On July 6 and July 13, the University Place Fire District, with the help of the City of University Place, will burn the former Dennys restaurant building and a small strip mall next door as part of a training exercise and to clear the land for construction of the Town Center project. Fire district personnel will conduct extensive training involving destructive entry and exit techniques on the buildings prior to the scheduled burns.
The Dennys building is scheduled to burn on July 6 and the strip mall next door, known as the Yi Building, is set to burn on July 13. Demolition of three other buildings in the near vicinity will occur between June 6 and June 20. Site cleanup will continue through July 15.
A schedule for grading the land and making it ready for the Town Center project to locate there has not been set. The city hopes to see new businesses open on the site as early as 2007. More extensive development of the entire Town Center Project site will take place in future phases.
The latest plans for the Town Center Project involve building mixed-use development on the northern quarter of the 11-acre Town Center project area on the east side of Bridgeport Way West between 37th and 35th streets.
The city is still waiting to hear back from Congressional representatives about a grant proposal that would provide up to $10 million to assist in building a regional transit parking garage that could be incorporated into a larger parking garage that would serve both shoppers and new residents moving into the condominiums and town homes scheduled to be built on the site.
