Community hub
Community hub
Recent from talks
Knowledge base stats:
Talk channels stats:
Members stats:
Smokey Point, Washington
Smokey Point is a community and former census-designated place in northern Snohomish County, Washington. The area, developed as a suburban bedroom community in the late 20th century, was annexed into the nearby cities of Arlington and Marysville in the 1990s and 2000s.
Smokey Point was settled in the early 20th century and was originally known as “Hild’s Corner”, then later referred to as Rex's Corner, named in the 1930s after Rex and Mabel Zeek, the owners of a restaurant located at U.S. Route 99 and Lakewood Road (present-day Smokey Point Boulevard and 172nd Street NE, respective). The restaurant was sold to Eric and Pearl Shurstad in October 1946, who renovated it to a barbecue restaurant and renamed it the "Smokey Point Café". U.S. Route 99 was bypassed by Interstate 5 in the late 1960s, constructing an interchange at Smokey Point and creating the Gissberg Ponds (now Twin Lakes) out of a gravel excavation site.
In 1966, the area was proposed as the location of a four-year public college, with 645 acres (261 ha) offered by the city of Arlington. The state legislature decided to build the college instead in Olympia, becoming The Evergreen State College.
By 1977, the population of the unincorporated area between Arlington and Marysville, including Smokey Point, had increased to 16,000 people as the result of suburban development. The area's first supermarket opened in 1978 alongside an office park and motel. In 1979, the Snohomish County Sheriff's Office established a precinct in Smokey Point at an existing fire station. Smokey Point's largest retail center, a 15-store strip mall with a Safeway, opened in 1991.
By the early 1990s, Smokey Point was rezoned to support industrial development to offset a regional shortage of affordable land for industrial use. After the opening of a new naval base in Everett in 1994, the U.S. Navy selected Smokey Point to house a support complex with a commissary, offices and a college. The 52-acre (21 ha) support complex broke ground in 1993 and opened in 1995.
The Puget Sound Regional Council explored the expansion of Arlington Municipal Airport into a regional airport in the 1990s to relieve Seattle–Tacoma International Airport, but decided instead to build a third runway at Sea-Tac because of existing traffic and local opposition. In September 2004, Marysville won a bid to build a 850-acre (340 ha) NASCAR racetrack (to be operated by the International Speedway Corporation) south of Smokey Point. The project was cancelled two months later after concerns about traffic impacts, environmental conditions, and $70 million in required transportation improvements arose. The NASCAR site was later pitched as a candidate for a new University of Washington satellite campus (known as UW North Sound) in the late 2000s, competing with downtown Everett, before the project was put on hold in 2008 and cancelled in 2011.
In the early 1990s, after a controversial land-use was proposed for the area, several property owners began an effort to petition the City of Arlington to annex a large portion of the Smokey Point community. Around the same time, another group of property owners began an effort to annex much of the same territory into the City of Marysville. The group working on annexing into Arlington was able to reach the required 60% assessed value threshold first, enabling their annexation to move forward.
The City of Marysville, having a vested interest by being the sewer and water utility provider for the area and having an interest in annexing Smokey Point, challenged the annexation, along with the residential community whose property was added to the annexation boundaries by the state Boundary Review Board for Snohomish County.
Hub AI
Smokey Point, Washington AI simulator
(@Smokey Point, Washington_simulator)
Smokey Point, Washington
Smokey Point is a community and former census-designated place in northern Snohomish County, Washington. The area, developed as a suburban bedroom community in the late 20th century, was annexed into the nearby cities of Arlington and Marysville in the 1990s and 2000s.
Smokey Point was settled in the early 20th century and was originally known as “Hild’s Corner”, then later referred to as Rex's Corner, named in the 1930s after Rex and Mabel Zeek, the owners of a restaurant located at U.S. Route 99 and Lakewood Road (present-day Smokey Point Boulevard and 172nd Street NE, respective). The restaurant was sold to Eric and Pearl Shurstad in October 1946, who renovated it to a barbecue restaurant and renamed it the "Smokey Point Café". U.S. Route 99 was bypassed by Interstate 5 in the late 1960s, constructing an interchange at Smokey Point and creating the Gissberg Ponds (now Twin Lakes) out of a gravel excavation site.
In 1966, the area was proposed as the location of a four-year public college, with 645 acres (261 ha) offered by the city of Arlington. The state legislature decided to build the college instead in Olympia, becoming The Evergreen State College.
By 1977, the population of the unincorporated area between Arlington and Marysville, including Smokey Point, had increased to 16,000 people as the result of suburban development. The area's first supermarket opened in 1978 alongside an office park and motel. In 1979, the Snohomish County Sheriff's Office established a precinct in Smokey Point at an existing fire station. Smokey Point's largest retail center, a 15-store strip mall with a Safeway, opened in 1991.
By the early 1990s, Smokey Point was rezoned to support industrial development to offset a regional shortage of affordable land for industrial use. After the opening of a new naval base in Everett in 1994, the U.S. Navy selected Smokey Point to house a support complex with a commissary, offices and a college. The 52-acre (21 ha) support complex broke ground in 1993 and opened in 1995.
The Puget Sound Regional Council explored the expansion of Arlington Municipal Airport into a regional airport in the 1990s to relieve Seattle–Tacoma International Airport, but decided instead to build a third runway at Sea-Tac because of existing traffic and local opposition. In September 2004, Marysville won a bid to build a 850-acre (340 ha) NASCAR racetrack (to be operated by the International Speedway Corporation) south of Smokey Point. The project was cancelled two months later after concerns about traffic impacts, environmental conditions, and $70 million in required transportation improvements arose. The NASCAR site was later pitched as a candidate for a new University of Washington satellite campus (known as UW North Sound) in the late 2000s, competing with downtown Everett, before the project was put on hold in 2008 and cancelled in 2011.
In the early 1990s, after a controversial land-use was proposed for the area, several property owners began an effort to petition the City of Arlington to annex a large portion of the Smokey Point community. Around the same time, another group of property owners began an effort to annex much of the same territory into the City of Marysville. The group working on annexing into Arlington was able to reach the required 60% assessed value threshold first, enabling their annexation to move forward.
The City of Marysville, having a vested interest by being the sewer and water utility provider for the area and having an interest in annexing Smokey Point, challenged the annexation, along with the residential community whose property was added to the annexation boundaries by the state Boundary Review Board for Snohomish County.