January 13, 2010

Semiahmoo Resort may add mixed-use complex

Image courtesy of GCH [enlarge]

Semiahmoo Village would have retail in old waterfront buildings, along with restaurants, plazas and housing.

Plans are being revived to build a 27-acre mixed-use complex adjacent to the Semiahmoo Resort at the northern end of Semiahmoo Spit, near the U.S.-Canada border.

Geyer Coburn Hutchins partner Murray Hutchins said the project, Semiahmoo Village, was master planned in 1984, but the economics never “aligned” for developer Trillium Corp.

GCH is a planning and landscape architectural firm involved in the project.

Hutchins said Trillium is updating the master plan to have the project ready to go when the economy turns around. The updated plan and a planned unit development were submitted in late 2009 to the city of Blaine. No schedule has been set.

The village would have attached multifamily cluster housing, along with three- and four-story condo buildings, live/work units and about 25,000 square feet of retail space.

A 13,500-square-foot cannery near the marina would be turned into retail on the lower level and loft housing above. Another old waterfront building would be converted into event space for festivals and performances.

The revised plan includes smaller housing units than originally envisioned. Hutchins said the goal is to make them more affordable to a wider range of occupants, from families to retirees.

Another goal is to have more public space on the waterfront, with trails, boardwalks, plazas and an expanded marina.

The marina now has 294 slips that are under condominium-type ownership. The new marina would provide another 235 slips, with a different type of ownership. A foot ferry could connect the development to Blaine, which is across Drayton Harbor. Hutchins said there could be a ferry to Canada in the distant future.

Hutchins said they would like to get LEED certification for the entire project, which is on a former industrial site. Some of the green measures would include adding bioswales and rain gardens, instigating zero-runoff measures, cleaning up the shoreline and reestablishing offshore salmon habitat.

In addition to GCH, the project team includes Donovan Kehrer & Associates, entitlement; Raymond Letkeman Architects, architect; David Evans and Associates, civil engineer; and The Transpo Group, traffic planning.