City of Tumwater, WA
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Developing Our City
Economic Development
The Tumwater City Council identified economic development as a community priority and has invested in planning and preparing for responsible growth in Tumwater and the surrounding Urban Growth Area (UGA).
Turnkey locations and greenfield development opportunities are ready for business, in and around Tumwater. The City is ready to help with a predictable permitting process and access to economic indicators for businesses and developers. Tumwater welcomes and works to encourage innovative and sustainable building practices.
Check out the City of Tumwater's Economic Development Plan.
Some highlights of work the City has done enhance its development potential for the benefit of businesses, residents and the regional economy:
Tumwater Craft
The City of Tumwater’s development professionals and numerous community partners have established the Craft Brewing and Distilling Center in the Brewery District.
The Craft Center is located south of E Street between Capitol Boulevard and Tumwater Valley Drive, overlooking the Tumwater Valley Golf Course to the southeast. The 10-acre site is home to a 30,000-square-foot building that houses classroom and laboratory space for South Puget Sound Community College’s Craft Brewing and Distilling Program, plus production facilities for beer, spirits and cider.
A public tasting room for the Heritage Distilling Co. occupies the top floor of the building, and across the parking lot is a retail hub that includes tasting rooms for beer and cider, an ice cream shop, a seafood store, gallery and restaurant.
Opportunities for development in the Craft Center abound.
Habitat Conversation Plan
Significant parts of the city of Tumwater have been removed from consideration for developing housing, employment, schools, state facilities and utilities due to the listing of several prairie species (most notably the Mazama pocket gopher) as threatened under the Endangered Species Act.
The City of Tumwater and the Port of Olympia are developing the Bush Prairie Habitat Conservation Plan that identifies the type and amount of land to be set aside for gopher mitigation banking. The bank allows private and public development to proceed in areas within the City where development has been halted because of habitat impacts.
The amount of banked land needed for Tumwater is estimated at 1,015 acres, at a cost of more than $55 million over 30 years, including establishing and maintaining the appropriate prairie land. The City and the Port of Olympia are working closely with the United States Fish & Wildlife Service to reach adoption of the HCP. The objective is to jump-start the creation of a sustaining mitigation bank.
Transportation
Transportation improvement is a crucial priority of the City – to enhance mobility in and around Tumwater, increase access to businesses and amenities and foster development in every sector of the City. Several high-profile street and infrastructure projects are actively underway, with other important work in the planning stages.
Capitol Boulevard: Capitol Boulevard is Tumwater’s original main street. The Capitol Boulevard corridor connects to the Olympia Regional Airport on the south and weaves northward through Tumwater, past the Capitol Campus and into downtown Olympia. It is the most recognized and heavily traveled street in the community.
The Capitol Boulevard Corridor Plan is a major planning effort established to guide the work to make substantial improvements to Tumwater’s busiest street. The Corridor Plan focuses on the section of Capitol Boulevard between the Southgate shopping center and Israel Road.
The project has three main goals;
- Improve the business climate and conditions;
- Improve safety and expand transportation options for all users of the corridor including pedestrians, bicycles and vehicles; and
- Improve the aesthetic appeal of the corridor.
One prominent project nearing completion is construction of a roundabout on Trosper Road just west of Capitol Boulevard, one of three roundabouts planned for Trosper. The roundabouts are part of a larger project to address traffic delays, pedestrian safety, and mobility deficiencies along Trosper Road from the I-5 overpass to Capitol Boulevard SW and the I-5 northbound on and off ramps.
The first phase of the Trosper project entailed replacing the water, sanitary sewer, and storm sewer utilities underground and installing a joint utility trench along Capitol Boulevard north and south of Trosper Road. In mid-2023, the focus shifted above ground as crews reconfigured Trosper Road and Capitol Boulevard to accommodate the roundabouts and construction of a new street, Sixth Avenue SW, from Lee Street SW to Trosper Road SW. The project is anticipated for completion in summer 2024.
Trosper Road and Capitol Boulevard Intersection.
Capitol Boulevard to Tumwater Valley Drive: Another visible project now underway is the relocation of Tumwater Valley Drive from the E Street intersection, joining Capitol Boulevard on the southern end of the Craft Center to Tumwater Valley Drive to the east.
More information:
Capitol Boulevard Corridor Plan
Capitol Boulevard Design Guidelines
TMC 18.21: Capitol Boulevard Community Zone
Tumwater Boulevard: The Tumwater Boulevard/I-5 Interchange serves the Port of Olympia Airport, the New Market Industrial Campus, numerous state agencies, and a growing retail base. City plans call for adding roundabouts to each end of the freeway crossing. The improvements are needed to reduce congestion, facilitate freight movement and avoid back-ups onto I-5 at peak hours.
WSDOT Headquarters
The State Department of Transportation vacated its Olympic Region offices in 2020, a 10-acre site that had been identified as the keystone to the Capitol Boulevard Corridor Plan. The vacated site offers the potential for affordable and market-rate housing, retail, public buildings and historic preservation.
The City is asking the Legislature to make the State Department of Transportation whole, which would allow the agency to transfer the property to the City. The City would make one-third of the property available for affordable housing, another third for market-rate housing and the remainder for commercial and public-sector development.
Although the City would initially hold the property, it would seek one or more private partners to develop it.
Brownfield Grants
Grants from the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) and the Washington State Department of Ecology will allow the City to begin assessing brownfields (sites impacted by industrial pollution) within the Brewery District and the Capitol Boulevard Corridor. Work could begin as early as spring 2024.
The grants will help fund inventory, assessment and planning for cleaning up the affected sites. The Tumwater community will be invited to engage with and comment on the brownfield plans.
Remediation of the compromised sites will set the stage for community-driven redevelopment in the Brewery District and the Capitol Boulevard Corridor.