EVERETT — Forget the pawn shops on Hewitt Avenue. Downtown Everett is changing.
The future — or at least what city boosters hope is the future — was on display Thursday at a sneak peek of the Market at Potala Place, a new development under construction on Grand Avenue between Wall Street and Hewitt.
The event showcased Potala Place’s key feature, a year-round farmers market. The development’s 15,000-square-foot retail space also will include a retail space for locally grown food, a French bakery and a butcher. The developers are also in talks to add a wine shop, a cheesemonger and a locally based coffee shop.
Potala Place’s primary developer is Lobsang Dargey.
Raised in rural Tibet, Dargey has become a powerhouse in commercial real estate development in metro Puget Sound. His companies, Dargey Development and Path America, also built Potala Village, a mixed-use development in downtown Everett; renovated the Chicago Title Building on Colby Avenue; and renovated Everett Public Market on Grand Avenue.
His partner in Potala Farms is Steve Carlin, who owns the Carlin Co. in Napa, California. Carlin also is working as a retail consultant for Potala Place’s market.
Potala Farms, which is slated to open Aug. 1, will make it easy for shoppers to buy locally produced food. Twenty-five farmers and producers will have individual stands in the store. In addition, ingredients from those stands will be used in prepared foods and a restaurant in Potala Farms, which will also offer high-quality and locally grown prepackaged items.
“All things being equal, people prefer to eat high-quality, locally produced food when it’s available,” Carlin said. “We have to deliver the product at a price point where the customer is willing to pay for it.”
The participating farmers are all within 150 miles. They don’t have to be at their stands. They are asked to be at the store two days a month when their goods are sampled at Potala Farms’ tasting table, Carlin said.
The farmers will always own their food and will sell directly to shoppers. The store will handle inventory for them, he said.
“It’s not going to replace a grocery store,” he said. “Our average transaction is going to be much lower than a grocery store, but, we hope, more frequent.”
The other tenants are BB Ranch, a butcher with locations in Woodinville and Seattle’s Pike Place Market, and Choux Choux Bakery, which will be a local baker’s first shop, Carlin said.
Potala Place also will have 220 luxury apartments and an adjacent Hampton Inn with 110 rooms.
The development is part of an upscale trend that is breaking with downtown Everett’s gritty history as an industrial city dotted with smokestacks. Everett-based developers Skotdal Real Estate have several projects under way, including Aero Apartments, which opens this summer.
“Everett is going through a growth process,” Carlin said. “What I see is upside.”
Dan Catchpole: 425-339-3454; dcatchpole@heraldnet.com; Twitter: @dcatchpole.
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