This longtime Tri-Cities developer and animal lover left his mark on the community

A prominent Kennewick developer and businessman who saw potential in the Tri-Cities when many others didn’t has died.

Warren K. Luke was 83.

He gained prominence in Kennewick for his ambitious developments, including Marineland Village at West Clearwater Avenue and Edison Street, and for his 2006 purchase of the old theater at Richland’s Uptown Shopping Center.

He also owned and operated Warren Luke’s Carpets behind his home in Kennewick.

Luke also was the developer of the Edison Bay Apartments, the complex near Marineland Village. And he built and sold Clearwater Village and the Trade Winds Apartments.

His love of animals is on full display at his businesses and properties around the Tri-Cities.

He installed bronze statues of otters, a dolphin and goose in flight at Marineland Village, a grizzly bear rearing up at the Uptown, a race horse at the Benton County Fairgrounds and a regal lion at Kennewick High School, where he graduated in 1955.

Luke even owned a personal zoo in his Kennewick backyard, where he welcomed families and school children for years.

He put his mini zoo plans on hold in 2004 when a pair of dogs attacked and killed most of the exotic pets he had kept behind his home north of the Kennewick Fred Meyer.

His menagerie included birds, llamas and several monkjack deer, according to a Herald account at the time.

Last year, Luke, who was suffering from dementia, wandered away from his home and a caregiver. Police, relatives and friends searched for him for two days before he was found in a field in a small canyon in Kennewick.

Luke was born in Oklahoma and lived in the Tri-Cities for 65 years.