GlobeSt.com UPDATE: MJR Wins Planning Approval for $50M Project

WOODINVILLE, WA-MJR Development of Kirkland has won planning approval for its proposed 480,000-sf development here on 18.3 acres at the intersection of State Route 202 and Northeast 145th Street. The estimated $50-million project would be one of the first to combine production wineries, retail, commercial and residential uses. The tentative groundbreaking date is mid-2005, with completion slated for late 2006. MJR principal Mike McClure tells GlobeSt.com the planning commission’s do-pass recommendation to the city council came with some wins and some losses. As hoped, the commission approved having residential and professional services uses in the city’s tourist business district. On the downside, the commission restricted the project’s residential density to 12 units per acre from the 18 units per acre MJR had requested, and prohibited medical office uses.If the city council signs off as is, McClure says the reduction in density will drop the project’s unit total from 270 to 200, though the square footage may remain the same as the units could be made larger in order to offset what would otherwise be a loss of revenue. “It will drive the cost of the units up,” says McClure. “We wanted to have some less expensive units but we will probably have to lose those.”As for the lack of medical office uses, McClure says he was thinking of an eye clinic or something similar, more as a way to broaden the list of potential tenants than anything else. Now he will shoot for more traditional retail and professional services tenants.The project supplants MJR’s previous plans for a winery-focused development on four acres adjacent to Columbia Winery. The larger parcel at State Route 202 and Northeast 145th allows MJR to accommodate more wineries, and the company already has letters of intent from four wineries that are now negotiating individual build-to-suit-to-sale agreements. The irregular site will include five stand-alone winery buildings on one portion of the property and a residential-over-retail development on the remainder. The five winery buildings will total about 50,000 sf. The rest of the project will consist of 140,000 sf of retail, including restaurants, beneath about 270,000 sf of residential, most likely condominiums, says McClure. The equity investors in the project include two MJR principals, founder Michael Raskin and McClure, and Arthur Rubinfeld, founder of the Seattle-based retail advisory firm Airvision. The city council is scheduled to hear the planning commission’s decision and possibly vote on the project at its Dec. 2 meeting.MJR’s project is the larger of two retail developments trying to capitalize on the two million annual visitors who come to experience Woodinville’s 14 wineries. Further along in the approval process is a 5.3-acre open-air restaurant, office and retail complex by Silver Lake Winery in partnership with NWCV Associates of Woodinville. The $20-million project is scheduled to open sometime in 2005 one-half mile north of the city’s two most popular wineries, Chateau Ste. Michelle and Columbia Winery.