A rural Pierce County city is one of WA’s fastest-growing places. Here’s how it’s managing
Edgewood doesn’t look like it used to. It’s changed, and that’s hard for me.
For the most part, I grew up in Edgewood, which staked its independence and became a city in 1996, just about the time I started driving. It was the kind of place where you knew your neighbors, and — if you were largely raised by a single mom like I was — many of them prayed for you at church on Sunday. Sidewalks were mostly nonexistent and unnecessary: we walked in the road.
That was 30 years ago.
Sometimes, it feels like a lot longer.
Today, while many of the hallmarks of my youth remain — like the mossy farmhouses, duck-crossing signs and expansive pastures — Edgewood is different, like most places. The elementary school I attended no longer stands: a budget shortfall forced it to close more than a decade ago, and it was razed shortly thereafter. My junior high, Edgemont, still exists, but the new building it inhabits still feels weird: I’ll always prefer the cramped, dank and nostalgic version that lives in my memory.
That’s the thing about change: It’s hard, in part because it often feels like your history is slowly being erased. And without our history, without concrete reminders of our origin story, what is there to ground us?
So what’s the impulse for this walk down memory lane? Edgewood — along with being the place where I first kissed a girl and first totaled a car — has been one of the fastest growing cities in the region over the last few years. In 2021, it was the second fastest growing city in the Puget Sound area, adding nearly 800 residents, or more than 6% of its population. It also experienced the eighth most growth in the state, welcoming more new residents than Bellevue or Kirkland.
All of this makes life in Edgewood indicative of the strains, challenges and tiny personal heartbreaks we all feel as Pierce County changes around us, for better or worse.
But there’s a catch: Edgewood also happens to be a pretty decent example of what can happen when a city accepts the immutable realities of growth, and seeks to preserve a way of life while also embracing the responsibilities that come with living in an exploding region.
On Thursday, I spoke to Edgewood Mayor Daryl Eidinger, a former pastor who was first elected to City Council in 2010 and also the father of the kid who had the locker above me when I was in seventh grade. Eidinger recalled the city’s incorporation more than 25 years ago and some of the reasons behind it.
Chief among them? That the people of Edgewood didn’t want their home on Puyallup’s North Hill to end up like the hellscape of strip malls, stop lights and sprawl that had already begun to strangle Puyallup’s South Hill.
In the decades since, Eidinger said, the city has worked hard to make the move pay off. The city has added sewers and police services while attempting to channel growth into the places of Edgewood best suited for it — largely the area surrounding Meridian Avenue, which now has four lanes of traffic instead of the two I grew up with.
It’s work that you can see paying off, Eidinger said, even if the new apartment developments and construction crews can be jarring for those who remember the days of the Edgewood Flower Farm or the old Windmill Saloon.
“I think lots of the growth has been the plan that we’ve had from the beginning. When we became a city, there was a plan — and the plan was to put in a sewer for new development, namely along the Meridian, so that we could maintain the rural atmosphere away from Meridian,” Eidinger said. “I think we’ve stuck pretty well to that plan.”
That’s not to say it’s always been easy, or that everyone has been happy at every step of the way. While zoning in most of Edgewood outside the Meridian corridor is limited to two or three parcels per acre — which has helped to keep much of the city largely unchanged — Eidinger said he often gets calls and emails when residents are upset, and that there’s no way to please everyone.
Edgewood’s latest focused growth endeavor — creating a subarea plan for what’s known as Town Center, roughly 85 acres in various stages of development centered around Meridian and 24th Street — promises to put this to the test.
According to Edgewood associate planner Evan Hietpas, who will lead the city’s public engagement efforts as the plan is written, the goal is to create a blueprint for developers who will help transform the area into a mix of dense residential housing, commerce and public amenities in the coming years.
“We have a vision of what Town Center should be, but it’s really important to actually put together implementation strategies of how that is actually going to be built,” Hietpas said.
“A big part of that,” Hietpas added, is ensuring the future developments take into account the overall vision for a “walkable and accessible” heart of the city.
The Town Center subarea plan is still being compiled, but that’s not to say elements of what Edgewood city officials hope it will one day become aren’t already in motion. For instance, although some residents have expressed a general aversion to new apartment developments, the design of a proposed mixed-use project known as Dhaliwal Heights — which is currently working its way through the city’s review process — has assuaged many community fears, according to Darren Groth, the director of Edgewood’s Community and Economic Development Department.
Although Hietpas acknowledged “there are some final details that need to be addressed by the applicant,” he said Edgewood’s review of the proposed 583-unit development has concluded that the project meets the city’s goals and regulations related to density, mixed-use requirements and layout.
According to Eidinger, saying yes to projects like Dhaliwal Heights, which would help Edgewood meet its mandates under the state’s Growth Management Act, is a big part of what allows other parts of the city to stay rural and relatively unblemished by sprawl.
Ultimately, that’s the goal, Eidinger said.
While change is difficult for everyone, there’s simply no avoiding it, so being strategic and deliberate is key.
“This is pretty much the same town that I moved into 30 years ago,” Eidinger said.
“Just busier.”
This story was originally published March 6, 2022 at 5:00 AM.
