the residential.”

That’s why, in January, M-RED announced plans for the $90 million Sharp project at Sixth and St. Helens avenues on the north edge of downtown. That project includes a hotel, condominiums, apartments, restaurants, a coffee shop – and a grocery store.

Construction there won’t start until September or October because the hotelier wants an architectural redesign with several stacked floors rather than the one floor spread over the entire project as in earlier concepts, Casey Ingels said.

Look for the same so-far-unnamed, Arizona-based grocer in both M-RED projects – a larger store on St. Helens and a neighborhood market on Yakima Avenue roughly the size of the average Trader Joe’s.

But both projects will satisfy Gwen and Casey Ingels’ children, who have an affinity for strawberry milk.

The Ingels live in the St. Helens neighborhood and “we have to stop at three different stores to get enough strawberry milk” to drink last a week, Gwen Ingels said.

Not for long. You can bet the grocers in M-RED’s new projects will stock plenty of strawberry milk.

Dan Voelpel: 253-597-8785

dan.voelpel@thenewstribune.com

The M-RED Express

The aggressive team at Metropolitan Real Estate Development will break ground in June on a mixed-use project at the southwest edge of downtown Tacoma. Here’s a quick look at key elements of the $42 million project.

Address: 2358-2372 S. Yakima Ave.

Land: One acre

Architect: HDI Architects, Bellevue

Nine floors: Two underground parking levels, ground-floor commercial and parking, six floors residential

Residential: 98 apartments, 66 condominiums

Commercial: 17,600 square feet – grocery store, coffee shop, other retail space for lease

Apartment rental rates (estimated): $760 per month for 467-square-foot studio, up to $1,520 per month for 1,266-square-foot unit with two bedrooms and a den

Condominium sales prices (estimated): $156,460 for 467-square-foot studio, up to $449,430 for top-floor, 1,266-square-foot two-bedroom unit

Contact: www. metropolitanred.com, 253-722-2700