About 1,700 homes have been built or planned within a one-mile radius of Shoreline North Station since 2019.

When Sound Transit begins service on the Lynnwood Link extension on August 30, the stations will directly serve three more Puget Sound cities. Shoreline will receive two of these stations and has prepared zoning and land use reforms that will allow the station areas to be converted to dense residential areas. The city has prepared its Shoreline North Station for a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to create an urban ribbon between two growing neighborhoods. (Note that we reported on the development around Shoreline South Station earlier this week.)

When The Urbanist Our 2021 project list included the Shoreline residential development, a densifying North City that will soon see a new light rail station. The neighborhood was historically a small commercial center in eastern Shoreline, but two decades ago thoughtful planning led to a gradual expansion of the neighborhood to include multifamily housing. North City highlights the Shoreline North Station area of ​​the Line 1 extension by sandwiching the station between a growing hub of the neighborhood and the Aurora Corridor, which has also seen rapid growth recently. Development around the station will create a new dense connection between the two urban parts of the neighborhood.

Within a half-mile radius, Shoreline South is the most developed station area. Expanding the radius to a mile, Shoreline North Station is the most developed area. The densifying Aurora and North City neighborhood are within a mile of this station, and both have seen some large residential construction completed in recent years. Projects are also slowly getting underway between these two development hubs near the light rail station.

Similar to Shoreline South, the main commercial districts are not in the immediate vicinity of the station, but along Aurora Avenue to the west or near 15th Avenue NE to the east. Mixed-use development and a few smaller business centers have created some modest commercial activity closer to the station, but more development is needed to fill the gaps and create a cohesive neighborhood from Aurora to North City. The I-5 chasm in the middle of the station site hinders urban redevelopment and walkability, but the city hopes this will not be an insurmountable obstacle.

The Nordstadt junction continues to grow towards the train station

Our 2021 report on the Station District found a number of apartments completed in the commercial center of North City, which is about a 20-minute walk southeast of the station. As of 2021, a total of 448 units were built in The Postmark, Green Leaf Shoreline and Arabella Apartment Homes II developments. The growth continues with Alta North City, under construction at 17712 15th Ave NE. The mixed-use building will have 228 residential units, approximately 220 parking spaces and 3,900 square feet of retail space. Also nearby at 18008 12th Ave NE are 19 townhomes set to be completed in 2023 and a dormant 28-unit project at 18005 12th Ave NE.

A few blocks from this existing North City hub, the planned developments are located directly around Shoreline North Station. Right next to the station are two multi-use apartment buildings under construction, the seven-story, 240-unit Kinect @ Shoreline and the eight-story, 299-unit project at 18554 8th Ave NE. Nearby, an eight-story, 197-unit multi-use apartment building at 18910 8th Ave NE and a 17-unit multi-use building at 731 NE 185th Street are in the permitting phase.

A wave of townhome construction has also taken place in the Station District. The 19 townhomes at 18008 12th Ave NE are the largest example near Shoreline North Station. A quick look at the parceling of new townhomes in the King County Parcel Viewer shows that around 100 new townhomes have been built since 2019 in a variety of smaller townhome projects.

Echo Lake slowly develops to Aurora

Many of these townhome projects are located on the west side of I-5 from the station in the Echo Lake neighborhood, directly across I-5 from the station. So far, the volume of projects on this side of the highway in this area is much smaller than in North City. Only the Civitas Apartments at 2152 N 195th St has been completed in the Echo Lake portion of the station site. It is a small, four-story, 22-unit apartment building. Another small, three-story, 11-unit apartment building project at 19232 5th Ave NE is in the permitting phase.

The most notable project in Echo Lake is closer to the Aurora corridor than the light rail station area. In fact, the proposed 121-unit multi-use building at 1206 N 185th Street is one block from Aurora Avenue. There are many other projects happening in Aurora, but we’ve only included those within a mile of the light rail station in this roundup.

What’s next for this emerging urban corridor?

These projects use very little of the zoned capacity along this corridor from North City to Aurora. There are many more blocks where new multifamily and mixed-use projects can be built, although much of it is actually held by the City of Shoreline or other public entities. Within a half-mile of the station, the Shoreline School District owns more than 48 acres of land. The lack of activity on these urban sites explains the slower growth of the immediate station area.

Overall, the development pipeline at Shoreline North Station is relatively weak, and unlike Shoreline South Station, most projects here are either already built or under construction. In total, around 1,700 homes have been built or are under development near Shoreline North since 2019. If you include all the smaller townhome developments, Around 600 apartments have been built since 2019. The three large buildings under construction exceed the 767 units under construction. In the meantime, only 374 units are in the approval and planning phase Pipeline around Shoreline North.

This is very different from Shoreline South Station, where just under 60% of the units under development – nearly 1,600 homes – have not yet begun construction. For Shoreline North, the percentage of units not yet started construction is under 30%. If Shoreline South’s pipeline comes to fruition, it will far outpace the growth of its neighboring station to the north. Under current plans, Shoreline North’s roughly 1,700 would be just over half of the nearly 3,100 units built or in the pipeline around Shoreline South Station since 2021.

The contrast between the two station areas may be indicative of development barriers in the Shoreline North station area. Aside from the school district owning much of the prime land, other obstacles may include a combination of property covenants that prohibit redevelopment, difficulties in assembling parcels large enough for multifamily projects, weaker market conditions and insufficient zoning capacity. There are no planning efforts to redevelop the school district site, which contains district office space, a convention center, athletic fields and numerous other uses — but no public school.

Additional development capacity is envisioned in 2031 through Phase 3 of the zoning changes that were planned when Shoreline approved its phased station area plan in 2015. Phase 2, initiated in 2021, expanded the 75-foot mixed-use residential zone (MUR-75) further north near Shoreline Park and extended MUR-75 and MUR-45 across a few more blocks of North City. Phase 3 largely includes a low-rise multifamily residential zone (MUR-35 and MUR-45) in the farther blocks of the station area.

In addition, Shoreline City Council may decide to add additional development capacity as part of its comprehensive plan update due in late 2024. By next summer, new statewide middle-market standards will require Shoreline to phase out single-family zoning and allow at least two-family zoning, with four-family zoning as the baseline near frequently used transportation.

There are great opportunities for well-supported transit-oriented development (TOD) in the Shoreline North Station area. In addition to the new light rail station, bus restructurings will also improve service. These include the extension of Community Transit’s Swift Blue line from the Aurora Transit Center to the station and the restructuring of King County Metro’s Lynnwood Link bus, which will add new bus routes and increased frequency of routes 345, 348 and 365. Route 348 will create cross-town service on N 185th Street, serving the station. Hopefully this traffic boost will encourage new development and inspire Shoreline to act on its large tract of land and encourage new development with increased development capacity in the station area.

Creating the Lynnwood Link Expansion TOD Map

After mapping development in several station areas, we began a TOD map for the Lynnwood Link Extension. We have now mapped more than 4,800 units built or planned around the Shoreline light rail stations.

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