Creating a Community Determined to Grow

Millions of people visit the picturesque communities of North Bend and Snoqualmie every year, two neighboring small towns about thirty minutes outside of Seattle.

It's the backdrop of iconic TV-series Twin Peaks and Northern Exposure, and movies that include Harry and the Hendersons, The Vanashing and Continental Divide. Nestled in the foothills of the Cascade Mountains, this area is a popular place to hike, mountain bike, rock climb, kayak and is a stopping off point to winter skiing and snowshoeing.

It has economic challenges too.

This place is succeeding in part because the Greater Seattle area is doing well thanks to burgeoning businesses like Amazon, T-Mobile, Google along with stalwarts like Boeing, Microsoft, Starbucks, Nordstrom and Costco. Housing and transportation are becoming bigger issues as a result. This has pushed more people to live in more rural areas and these two communities are both benefactors while grappling with unintentional outcomes. Growth seems unavoidable. So is the rising cost of housing.

The dilemma persists.

These two communities are among some of the fastest growing anywhere. The City of Snoqualmie has grown from 1600 residents in 1997 to 13,500 in 20 years. It's neighbor the City of North Bend had 3300 residents in 1997 now boasts 6800 within the same time period. The population has doubled every ten years for two decades.

You see it in the public schools. Almost a third of Snoqualmie's population is under the age of 18. The largest high school in the state is currently under construction, set to open this fall. Every school is over capacity.

Housing costs continue to climb. It is rare to find a home for sale under $600,000. Given the fact these two communities now have above average household incomes compared to the Seattle market, these families relocating here can afford it. Those living here may find things more expensive than ten or twenty years ago. And that is concerning to them.

The next thing those who have lived here through the past twenty growth years is the increase in traffic.

Five days a week, 12,000 people daily leave the Valley for work elsewhere. Most are in traffic for over an hour en route to Seattle, Redmond, and Bellevue where many of the major employers are located. Given there are few public transit options, most ride in single occupancy cars and a few carpool to work. Out of fairness some of this traffic includes those who live in unincorporated King County that surrounds the cities. Still a significant number of people leave for work each work day.

As our communities grow, so does the need for local services. Schools, hospital, hospitality, manufacturing and retailers require staffing. We have 6000 jobs within the community. Here is the rub: 4000 of those positions are filled by people who live outside the community. Many of those employees simply can't afford to live here. In fact, we have a smaller percentage of rental units than 20 years ago. The units that are available can cost about the same as a house payment.

So how do we address the growing disparaties?

We get creative. Literally.

While serving on the Snoqualmie Economic Development Commission we talked about it, a lot. My fellow commission member Luke Marusiak brought up the idea of a skunkwork, a sort of makerspace where tinkerers would get together and build stuff. We had a hard time understanding it. How would it work? Could the community benefit from it? We were shaking our heads, not sure it could amount to anything. We tabled the idea. Then we came back to it.

A few years ago, I convinced my bosses to take this space in our bank building which we own and convert it over to a "Community Room". It's a place where the community can come together. we've hosted public forums on affordable housing, senior issues, Chamber educational meetings and countless board meetings for a number of nonprofits along with Girl Scout and Boy Scout meetings.

In addition to all these activities, we now use the space for this boot-strapped SnoValley Innovation Center. Every Friday, budding entrepreneurs bring their creation or idea in for consideration. If we think the idea has merit, we pair them up with a volunteer mentor to take it through a vetting process. Through a partnership with the business school at Pacific Lutheran University, the best Innovation Center projects are taken in the fall to be incorporated into a graduate-level class.

Our hope is to help create a community of entrepreneurs. We see this as a way to give the broad array of talent that leaves for work everyday the chance for economic freedom. We also see the opportunity in creating new businesses here will result in job creation. It will take time and persistence.

The early results are promising.

One product has launched, Omama Barbecue Sauce. It can be found in a local drug store chain and was even featured in their summer catalog.

Another project just completed a full yearly cycle at Pacific Lutheran along with a patent. Both are firsts for the Innovation Center.

As we understand the value-added through our efforts, we will go full steam ahead this fall in returning to the classrooms at the University. Our efforts have broader reach as well. We are looking at ways to partner with the Snoqualmie Valley School District to involve high school students in Marketing, Writing Skills and job shadowing to get them excited about the possibilities of entrepreneurship.

We know that business incubators help businesses to be more successful, research has shown almost a 50 percent increase in likely survival for businesses that co-habitate. What we hope is that business start-ups have a greater liklihood of success if they are surrounded with experts to help them with market analysis, prototype development, research, legal considerations and financial guidance. We have a lot of talent in our community willing to make this happen. Stay tuned for further developments.

Rob Wotton is a business banker, founding president of SnoValley Innovation, and served as the regional co-chair of Community Development for the 1995 White House Conference on Small Business. He received his Bachelor of Arts degree from the University of Puget Sound as a Dean's Scholar in Business, and dual majored in Political Science, and later followed that with a Masters of Business Administration degree from Pacific Lutheran University.