MARYSVILLE—The City of Marysville is continuing to develop its massive, 5.1 million square foot, economic development zone through next year that will bring an estimated 20,000 jobs to Snohomish County in the next decade, the city says.
The project is called the Cascade Industrial Center (CIC) and has been a multi-year cooperation between the Cities of Arlington and Marysville since 2015. The center will include over 4,000 acres of manufacturing and industrial-zoned land with more than 1,700 developable acres.
Located along the Interstate 5 corridor, beginning at 122nd Street Northeast, and stretching passed the Gissberg Twin Lakes in Smokey Point—57% of which falls within the City of Arlington and 43% within the City of Marysville—the CIC is Snohomish County’s largest Manufacturing and Industrial Center only second to the Paine Field/Boeing Industrial Center in Everett.
The Cascade Industrial Center received its regional designation as one of only 10 manufacturing industrial centers in Puget Sound region, and one of two in Snohomish County.
Several businesses have already either opened, begun construction on facilities, or leased properties at the CIC including Pepsi Frito Lay, Amazon, Echandia, Gravitics, Coconut Kenny’s, Evans Manufacturing, Eviation Aircraft, Vashon Aircraft and more. The City of Marysville began occupying the space during the Summer and Spring of 2022.
To incentivize new businesses to set up shop in the Cascade Industrial Center, the Cities of Marysville and Arlington are offering to exempt property taxes for the value of new construction of industrial/manufacturing facilities for up to 10 years so long as a business can create a minimum of 25 new full time jobs paying at least $18/hour, and the building is at least 10,000 square feet and valued at $800,000.
The City of Marysville passed an Ordinance (3020) in April, 2016, approving this incentive.
According to a market analysis conducted back in 2016, the price of securing a property at the CIC is approximately $6 per square foot which is lower than nearby Paine Field.
Marysville Mayor Jon Nehring has also committed to a streamlined permitting process with many areas of the CIC pre-evaluated for impacts allowing for an expedited process.
Businesses may also be incentivized to open up shop given the CIC’s convenient location along the I-5 corridor, directly south of Arlington Municipal Airport, a short 30-minute drive to Paine Field Airport, a 20-minute drive from the Port of Everett, an hour North of Seattle, and about 2-hours south of the Canadian border. The region is also supported by rail, via the BNSF Railway, and bus service, via Community Transit, for worker commuting.
Several infrastructure projects are in the works to allow for greater accessibility to, and from, the CIC including a $42 million 156th Street Northeast Freeway Interchange, which is currently fully state funded and will convert the current overcrossing to a full freeway interchange providing direct transportation access to the CIC. Construction on this is estimated to begin some time this year and will be completed by 2031.
Marysville is proposing to build a new five-lane east-west arterial aligning 156th Street Northeast and 152nd Street Northeast, connecting to this new freeway interchange (costing an estimated $70 million), and widen State Route 531 (costing $39 million) to allow much-needed traffic capacity and include access. The project is currently in its design phase with no known construction start date.
The Washington State Department of Transportation also funded a $84 million I-5/SR 528 Interchange and Northbound Corridor Improvement project adding a full freeway interchange, providing a new southern entry point to Marysville and alternate to the highly congested SR 528 near 4th Street.
In addition, the Tulalip Tribes led efforts to make improvements to I-5/4th Street and 88th Street Northeast Improvements costing $35, of which 100% was secured through the state.
The Cities of Arlington and Marysville project the CIC will bring in $14.5 million annually in state and local taxes.
According to the Snohomish County Economic Alliance Snohomish County has the highest concentration of manufacturing jobs west of the Rocky Mountains. Manufacturing is 20% of Snohomish County’s workforce, which is twice the state’s average.
Author: Kienan Briscoe
13 Responses
This is totally ruining our countryside. What used to be small community is now being turned into a massive city type living. All for the greed of money. Despicable.
I wholeheartedly agreed. I lived in a rural community, which was Smokey Point, and now it is a high density mess. I am so disappointed with my home now.
DANG!
Poor virgin farmland becoming all corporate investments & good paying jobs hopefully.
The Amazon building in Arlington is a ugly eye sore, like a prison in China or Russia.
Meanwhile M-ville is a run down tired dated nothing town. It needs serious redevelopment, like yesterday..only a new city hall! M-ville sits on top of I-5. Wake up M-ville & get going on some better improvements & amenities. We need better non chain restaurants & better shopping here in the greater Seattle North Sound. Start with a BIG new Fred Meyer!!! Or put in a IKEA. Or bring Whole Foods or Trader Joe’s.
You are so so correct!! At least we have 3rd St, but that is it. All the billboards on State St. Such an eyesore.
How sad to watch. Futile farm land become a concrete wasteland. Very sad
Your comment is the same as multitudes of people!
Gtfoh with that nonsense. Marysville is not and has as never been a “run down, tired or dates nothing town” as your run down, tried dated nothing opinion claims. Furthermore, nobody wants an IKEA anywhere around here. If you want that junk then go get it elsewhere.
“In addition, the Tulalip Tribes led efforts to make improvements to I-5/4th Street and 88th Street Northeast Improvements costing $35, of which 100% was secured through the state.” $35? Cheap at twice the price…
Strawberry Fields Forever. Not anymore!
Curious why the 531 expansion was not part of the financial tradeoffs associated with the Amazon distribution center. That section of 531 was congested (at certain times) prior to Amazon. Maybe Amazon should have paid for some portion of the expansion during the build out? Still questioning the ROI on the CIC.
Expecting a ROI for anything involving and/or especially proposed by any government agency, is akin to expecting that same government to lower taxes…
This is disgusting
I got a lot to say, & I sure hope the business brains of Marysville/Arlington have well thought out their strategies for our future, such as AI & robotics taking a fair share of those 20,000 jobs. And big employers like Boeing I suspect will be doing less hiring & more AI automation as well. We can only hope that leads to higher wages & even more factory jobs. But it’s not a guarantee.
So what is the state doing to make infrastructure in advance? Or at least on a timely schedule. So they are building a interchange on i-5… Big deal? Hardly. How about they work on Hwy 9 between Hwy-92 north into Skagit County. Because people need to accept the reality Arlington is going to be bigger than Everett. They own their own airport which used to be an Air Force base & large enough as is to handle landing & taking off Air Force 1 (Obama) & with Seattle-Paine Field (it’s official name) surrounded by wealthy neighborhoods & serving as SeaTac North, Arlington is going to have to take the bulk of growing aviation industries because there is NO OTHER AIRPORT CAPABLE. AND… there is enough room to build from Arlington to Darrington and I reckon that adding about 150,000 population right there. When growth is all done & over with Arlington will have a pop of at least 250,000 & can steal that courthouse away from Everett depending on their reputation.
For too long Snohomish county has been a punching bag & taken advantage of by a total lack of planning. Even when we do plan, such as for Light Rail, we were powerless to stop King Co from using our tax dollars to pay for their needs before ours.
We need to make the board at Sound Transit an ELECTED BOARD not a lifetime appointment position making $600,000/yr for building a railroad on a floating bridge against recommendations of the engineers who built the bridge. We are paying for that mess & we need to fire them.
So I am glad finally the cities of Marysville & Arlington have a plan, but we need to start fighting for what we don’t have… better roads to handle a million people. Where is our East/West freeway? Hwy 2 should be i-92 . Where is our i-605? Buried & forgotten after Governor Taxalinni left office in 1965? He wanted to turn Hwy-9 into i-605, we all had plans to build for the future but the legislature turned him down. They didn’t turn King county down for i-405 and back then King County was the same population Snohomish county is today. Where is our infrastructure?
Seriously, we aren’t going to attract much business if nobody can drive from Lake Stevens to Arlington in less than 45 minutes every morning & afternoon.
However, with Snohomish County at the top of manufacturing, I assure you it’s highly skilled & high tech manufacturing skills people have here that other places in past, especially back east, had little experience of. Assembling electronic components is not as easy as it sounds. 35 years ago I recall watching our CEO at a well known sno/co mfg facility work all day assembling printed circuit boards with the other “assemblers” & I found out later every single board was scrapped. He had everything every which way & people were too scared to correct him. Too bad, because I did. If any of us did that we would be fired immediately. But it was not my area I worked elsewhere. I only bring that up because he used to assemble himself back in New York. That was a less skilled worker who became a CEO. The West Coast has high tech high skilled production & research workers, and they are here in Snohomish & King Counties. We “should” cost more & it’s also a marketing strategy to get better employers who need highly skilled people because in case anyone has noticed, skilled mfg workers are in short supply, even for Washington State -thanks to Asian outsourcing.
Expecting a ROI for anything involving and/or especially proposed by any government agency, is akin to expecting that same government to lower taxes…