Smokey Point is a community and former
census-designated place
A census-designated place (CDP) is a concentration of population defined by the United States Census Bureau for statistical purposes only.
CDPs have been used in each decennial census since 1980 as the counterparts of incorporated places, su ...
in northern
Snohomish County, Washington
Snohomish County () is a county located in the U.S. state of Washington. With a population of 827,957 as of the 2020 census, it is the third-most populous county in Washington, after nearby King and Pierce counties, and the 75th-most populo ...
. The area, developed as a suburban
bedroom community
A commuter town is a populated area that is primarily residential rather than commercial or industrial. Routine travel from home to work and back is called commuting, which is where the term comes from. A commuter town may be called by many o ...
in the late 20th century, was annexed into the nearby cities of
Arlington and
Marysville in the 1990s and 2000s.
History
Smokey Point was settled in the early 20th century and was originally known as Rex Corner, named in the 1930s after the owner of a restaurant located at
U.S. Route 99
U.S. Route 99 (US 99) was a main north–south United States Numbered Highway on the West Coast of the United States until 1964, running from Calexico, California, on the US–Mexico border to Blaine, Washington, on the U.S.-Canada border ...
and Lakewood Road (present-day Smokey Point Boulevard and
172nd Street NE, respective). The restaurant was sold to Eric and Pearl Shurstad in 1946, who renovated it to a
barbecue
Barbecue or barbeque (informally BBQ in the UK, US, and Canada, barbie in Australia and braai in South Africa) is a term used with significant regional and national variations to describe various cooking methods that use live fire and smoke ...
restaurant and renamed it the "Smokey Point Café". U.S. Route 99 was bypassed by
Interstate 5
Interstate 5 (I-5) is the main north–south Interstate Highway on the West Coast of the United States, running largely parallel to the Pacific coast of the contiguous U.S. from Mexico to Canada. It travels through the states of Calif ...
in the late 1960s, constructing an interchange at Smokey Point and creating the Gissberg Ponds (now Twin Lakes) out of a gravel excavation site.
In 1966, the area was proposed as the location of a four-year public college, with offered by the city of Arlington. The state legislature decided to build the college instead in
Olympia, becoming
The Evergreen State College.
By 1977, the population of the unincorporated area between Arlington and Marysville, including Smokey Point, had increased to 16,000 people as the result of suburban development. In 1979, the
Snohomish County Sherriff Snohomish can refer to:
* Snohomish people, a tribe of the Lushootseed people native to Puget Sound in Washington State
* Snohomish dialect, the dialect of Lushootseed spoken by the tribe
* Snohomish, Washington, a city located in the county of the ...
's Office established a
precinct
Precinct may refer to:
* An electoral precinct
* A police precinct
* A religious precinct
* A shopping precinct or shopping mall
** A Pedestrian zone
Places
* A neighborhood, in Australia
* A unit of public housing in Singapore
* A former elect ...
in Smokey Point at an existing fire station.
By the early 1990s, Smokey Point was rezoned to support industrial development to offset a regional shortage of affordable land for industrial use. After the opening of a
new naval base in Everett in 1994, the U.S. Navy selected Smokey Point to house a support complex with a
commissary
A commissary is a government official charged with oversight or an ecclesiastical official who exercises in special circumstances the jurisdiction of a bishop.
In many countries, the term is used as an administrative or police title. It often c ...
, offices and a college. The support complex broke ground in 1993 and opened in 1995.
The
Puget Sound Regional Council explored the expansion of
Arlington Municipal Airport into a regional airport in the 1990s to relieve
Seattle–Tacoma International Airport, but decided instead to build a third runway at Sea-Tac because of existing traffic and local opposition. In September 2004, Marysville won a bid to build a
NASCAR
The National Association for Stock Car Auto Racing, LLC (NASCAR) is an American auto racing sanctioning and operating company that is best known for stock car racing. The privately owned company was founded by Bill France Sr. in 1948, and h ...
racetrack (to be operated by the
International Speedway Corporation) south of Smokey Point. The project was cancelled two months later after concerns about traffic impacts, environmental conditions, and $70 million in required transportation improvements arose. The NASCAR site was later pitched as a candidate for a new
University of Washington
The University of Washington (UW, simply Washington, or informally U-Dub) is a public research university in Seattle, Washington.
Founded in 1861, Washington is one of the oldest universities on the West Coast; it was established in Seat ...
satellite campus (known as
UW North Sound) in the late 2000s, competing with downtown Everett, before the project was put on hold in 2008 and cancelled in 2011.
Annexation dispute
In the early 1990s, after a controversial land-use was proposed for the area, several property owners began an effort to petition the City of Arlington to annex a large portion of the Smokey Point community. Around the same time, another group of property owners began an effort to annex much of the same territory into the City of Marysville. The group working on annexing into Arlington was able to reach the required 60% assessed value threshold first, enabling their annexation to move forward.
The City of Marysville, having a vested interest by being the sewer and water utility provider for the area and having an interest in annexing Smokey Point, challenged the annexation, along with the residential community whose property was added to the annexation boundaries by the state Boundary Review Board for Snohomish County.
At that time, there was a single Arlington-Smokey Point-Marysville Urban Growth Boundary, causing confusion as to what city could potentially annex which area of Smokey Point. After many meetings with
Snohomish County officials, the two cities ended up with separate urban growth boundaries for future annexation. Arlington was given the northeast portion of Smokey Point; Marysville was given the western and southern portions. However, when this proposal was presented to the local community, there was overwhelming opposition, as the community desired to have their entire community be annexed into one city, not split between two. The County Council had the final say and approved the territory divisions.
To further complicate things, there was a little-known state law on the books that would have transitioned the annexed territory from the Lakewood School District that served Smokey Point to the school district of the annexing city. Being that nearly all of the commercial area of Smokey Point was petitioned to be annexed into Arlington, the loss of such a tax base would have been devastating to the Lakewood School District. Local residents in Smokey Point and Lakewood also circulated petitions to incorporate the area as a separate city to preserve the school district's taxing base.
Because of these issues, local residents in the area formed a group called Save Our Community and Schools (SOCS). SOCS worked tirelessly with their local state representatives to change the law to protect the Lakewood School District. Those efforts were successful, and the Lakewood School District remains intact today.
After receiving much input from the local community with the desire to keep their community intact, SOCS filed a Notice of Intent for Incorporation, which would create the City of Smokey Point-Lakewood. The proposal was put on hold, however, since state law mandated that incorporations cannot occur while an annexation involving land in the same area is still pending.
After years of controversial court battles, lawsuits, redrawn boundaries, and strong opposition by the residential community, the annexation question was finally resolved in 1999, when the City of Arlington annexed the northeast portion of Smokey Point. The actual land annexed was but a small percentage of the originally-petitioned area, due to the redrawn urban growth boundaries. As a result of the annexation, the effort to keep the Smokey Point community intact ended, along with the hopes of incorporation. As expected, in the years since then, the southern and western portions of Smokey Point have been annexed into the City of Marysville.
Recent commercial growth
There has been substantial commercial growth in Smokey Point in recent years. Most recently, the western side of Smokey Point (within the City of Marysville) has received much of this growth. In late 2006, the commercial area called "Lakewood Crossing" opened, just west of the
Interstate 5
Interstate 5 (I-5) is the main north–south Interstate Highway on the West Coast of the United States, running largely parallel to the Pacific coast of the contiguous U.S. from Mexico to Canada. It travels through the states of Calif ...
exit to Smokey Point (exit 206), with
Costco
Costco Wholesale Corporation ( doing business as Costco Wholesale and also known simply as Costco) is an American multinational corporation which operates a chain of membership-only big-box retail stores ( warehouse club). As of 2022, Cost ...
and
Target
Target may refer to:
Physical items
* Shooting target, used in marksmanship training and various shooting sports
** Bullseye (target), the goal one for which one aims in many of these sports
** Aiming point, in field artillery, fi ...
, and
Red Robin as the first tenants to open.
Best Buy
Best Buy Co. Inc. is an American multinational consumer electronics retailer headquartered in Richfield, Minnesota. Originally founded by Richard M. Schulze and James Wheeler in 1966 as an audio specialty store called Sound of Music, it was rebra ...
,
Office Depot
The ODP Corporation is an American office supply holding company headquartered in Boca Raton, Florida. The company has combined annual sales of approximately $11 billion, and employs about 38,000 associates with businesses in the United States. ...
, and
Petco
Petco Health and Wellness Company, Inc. is an American pet retailer with corporate offices in San Diego and San Antonio. Petco sells pet food, products, and services, as well as certain types of live small animals.
Founded in 1965 as a mail-ord ...
are among some of the other businesses located here. On the eastern side of Smokey Point (within the City of Arlington), a
Wienerschnitzel and Taco Del Mar restaurant opened in May 2007, a
Wal-Mart
Walmart Inc. (; formerly Wal-Mart Stores, Inc.) is an American multinational retail corporation that operates a chain of hypermarkets (also called supercenters), discount department stores, and grocery stores from the United States, headquarte ...
opened in Winter 2010 and in 2011 Smokey Point Bakery Cafe opened.
A stretch of Smokey Point Boulevard was developed into an
auto row in the late 2010s, with several car dealerships relocating from Marysville. Several industrial warehouses are under construction in the neighborhood, including an
Amazon
Amazon most often refers to:
* Amazons, a tribe of female warriors in Greek mythology
* Amazon rainforest, a rainforest covering most of the Amazon basin
* Amazon River, in South America
* Amazon (company), an American multinational technolog ...
distribution center.
Geography
Smokey Point is located at (48.145708, -122.194794).
According to the
United States Census Bureau
The United States Census Bureau (USCB), officially the Bureau of the Census, is a principal agency of the U.S. Federal Statistical System, responsible for producing data about the American people and economy
An economy is an area of th ...
, the CDP had a total area of 6.9 km
2 (2.7 mi
2). 6.8 km
2 (2.6 mi
2) of it is land and 0.1 km
2 (0.04 mi
2) of it (1.13%) is water.
Demographics
As of the census
of 2000, there were 1,556 people, 628 households, and 425 families residing in the CDP. The population density was 229.3/km
2 (594.0/mi
2). There were 649 housing units at an average density of 95.6/km
2 (247.8/mi
2). The racial makeup of the CDP was 87.15%
White
White is the lightness, lightest color and is achromatic (having no hue). It is the color of objects such as snow, chalk, and milk, and is the opposite of black. White objects fully diffuse reflection, reflect and scattering, scatter all the ...
, 1.41%
African American
African Americans (also referred to as Black Americans and Afro-Americans) are an Race and ethnicity in the United States, ethnic group consisting of Americans with partial or total ancestry from sub-Saharan Africa. The term "African American ...
, 0.77%
Native American, 4.82%
Asian, 0.32%
Pacific Islander
Pacific Islanders, Pasifika, Pasefika, or rarely Pacificers are the peoples of the Pacific Islands. As an ethnic/racial term, it is used to describe the original peoples—inhabitants and diasporas—of any of the three major subregions of Ocea ...
, 1.35% from
other races, and 4.18% from two or more races.
Hispanic
The term ''Hispanic'' ( es, hispano) refers to people, cultures, or countries related to Spain, the Spanish language, or Hispanidad.
The term commonly applies to countries with a cultural and historical link to Spain and to viceroyalties for ...
or
Latino of any race were 5.78% of the population.
There were 628 households, out of which 32.2% had children under the age of 18 living with them, 58.1% were married couples living together, 6.2% had a female householder with no husband present, and 32.3% were non-families. 25.0% of all households were made up of individuals, and 11.3% had someone living alone who was 65 years of age or older. The average household size was 2.48 and the average family size was 2.99.
In the CDP, the age distribution of the population shows 25.4% under the age of 18, 7.0% from 18 to 24, 30.7% from 25 to 44, 20.2% from 45 to 64, and 16.7% who were 65 years of age or older. The median age was 37 years. For every 100 females, there were 99.5 males. For every 100 females age 18 and over, there were 97.1 males.
The median income for a household in the CDP was $46,202, and the median income for a family was $53,828. Males had a median income of $37,614 versus $30,250 for females. The
per capita income
Per capita income (PCI) or total income measures the average income earned per person in a given area (city, region, country, etc.) in a specified year. It is calculated by dividing the area's total income by its total population.
Per capita i ...
for the CDP was $20,133. None of the families and 4.1% of the population were living below the
poverty line
The poverty threshold, poverty limit, poverty line or breadline is the minimum level of income deemed adequate in a particular country. The poverty line is usually calculated by estimating the total cost of one year's worth of necessities for ...
, including no under eighteens and 10.3% of those over 64.
Transportation
There are several main arterials that pass through Smokey Point:
Interstate 5
Interstate 5 (I-5) is the main north–south Interstate Highway on the West Coast of the United States, running largely parallel to the Pacific coast of the contiguous U.S. from Mexico to Canada. It travels through the states of Calif ...
,
Smokey Point Boulevard
U.S. Route 99 (US 99) was a main north–south United States Numbered Highway on the West Coast of the United States until 1964, running from Calexico, California, on the US–Mexico border to Blaine, Washington, on the U.S.-Canada border ...
,
State Route 531 (also called 172nd Street NE), and 51st Avenue NE.
Infrastructure
The nearest hospital is in Arlington, Cascade Valley Hospital and Clinics. Smokey Point has a clinic, the Cascade Skagit Health Alliance clinic, which provides primary and specialist medical services. Located on 172nd Street NE, the clinic has approximately 68 rooms and can serve up to 31,000 patients a year.
Sports
The stadium at Lakewood High School is home to
Snohomish County FC Steelheads Snohomish can refer to:
* Snohomish people, a tribe of the Lushootseed people native to Puget Sound in Washington State
* Snohomish dialect, the dialect of Lushootseed spoken by the tribe
* Snohomish, Washington, a city located in the county of the ...
, a semi-pro soccer team.
References
External links
Smokey Point Chamber of Commerce website
{{Snohomish County, Washington
Former census-designated places in Washington (state)
Geography of Snohomish County, Washington
Arlington, Washington
Marysville, Washington