Urban Trails will remake south Kennewick with thousands of apartments, town homes
A proposed development will refashion Kennewick’s southwestern border with a dense mix of apartments, town homes and some single-family houses.
Urban Trails will bring 1,900 to 2,300 units of housing to a 152-acre site near the Badger Canyon apartment complexes and Desert Hills Middle School according to plans submitted recently to the city of Kennewick.
The project is currently being reviewed under the Washington State Environmental Policy Act or SEPA.
Developer Mitchell Creer LLC plans to develop 1,333 apartment units across multiple parcels, as well as 448 town homes and 100 houses.
The site plan includes a small amount of space for commercial development, walking trails and a central open space.
Town homes, apartments
The property is bordered by Bob Olson Parkway, Interstate 82 and Clodfelter Road. BPA power lines cross it to the north and a Kennewick Irrigation District canal crosses it to the south.
Mitchell Creer LLC, led by Britt Creer, outlined plans for nearly 1,900 units.
The final number could grow to about 2,300, depending on the future alignment of the KID canal, which currently makes several sharp turns as it follows the contours of the hillside.
Creer said transportation and other plans are being finalized, meaning initial grading could begin in early 2024.
Kennewick officials said the SEPA process will identify potential impacts as well as the improvements that will be needed to support the future development. That could include levying traffic impact fees to pay for future projects.
+$100 million investment
Creer said Urban Trails would develop over five to 10 years, depending on how quickly units are occupied. He said the final project will easily top $100 million in new investment.
Creer operates several companies, including a custom home company and Ranchland Homes. Ranchland has built hundreds of apartment units in West Richland and elsewhere.
Creer said he was ready to change focus after working in West Richland for about five years, joking that he’s used up all the available land there.
The Bob Olson Parkway site was available and fit the bill, he said. He said he’s bought 110 acres and will finalize the remaining 47 acres by early next year.
The city of Kennewick built the Bob Olson Parkway in 2017 to improve connections between I-82 to Highway 395 and Highway 240. With five lanes, sidewalks, street lights and pre-planned intersections, the thoroughfare opened up the area between Thompson Hill and the freeway to new development.
Creer called Bob Olsen the “gem of the Tri-Cities.”
Twisty canal
His site is south of the parkway at Wheat Road, an unmarked gravel access road that serves the KID canal.
Creer said he’s chiefly focused on the rental properties, which his company will own and manage. The site plan shows apartment buildings along Bob Olson, along the irrigation canal, and next to Desert Hills Middle School on property facing Badger Canyon apartments.
The town homes would be at the the center of the property, north of the open space at the intersection of future extensions of Wheat Road and Ridgeline Drive.
Single-family homes on large lots are planned south of the canal, but Creer said layout isn’t confirmed. He hopes to work with KID on a project to straighten the winding canal.
KID confirmed preliminary conversations about the concept.
The canal’s twisty path is dictated by the sloping topography. KID relies on gravity to move water through its system and to customers.
Plans for the southern portion of the site, closest to the freeway, will be firmed up once the canal configuration is confirmed and roads extend across it.
Focus on renters
With Urban Trails, Creer said he’s targeting a mix of renters for the apartments, from young professionals to newcomers seeking short-term housing. Most units will have at least two bedrooms and one bathroom, with some garages.
“The vision is people don’t have to leave their community,” he said.
Surging apartment construction added more than 530 new apartments to the Tri-Cities between mid-2022 and 2023, according to CoStar Group, a real estate research firm.
Another 340 units were in active construction and expected to be available for lease by the end of the year.
CoStar reports the local vacancy rate jumped to 7.9% as developers delivered more units than the market could absorb.
Creer said that hasn’t been the case with his properties, saying newer properties tend to lease up.
The rising vacancy rate has not yielded relief for renters, however, and are still rising by a reported 2% a year. Local rents surged nearly 40% since the onset of the pandemic in March 2020.
This story was originally published September 15, 2023 at 5:00 AM.