Huge housing project set to create new neighborhoods, add to Whatcom’s housing stock
Whatcom County has had low housing inventory in recent years, but the beginning of several large construction projects in Blaine will soon add new homes into the real estate market.
Home construction is already underway in the east Blaine area. The furthest along are the Bridges and East Maple Ridge neighborhoods, while Grandis Pond is close to getting the utility infrastructure such as sewer and water in place to begin construction. These projects are happening along H Street Road, just south of the Canadian border.
When built out the area is expected to have nearly 1,400 housing units, most of them being single-family houses. The biggest project, Grandis Pond, is planned to be built in five phases and will have more than 1,000 of those housing units, creating 18 neighborhoods on more than 400 acres of land. The East Blaine area will also have some commercial development, pedestrian trails and more than 200 acres of open space, wildlife corridors, ponds and parks.
“It hasn’t been easy, but it is a good project because it is inside the city limits, it is not taking away farmland and it has a good water source,” said Ken Hertz, who is developing the Grandis Pond project.
The Grandis Pond project has been 15 years in the making, having to deal with issues such as getting utilities out to the undeveloped area. It wasn’t a permitting issue, but financially a “heavy lift” for a small city, said Michael Jones, Blaine’s city manager, in an email. With the help of District 42 state legislators, he said, the city was able to secure more than $1.5 million in funding to help pay for the infrastructure.
Hertz, who was mayor of Bellingham from 1976 to 1982, expects phase 1 construction of Grandis Pond to begin in 2022 after a partner is in place to help with the development. The entire project is currently listed for sale at $13.5 million, according to the Grandis Pond website.
Hertz has overseen large development projects before, having been a vice chairman at Trillium Corporation. Some of the projects Trillium developed locally include large parts of the Cordata area in Bellingham and Semiahmoo resort.
Grandis Pond is owned by Grandis Pond LLC, of which Hertz is substantially the owner and one of the governors of the holding company.
Once started, the Grandis Pond project is expected to take around 10-15 years to complete.
Plans for East Maple Ridge include 225 single-family residences and 128 attached homes, which could include different styles like cottages or stacked flats, said Stacie Pratschner, community director at Blaine. The Bridges project has 14 residential lots near Lincoln Park.
Many of the single-family homes in the east Blaine projects are expected to sell in the $300,000 to $400,000 range, which in today’s market is what first-time homebuyers and young families are targeting. Dick Skeers of Skeers Construction, which is building homes in the Bridges neighborhood, said they are building homes geared toward local working people.
Finding homes in that price range has been especially difficult the past few years. Current inventory is around a month, meaning homes selling in that price range would be completely gone in 30 days if nothing new came on the market. In a balanced market between buyers and sellers, the inventory is typically around six months.
What will this mean for Blaine?
With a current population of around 5,500, adding this much housing in one section of the city will be a big deal. From an economic standpoint, just the construction work in the coming years will generate substantial sales tax revenue for a city Blaine’s size, Jones said in an email.
A new source of sale tax revenue is coming at a crucial time for Blaine, given the drop in revenue that’s taken place because of border restrictions that have been in place during the COVID-19 pandemic. Canadian cross-border traffic plays a significant role in Blaine’s economy, with businesses ringing up nearly $25 million in retail sales annually from Canadians. That’s according to estimates done by Western Washington University’s Border Policy Research Institute.
Jones points out that once the houses are built, property taxes do not bring in enough to pay for the services used, but the hope is that the people living there will then support Blaine’s businesses, either as customers or as employees.
“It is essential that people shop local and support the community they live in,” Jones said.
This story was originally published September 21, 2020 at 5:00 AM.
