Utile worked with the City of Everett and a team of consultants to study and generate a master plan for the industrial district. The area, with its’ deep-water port, has served the larger region for over a century. The port and associated pipe infrastructure has resulted in a clustering of industrial uses including food wholesalers, energy and petroleum products, and construction and recycling businesses. The intensive uses emit toxins, generate truck traffic, create problematic adjacencies with nearby residences, and often control local right-of-ways and impede access.
The area is transforming with the sale of over ninety acres of ExxonMobil property and the decommissioning of a power plant. With these changes, there is opportunity for the city to guide and incentivize future development. Utile produced development scenarios that preserve industrial uses and introduce new program. To mitigate conflicting uses, industry is consolidated to the east and a transition zone of light industrial, commercial, and open space runs along the west. To improve connections across the district and facilitate new development, a new street network is proposed. Integral to this is the separation of truck and other modes of transit, with shared truck aprons located at the interior of parcels, allowing for pedestrian-friendly perimeter streets lined with urban streetwalls. Development was designed with landscape strategies that provide open space amenities, flood resilience, and decontamination.
The final outcome is a preferred masterplan scheme and implementation recommendations. The plan is being used to demonstrate the City’s aspirations to bidders on parcels and Utile is participating in the ongoing conversations.
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