MARYSVILLE—The City of Marysville gave an update to its Cascade Industrial Center, what the city is doing to prepare for the 2026 FIFA World Cup and highlighted some of its local businesses at the Marysville Business Summit on Tuesday, April 29, at the Marysville Opera House.
The event kicked off with some remarks with Marysville Mayor Jon Nehring who spoke about what he is doing to attract new businesses to the city.
For one Mayor Nehring said it has been nearly a decade since the city raised property taxes, and the City has raised its sales tax revenue by approximately 200% in just the last ten years which it plans to use to make Marysville a more attractive place to set up shop.
The City also plans to advance initiatives that support, and attract, businesses as well as living wage jobs primarily in its new Cascade Industrial Center.
“I just want to say that I personally appreciate all that you do, each and every one of you, to invest in making this community better,” Mayor Nehring said to the crowd of, approximately, 50, most of them business owners. “Those who provide financial growth, and jobs, and success in the community is what creates the tax base that we all get to operate your community with. There is no us without you.”
Update on Marysville’s Cascade Industrial Center
Relatively new City Administrator with the City of Marysville Jen Stapleton gave an update on the City-owned Public Works waterfront property which is planned to be redeveloped into the Cascade Industrial Center.
The City is currently in the process of an addition and some improvements to the old City Hall where the Marysville School District will be relocating to in the next year. The Public Works Department will, in turn, be moving what is currently Marysville School District property.
This gives the City the opportunity to move forward with its redevelopment efforts, much of which will be discussed at coming City Council meetings.
These include the development of an indoor sports facility and raising the City’s waterfront property out of the flood which will provide further redevelopment opportunities.
“City governments play a critical role in economic development and I’m really proud to be proud of the proactive leadership team that involves our staff, as well as all of our elected officials,” said Stapleton. “They are very forward thinking in terms of how we support, and how we bring, businesses into the community.”
Chris Holland, Community Development Planning Manager for the City of Marysville, continued City Administrator Stapleton’s update by reminding the crowd that the City of Marysville just adopted its 2024-2044 Comprehensive Plan.
The Cascade Industrial Center is a 30-vision to transform the space within the MIC boundaries of 4,019 acres, of which 57% is in Arlington and 43% lies in Marysville. Nearly 1,762 acres, or about 44%, of the Cascade Industrial Center land area consists of lands with the capacity for additional development, including partially used sites, re-developable sites and vacant sites.
In 2019 the Puget Sound Regional Council recognized it as an official manufacturing industrial center – the second largest in Snohomish County.
Within Marysville there is currently 8 million square feet of new industrial planned for construction through the CIC. Some new businesses scheduled to move into to the CIC include electric-hybrid maritime company Eschandia, Kia, and Pepsi Frito Lay.
Marysville currently has a population of approximately 71,000 people but projects it will grow to approximately 100,000 by 2044. There are 11 unique neighborhoods in the City of Marysville with most of the city’s growth taking place in the Lakewood neighborhood.
There are currently approximately 28,000 housing units within the City of Marysville but the City needs to increase that by 12,000 to 2044 for all income levels to keep up with its growth projections. There are currently about 4,300 housing units undergoing construction including single family, multi-family, and townhomes.
As of 2024 there were 17,000 job opportunities within the City of Marysville. Marysville is expecting to double these jobs by 2044.
Business Spotlight: Echandia
One of the businesses moving into Marysville’s CIC is Echandia, a Swedish-based marine battery manufacturer set on electrifying maritime vessels.
Trevor Smals, Sales Director for North America with Echandia, was keynote speaker at Tuesday’s event speaking a little more about what his company does, and hopes to bring to Marysville and, by extension, Washington State.
Swedish for “big house,” Echandia, headquartered in Solna, Sweden, was originally founded in 2018 to meet the electrification for naval submarines. It is now a leading provider of green solutions to the maritime industry for reducing fossil fuel emissions in the global shipping industry: “making our collective place [Earth]—our big house—a little bit better every day,” its website says.
The 20,000-square foot facility in Marysville will be home to the Echandia’s “safest and most advanced heavy-duty” LTO battery production facility. Its rechargeable lithium-titanium-oxide (LTO) battery charges faster than other lithium-ion batteries in the industry. This is possible by utilizing the lithium-titanate nanocrystals in its battery design, that provides at least 30x more surface area for charging on the anode than its carbon alternative.
Business Spotlight: Coconut Kenny’s
For the second business spotlight the Business Summit highlighted Coconut Kenny’s, a Bellingham-based island-inspired pizza and sandwich restaurant which just expanded to Marysville with two new locations.
Coconut Kenny’s specializes in gourmet pizzas and Hawaiian bread sandwiches in an island paradise-themed décor. It also prides itself on its appetizers, beer and wine list, and great hospitality.
Coconut Kenny’s new Marysville location is located at 3943 116th St. NE, Suite 107.
A Lake Stevens location, which technically falls within Marysville city limits, can also be found at 8813 Soper Hill Road #103.
Transportation updates and panel discussion
In conclusion, representatives with WSDOT and Community Transit gave some transportation updates to make Marysville more accessible. These include Community Transit’s incoming Swift Gold Line.
The Swift Gold Line will bring fast, frequent and reliable service to the northern part of Snohomish County as continued population growth increases the demand for expanded travel options. It will offer shorter wait times between buses, faster and more reliable service, and connections to traffic-free Link light rail.
As for WSDOT projects, the transportation department will add a roundabout at the I-5/SR 529 interchange, a northbound off-ramp from I-4 to SR 529 and an on-ramp from SR 529 to southbound I-5, and a northbound HOV lane between Marine View Drive in Everett and SR 529 in Marysville.
After the transportation updates, speakers at the event held a panel discussion and opened the floor to questions.
The event was presented by the Port of Everett, the City of Marysville, and the Greater Marysville Tulalip Chamber and sponsored by Community Transit and North Sound Media.
Author: Kienan Briscoe
One Response
All this building up here and new jobs, that’s all great….but where is the road expansions? Single lane roads won’t work with all this development. Also I-5 NEEDS to be 5 lanes wide from Bellingham to Tacoma, the ONE freeway North & South is a joke.