May 23, 2025
New Architect Plans Hotel, Housing, retail at the former location of Molbak
Molbak's is dead and disappeared, its greenhouses and other buildings that are to be demolished in the quickly used city center of Woodinville.
Green Partners LLC, which is connected to the Family Office for Bill Gates (Cascade Investment), has had the 19 hectare expanses since 2008. Molbaks has only been a tenant since then.
The old renovation scheme, which would have moved Molbak's main business to a new mixed building, had been branded as Gardens district. There was a possible 1,200 apartments with retail, restaurants, etc. This plan was created in early 2022. Molbak was closed after a sharp argument with Cascade last year.
The largely similar new plan is now called Midtown Woodinville. The city has weighed this proposal in the past few months through various commissions and committees. The first public presentation took place at a city council meeting on Tuesday, as was then reported PUGET Sound Business Journal. The former public record of the DJC in the city remains unanswered.
In the and approximately 13625 ne 175th St., the renamed plan now comprises a facility for the assisted living offer, a hotel with 200 rooms, 34 townhouses for the sales market and apartment building on the ground floor. Condominiums are mentioned, but not guaranteed. All residential components, including senior housing, could achieve 1,300 units.
The architects Gglo and Graham Baba are outside. Urbal Architecture and Landscape Architect Hewitt now lead the planning efforts. Coughhlin Porter Lunden is attached as an engineer.
The overall scale is not much different. The old approved plan was around 1.7 million square meters, including open space and parking. The main difference is now a decline in the trading area of around 400,000 square meters (including molbacs) to a specified rival of 89,000 square meters. However, the latter number excludes the 179,365 square meter hotel. Possible 2,500 parking spaces were mentioned in previous SEPA submissions; The city now says 1,758.
All numbers are extremely fluid. One of the massing studies in Urbal has 55 city house units in six buildings, 1,067 rental rental and 146 leading residential units.
With a kind of L-shaped layout, new streets and entrances would create seven small blocks, with the most part in the southeastern Dogleg separated from the main development by Woodin Creek. The conductive residential building would be north of it. The hotel would be in the northwestern corner of development.
Five construction phases without an explained start date are proposed for over nine years. The city creates a new development agreement, similar to the old one. A minor new zon change would enable use on the ground floor on the ground floor. An earlier SEPA determination of the non-significance was published; There may also be some small changes there. Woodinville, like Redmond, was very accessible to the new Mitrise development in the city center. The Woodin Creek Village and the school building, which is still growing, have added hundreds of apartments to the region.
For Midtown Woodinville, Leed Gold Certification is still being sought. Around 130 units would be affordable for households that earn up to 80% of the middle income in the area. Most of the retail would be on the north side (175th) and the central spine of development. Most of them would be restaurants and wine bars. About 4 hectares of open spaces are planned.
Most buildings seem to have five stories. City houses usually have three. Units would run from studios to three beds. Some small amount of PF live/work units are given. Structured parking spaces seems likely, but not specified. (This is the model used in the nearby Woodin Creek Village.) There would be limited parking spaces for buyers. An old warehouse could be preserved and converted into a new use.
Green Partners estimates Midtown Woodinville with 3,000 future inhabitants with 3,000 US dollars. No brand or operator is mentioned for senior housing or hotel. Partners can appear later – and also for the apartments, since Green Partners/Cascade as a developer has no recording. Sierra was previously connected to build the original building of the old plan with apartments above the molbac shop. CBRE then conveyed the other retail surfaces.
Brian Miller can be reached by email at Brian.miller@djc.com or by phone at (206) 219-6517.