Lynden preserves history, launches economic upturn
Program includes development of tourism, value-added farming

 

Renee Reimer looks up at the branches of a thriving black walnut tree, the tracery of its leaves making a delicate green lace pattern against the sky. “That’s Phoebe Judson’s tree,” she says, “the City of Lynden’s heritage tree.” In 1882, the tree was originally planted in her front yard by the founding mother of Lynden.

That one time front yard for Lynden pioneers Phoebe and Holden Judson is now part of the city’s downtown business district. The tree is just around the corner from Front Street, a few paces up 6th. Until recently it was surrounded and obscured by brushy undergrowth, now cleared to show off the tree. Reimer points to the base where fresh earth is ready for the addition of carefully cultivated plantings.

Cleaning the site of the heritage tree is a small first step in implementing a new downtown and economic enhancement plan cautiously adopted by the Lynden City Council on May 20. It was a cautious move because the council did not lock itself into actually enacting or funding the full extent of the plan. Even so, Lynden quickly made a start, with work around the heritage tree.

The plan, drafted by an independent consulting team commissioned by the city, examined Lynden’s strengths and needs, with recommendations for long term development strategies and goals for the city.

One of the recommended steps is the creation of Phoebe Judson Heritage Plaza at Front and 6th Streets, between the U.S. Post Office and the new site of the Lynden Chamber of Commerce and Visitor Center.

The Chamber/Visitor Center is so new, that as Reimer surveys the tree, three days before June, workers are busy inside the new offices, putting up drywall and preparing to paint.

The visitor’s center is another part of the redevelopment strategy. Instead of simply providing visitors with information on the next town, as Reimer says, plans are to hook visitors up with ways and methods that promote the town like the Touch of Dutch tours and the Lynden Pedal Program.

The pedal program, crafted as a senior project by local Lynden High School student, Genevieve Granier, has been adopted by the city as a new and nifty way to get visitors out of their cars and onto Lynden streets on bicycles. The project is a creative example of pooled public and private resources designed to promote the community.

Granier mapped out five local bike tours, all starting at the landmark windmill downtown, and rated the tours for mileage and difficulty.

From unclaimed property, the police department chipped in six bicycles, the Chamber donated repair parts, helmets, bike locks, and paid to have the maps printed. The city’s business association paid for liability insurance. Bicycle rentals are handled by the Lynden Pioneer Museum.

Touch of Dutch tours board costumed hostesses onto the chartered tour buses coming through the city. The tour destinations include agricultural value-added businesses that Lynden is trying to promote, such as Appel Cheese Farm and the just-opening Samson Estates winery.

Appel produces artisan cheeses, including several varieties of Gouda in its visitor-friendly facility on Northwest Road, just off Pole Road. Samson winery, whose tasting room and facility is on Van Dyke Road, is showcasing its first vintages, which include premium varietal whites and reds.

“I think it’s going to be a real attraction,” says Reimer, noting that the winery plans to expand into the use of local agricultural products like raspberries and hazelnuts for wines and liqueurs as another way of supporting the raw product of local farmers by creating value-added items.

Development of industry, which uses and supports local farm products, is yet another strategy Lynden is trying to use to foster economic health and growth.

Agriculture has long been a key element in Lynden’s economy, and it still is.

Lynden grows more red raspberries per capita than anywhere else in the world, Reimer said, adding that Whatcom is also the tenth largest dairy-producing county in the U.S.

That means that the price of raspberries and the price of milk have direct economic impact on the rest of the commerce in Lynden.

When raspberries from Chile undercut local berry prices, as they have recently, it isn’t only the farmers who suffer.

Tom Dorr, director of Western Washington University’s Small Business Development Center, puts agriculture as the second most important driving force of Lynden’s economy, just after Lynden residents, and just before tourism and other industry.

Maintenance of Lynden’s ties to its agricultural base is one of three keys to the city’s economic future, according to Dorr. The other two, he believes, are downtown revitalization and small business retention and expansion.

Through a new contract with the City of Lynden, the SBDC has recently become more actively involved, with a new satellite office going into the Chamber site. The SBDC is putting staff on-site two days a month to provide free business counseling, computer access and a business resource library, says Dorr.

SBDC is also finalizing plans for a small business seminar, June 27, co-sponsored by the Business LINC program. The Lynden Chamber is providing the fliers and mailings.

Dorr views Lynden’s new development plan as a positive refocusing of the city’s energy for growth, after the divisiveness of the failed Haggen store negotiations. The study, he says, has “really helped bring the community together with a vision of where Lynden could go.”

Along with the new Chamber of Commerce/Visitor Center, and the beginning of Judson Plaza, other goals Reimer sees for Lynden’s development include getting the storm water detention facility for West Lynden up and running which, says Reimer, would open up more property for light industrial and manufacturing.

The newest development west of the Guide is the Marketplace at Lynden, site of the new Safeway store. Safeway opened in mid-April, and interest in the rest of the space in the shopping area has been lively, says Rick Mellema of Snapper Shuler Kenner Real Estate, which handles a significant portion of the commercial real estate in Lynden.

With respect to commercial real estate over all in Lynden, in Mellema’s opinion “I don’t think it slowed down as much as people perceived. I’d say it’s looking up.”

Still, there is space available in the Marketplace, at the Town Plaza on Bender Road and downtown, he notes.

Reimer estimates that downtown is about 80 percent occupied. The Fairway Center, she adds, is presently 100 percent occupied.

Downtown, she notes is “transitional, and it always will be.” She calls it a “business incubator — some stay and some don’t.” But she’s quick to add, “on the whole, I think Lynden’s business base is very stable.”

The downtown corridor is also the most tourist-dependent part of the city’s business areas.

Some crucial holes have been filled in Front Street fairly recently. One of the most noticeable was the gap left by the departure of long-time furniture retailer Alsum and Bode, which some felt tolled the death knell for Lynden’s downtown. But Front Street Home Furnishings has since opened. As have a new antique store, and a bicycle shop.

All together, Lynden’s city finance department reports that from January 1, 2002, to mid-May the city issued 27 new business licenses.

Other construction and development currently underway in Lynden includes expansion and modification of the city’s sewer system, expansion of Lynden Door and the Westside Do It Center, and construction of a 15,000 square foot library building on Liberty Street at the site formerly proposed for Haggen.

The new building will not only house the city’s library; it will also be home to the county’s library resource center, will give local library patrons easy access to a much larger collection.