Cascadia’s New Owners Clean Up the Block, Meet the Neighbors

Since Cascadia last spring, the group has quietly been working on the property to get it ready for development.

“We’ve been cleaning up things that have not been dealt with, like weeds, broken sidewalks and replacing copper wiring that has been stolen,” said Jim Nyberg, senior vice president and division manager of Newland Real Estate.

Nyberg said that since his company purchased Cascadia, he and a small Washington team have been floating around the community, meeting with city leaders from Bonney Lake, Sumner, Orting and the greater Pierce County area.

“We’re trying to meet all of our neighbors so they have a way to contact us,” said Nyberg. “Our whole approach is, if there are issues that need to be discussed, they’ll know they can talk to us.”

Newland plans to follow the original design plans for Cascadia, but with some tweaks.

“The basic land plan is staying the same. What we’re doing is providing more connectively for pedestrians and making it a more walkable community,” said Nyberg. “We’re working on creating a sense of place, with lots of trails and sidewalks.”

The first step in fleshing out Cascadia is the creation of a Welcome Center, a place for interested homebuyers to meet with builders, see model homes and look at display plans for the future development.

The site for the Welcome Center has been relocated to a spot closer to . The 3,400 sq. ft. building will be centrally located near the area’s trailheads and will feature a coffee bar and an outdoor gathering space for future BBQs and community events. Nyberg said his company has been in talks with the Pierce County Library and hope to offer a kiosk where people could drop off or pick up their library books.

Nyberg said that Newland Real Estate hopes to break ground on the Welcome Center in March 2012, with a grand opening in July. The group is still talking to a number of builders and viewing their models -- they hope to finish fleshing out those negotiations by March or April.

While initial plans for Cascadia called for retail space in the development, Nyberg said residential homes are their first priority.

“We want to have retail there, the problem is that might come for a while,” said Nyberg. “We want to create a convenient kind of retail space that residents will be able to walk to and use frequently.”

Nyberg was one of the key developers behind Snoqualmie Ridge and pointed out that retail did not pop up in that community for over six years after the houses were completed. He said it took an additional four to five years for that shopping center to fill up and become successful.

The first step to retail development in Cascadia, said Nyberg, is the Welcome Center.

“The Welcome Center will be a microcosm of what we want to have [in Cascadia],” said Nyberg.

is the largest development venture in Pierce County’s history, with over 20 years of planning behind it. Created by Patrick Kuo, Cascadia was envisioned to contain over 6,000 new homes, an employment center and an all-around “self-contained” community. In Sept. 2010, Kuo declared bankruptcy on the plan and Newland purchased Cascadia for $49.1 million in March of 2011.

While Cascadia sits in unincorporated Pierce County, Bonney Lake hopes to incorporate it into city limits after the development is completed.