Commercial potential meets economic reality within Irongate
Businesses continue to locate in northeast corner of Bellingham

By Dan Aznoff

Residential real estate agents have long preached the importance of three key factors in determining the value of a home: Location, location and location. Commercial brokers agree with the philosophy, but have added the harmonizing elements of economics and good timing.
All five factors have come together nicely for the patient developers who have transformed the Irongate area of Bellingham into one of the most attractive commercial locations in Whatcom County. Thirty years ago the unincorporated pocket of the county was a forgotten collection of independent businesses with a smattering of single-family homes.
Today, Irongate has been annexed to Bellingham and offers the closest warehouse and commercial office space to the downtown commercial core, with affordable rents and flexible building sites. Most of the houses have been updated to accommodate home-based businesses or cottage industry.
The Irongate neighborhood is situated just inside the expanded Bellingham city boundaries north of Barkley Village and east of Guide Meridian. Easy freeway access and a short drive from downtown have made the area an ideal location for a wide variety of commercial tenants, especially those focused on construction and manufacturing.
Mike Hayes of Exit Realty explained that the appeal of Irongate has grown as the amount of available land in other portions of Bellingham have becomes scarce. Gragg Miller of Coldwell Banker has been a commercial Realtor in the area for more than 35 years. He knew it was only a matter of time before astute business owners discovered Irongate.
“It was inevitable that residential would give way to commercial interests. The flexibility and the proximity make Irongate an ideal place to establish a business or relocate,” said Miller.
Becky Raney has owned and operated the Print and Copy Factory on Irongate Road for more than 15 years. She reflected on how much fun it has been to watch the community grow and change from her viewpoint between Midway Lane and East Bakerview Road in the heart of Irongate.
“My business has seen huge growth in both the number of customers and the number of individual jobs we handle on a daily basis,” Raney explained. “Our type of business finds that it is easier to run smaller jobs, with more customization to meet the specific needs of their clients, whether it is a simple proposal or a detailed blueprint.”
Home cookin’ & Doggie Delights
Raney said other businesses have sprung up in the Irongate area to support the commercial growth, including sandwich shops, a home-style café, a grocery store and a bakery.
In addition to the human services established for people who live or work in or near Irongate, the Tails-A-Wagging doggie daycare moved into its larger facility on Hammer Drive almost 18 months ago. Owner Angie Lentz purchased the property after renting space on Lincoln Street since 1997.
“Our customer base overwhelmingly endorsed our plan to buy property and stay in Irongate,” said Lentz, who said her options were limited by the high price of real estate and zoning restrictions. “More than 80 percent of our clients are dual income couples without kids. Their dogs are their children. We go the extra mile to treat the dogs like our own furry children.” Lentz said the company’s new location is more than 10,000 square feet, double the previous location. The new site includes separate large dog and small dog outdoor dog yards. Tails-A-Wagging had 54 dogs in its daycare program at the time of the move and increased its capacity to only 60 dogs at the new facility.
“We have a one year waiting list and could accommodate another 30 dogs without overcrowding the play yards or the staff,” said Lentz. “That’s not what we’re all about. Our job is to love and socialize these wonderful dogs while their parents are away at work.”
The administrative offices of Tails-A-Wagging share the upstairs portion of their new two-story building on Hammer Drive with the doggie daycare’s positive-reinforcement obedience classes and expended facilities for the independent Pampered Pets Grooming studio.

Drive thru condos
Jeff Vlasic and Keith Troske recognized the potential of light industrial community one year ago when they finalized plans to build storage condominiums on Alpine Way, a dead-end street in the southern end of the Irongate district. The young entrepreneurs have already sold 13 of the 22 units. According to Vlasic, the units are essentially 25-foot by 60-foot garages built with steel pole construction on cement slabs.
“Each unit comes with gas heat, three-phase power and plumbing for a bathroom,” said Vlasic. “There are storage condos in other areas that have been ‘pimped out’ as elaborate bachelor pads with granite counter tops and hard wood floors. You could live here too, but this area is zoned strictly as light commercial.”Troske said the storage condos have drawn a great deal of interest on Craig’s List from truckers who drive across the border into Canada. He predicted the units will become even more valuable to stockpile inventory for deliveries when the border is backed up during the 2010 Olympics in British Columbia.“The concept of storage condominiums has caught on like drive-thru espresso stands,” said Vlasic. “Individuals have purchased units to store everything from Christmas decorations to antique cars. One buyer stores the raw material from the house he razed in Marysville. But the majority of units have been purchased by business owners for storage of equipment and inventory.”
Vlasic laughed when asked about Canadians moving south. He recalled one young man from Vancouver whose eyes lit up when he told that each storage condo came complete with three-phase power.
“When I told him the price, he whipped out a wad of bills and was prepared to pay ($164,900) in cash,” he recalled. “The last thing we need here is an illegal growing operation. So I politely told him ‘No, thank you.’”
A second commercial condominium project broke ground in Irongate this past July. When completed the new 65,000-square-foot Baker Business Center on Strider Loop will provide commercial condos for combination office and light-industrial suites. The construction site is located within the Strider Industrial Park.
The Baker complex will feature commercial storefronts backed by light industrial space with easy access for trucks and deliveries, according to listing agent Richard Eggemeyer. He said the spaces are ideal for the small businesses that support Irongate-area industrial companies, such as accountants, bankers, engineers, contract-service providers, light manufacturers, shipping and Internet sales companies.Nine units in the first phase are scheduled to be complete by the end of the year. Each condo in the Baker Center will be divided between 25 percent office and 75 percent warehouse use with total square footage of 2,330 each.
Full house
Mixed-use development Henifin Plaza that fronts Hennegan Road was built on a three-acre site in 2006. The complex has already reached full capacity, according to Lynne Henifin. The parcel is just a fraction of the 20 acres owned by the family since the early 1970’s. The Henifin family sold off plots over the years, but waited until the time was right to move ahead with plans for its own commercial development.
“We will not break ground on the 22,000 square-foot second phase until we secure an anchor tenant,” said Henifin.Tenants in Henifin Plaza and throughout Irongate who represent various contributors to the construction industry have developed a “community and cooperative” attitude toward business, according to Henifin. “There is just a different feel about the area and the people who work here. Our family is just glad to be a part of this community at this time.”
As both developer and landlord, Henifin feels fortunate to have leased half of the first building in Henifin Plaza to Bellingham Millworks, while a major part of the balance has been occupied by a satellite office of Vanderpol Building Components of Lynden. Vanderpol fabricates truss systems for new construction at the Irongate site.
Networking is also common among the tenants in the businesses that specialize in the manufacturing of finished products, according to Richard Rudy, co-owner of Irongate Machine on Irongate Road. Rudy and his partner, Kerry Byford, have been doing business in Irongate for more than 20 years.
“Doing business with your friends and neighbors makes every project that much easier and adds to the quality of the finished product,” said Rudy.
It is not coincidental that Rudy is also building storage condos in Irongate.
“The concrete guy is across the street, the guy who installed my stairs is located around the corner and my engineer is only one block away,” said Rudy. “And that does not count the bearing shops and the guy who makes nuts and bolts.
“Between us, we’ve got just about everything anybody could ever need for building or manufacturing.”
Networking within Irongate has extended to one of the commercial cleaning services within Irongate that provides the chemical-free floor cleaner that is used to clean interior floors at the end of each day at Tails-A-Wagging.
As one of the new kids on the block, Steve Cowden of Cowden Gravel and Ready Mix moved his business into Irongate in 2003. The new location provides more visibility than his company’s original location in a rural section of the county.
Cowden has also teamed up with neighboring companies on commercial projects. He specifically recalled marine floats assembled with assistance from a company that specializes in pre-casting.
“The additional traffic prompted us to open a retail outlet that sells tools of the trade to both professional contractors and weekend warriors,” he said. Steve took over the reigns of the family company when his father, Leonard, retired in 1997.
International economics have had an upside impact on Irongate as well. With the surge in the value of the Canadian dollar, more companies from British Columbia have begun looking for affordable warehouse and office space along the I-5 corridor to serve customers in the Lower 48. Henifin describes the prospective Canadian tenants as “Class A companies.”
Nestled between the construction contractors is the helicopter repair facility of Northwest Heli Structures. The service and repair facility opened its doors just over one year ago. The 3,000 square foot facility owned jointly by Tony Suter and his partner, John Wilfong, is located on Spur Ridge Lane.

Gates of iron
On the flipside, an increase in development normally brings with it an increase in crime and traffic.
Henifin said security is an important factor to keep and attract tenants. In a proactive move to make her project more desirable, extra lighting and electronic security were installed at Henifin Plaza to make the complex a less desirable target. She emphasized that the Bellingham Police Department has increased the number and frequency of patrols since annexation.Rudy downplays any crime wave in Irongate, pointing out that most residents have erected gates and hurricane fences to keep out would-be criminals. He estimated that the majority of illegal activity in Irongate has been petty theft, remembering that the most he ever lost were piles of metal shavings.
Security is a vital concern to Vlasic at Irongate Storage Condos because his property is at the end of a dead end street and backs up to a greenbelt. The undeveloped acreage has been preserved as part of the proposed Bay to Baker Trail.
“We have a greenbelt in the middle of the city,” said Vlasic. “The trail is a wonderful idea, but many of our neighbors want nothing to do with it because of the added potential for vandalism and vagrancy. It would not be unusual for somebody to back his camper up to the greenbelt and take off for a day or two of hiking.
“In most cases an empty truck would be completely innocent, but the potential for foul play runs through your mind every time you see a truck or a camper parked on the street near the greenbelt for more than a few hours.”
Henifin and Vlasic have both spoken with adjacent business owners about establishing an unofficial neighborhood watch program to discourage criminals from targeting Irongate. Lentz remembered some minor vandalism at her old facility (“Who would steal dog toys?”), but has seen virtually zero crime at the permanent home of Tails-A-Wagging.
The largest concern regarding crime occurred several years ago when Whatcom County built its newest jail in the Irongate area. Rudy said neighbors were concerned about crimes being committed by people who escape from the jail.
“Truth is, this is probably the last place any criminal wants to be,” said Rudy with a smile. “They want to get as far away from the jail as fast as humanly possible.”
Regarding traffic on Bakerview, Hannegan and the other surface streets that serve the businesses within Irongate; most tenants agree that traffic has increased to the point that the installation of signals or additional lanes has become a priority.
According to Raney, the signal light proposed for the corner of Irongate and Bakerview was part of the city’s six-year plan. The light was apparently eliminated to pay for additional bike trails in the downtown core.
The owner of the Print and Copy Factory said she can see trucks – and many of her customers – backing up to the front of her shop waiting to make left turns.
Rudy agreed, adding that the presence of the county jail, the UPS facility as well as vendors who drive large supply trucks should be more than enough evidence that a traffic light would ease congestion.
“I’m all in favor of bike lanes and the need for open space,” said Raney. “Helping traffic will help business. This area needs the installation of at least one or two signals, turn lanes and more road capacity.”Vlasic had kind words for city officials who insisted that he include 112 parking spaces at his storage condo complex. He said the parking spaces are in constant use throughout the business day.
“I have to admit the city knew what they were talking about when they required the extra parking,” said Vlasic. “The day usage of the storage condos has been way above what we ever anticipated.
“Sometimes government officials really do know what they’re talking about.”


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Cowden Gravel and Ready Mix moved its operations to the Irongate area in 2003.



Becky Raney (left), owner of Print & Copy Factory, discusses a project with a graphic designer.




Henifin Plaza’s first phase includes Bellingham Millworks and Vanderpol Building Components. A second phase is planned for the future.