Covington’s revamped downtown plan is starting to become clearer these days as city staff work with consultants, business owners, developers and residents to find the right mix for the future.

Work being done now will lead to changes in the city’s comprehensive plan that will provide a blue print for future development in downtown Covington, and the town center concept will guide growth in the long term.

A public open house on May 27 was attended by 60 people, according to Covington’s Community Development Director, David Nemens.

“The consultants presented three alternative sites for a future town center and showed conceptual drawings of basic elements of how a town center mighty lay out on each of those sites,” Nemens said. “The purpose of those drawings wasn’t to design a town center but just to elicit feedback from the public and the council.”

This public meeting was the second one with the goal to gain the public’s input and opinions about Covington’s downtown plan, which was adopted in 2005, but has served primarily as a big picture document.

But in the past year the Covington City Council realized the plan needed more detail so that developers could build according to the council’s vision for downtown.

Richard Hart, planning manager for the city, told The Reporter in March that the goal for the revised downtown plan would be “hopefully to encourage the kind of development they wanted to fulfill their vision of a mixed development as well as being a leader in transportation.”

Among the elements that are being discussed are a public plaza, big box retail, a parking structure, a place for a public park and ride among other development ideas, Nemens said.

“A key feature of all the town center drawings … is a new pedestrian oriented ‘main street,’” Nemens said. “A street that will have vehicular traffic that will be fronted with retail. It’s generally a three block long kind of street.”

Consultants have evaluated three different sites on the south side of Southeast 272nd Street as potential places for developing a town center, Nemens said, including Fred Meyer, the property Safeway is on and a vacant 20-acre site owned by Ashton Development that is next door to Covington Elementary, which the Kent School District hopes to sell in a year or so in order to finance construction of a new elementary school.

“There’s a lot of differing opinions on those three alternatives that the consultants presented,” Hart said. “There was a lot of strong opinion. The three alternatives engendered those kinds of comments.”

Of the 60 who attended, 29 filled out a four page comment sheet, Hart said. The prevailing attitude was to focus on the 37 acres of Ashton and the school site for a town center, with only one person voicing dislike for developing what is being called the South Concept.

After the public meeting, the consultants made a presentation to the City Council at its June 9 meeting, Nemens said.

“The consultants … explained how those sites were selected,” he said. “It was a very interesting, robust discussion about what the council members envision in a future town center.”

Since that meeting, Nemens explained, staff has met with the consultants’ transportation planner and engineer to identify and discuss of transportation issues concerning future streets and realignment of existing streets in addition to possible sites for parking structures and park and rides.

On July 28 the consultants will present draft recommendations at a joint city council/planning commission study session.

“It will, of course, be a public meeting, and everyone is not only invited but encouraged to attend,” Nemens said. “The feedback they get from the council, as well as staff comments, will be taken and then the consultant will present a final recommendation to council in late August or early September.”

Nemens wanted to emphasize that this is the foundation for long term planning.

“We’re not designing a town center right now, we’re coming up with ideas and policies and zoning,” he said. “This is a long range plan. The private sector is going to build this over time based on market conditions and market demand. If or when the city has money to buy property or partner with a developer, then we can be in the business of designing a public plaza.”

Hart said the work being done now will also streamline existing zoning. Rather than more than a dozen different zones in the downtown core there will a handful, maybe four to six.

“This is really building the foundation and the framework that the private sector will use when the timing is right,” Hart said.

Nemens said it’s been an exciting process, particularly given some of the other things that have resulted from it.

“One thing that this downtown plan and zoning study has already accomplished is that it has raised the level of interest in the downtown on the part of the private sector,” he said. “We’ve got a much heightened level of inquiry from property owners and developers about downtown.”