Quadrant To Buy Blakely Ridge -- Giant Development's Sales Price Is $20 Million

REDMOND

The Quadrant Corp. confirmed yesterday that it is buying the giant Blakely Ridge development outside Redmond for nearly $20 million.

The planned retirement community will be merged with Quadrant's Redmond Ridge, a housing and business project rising on adjacent land.

Together, they'll soon have 3,950 homes - bigger than Woodinville - on 2,000 acres along Novelty Hill Road.

The "Ridges" may be the last huge real-estate ventures in King County, where big expanses of forest land in or near the urban-growth boundary are now used up.

"There are no more tracts in an urban area with an urban density" or utilities to support such a project, said Mark Carey, county land-use-services manager.

Quadrant President Steve Dennis and Judd Kirk, president of Port Blakely Communities, the owner of Blakely Ridge, said they'll next undertake smaller projects in the county, redevelop underused land within cities or do large projects elsewhere in Western Washington.

Both said the Ridge deal is expected to close today.

The combined project will consist of 2,250 homes for people 55 and older, a school, a fire station, parks, factories, stores, a retirement center and a public golf course. Houses priced from $200,000 to $700,000 will be ready for sale by early 2000.

Houses are already rising in the two other "master-planned developments" under way in the county: Port Blakely's Highlands project in Issaquah and Snoqualmie Ridge, owned by Quadrant parent Weyerhaeuser.

Even if more land were available, land-use battles over Redmond Ridge and Blakely Ridge could scare off developers considering any other master-planned communities.

"That's one of the reasons you don't see other people doing large projects," Kirk said. "The risk, the time and the expense are just totally out of proportion to the return."

Kirk said Blakely Ridge was not profitable for the private, family-owned company, which had always planned to sell the project to another developer once it was approved.

"We could have made a lot more putting it in a savings account," he said.

Dennis said the sale made sense because Quadrant wanted to complete roads and utilities it was building for both projects, while Port Blakely was still looking for a buyer.

"We were managing it but we didn't own it, which made for an awkward situation," he said.

Quadrant began clearing land and building roads the past spring and will start one year of work on Novelty Hill Road later this month.

It began pursuing Redmond Ridge, originally called Northridge, in 1970. Port Blakely began working on its ridge project around 1986. Both timber companies had formerly logged the area.

Among their challenges was persuading the county to allow their urban-density projects in a rural area.

Opponents lost several lawsuits over the land-use issues but continue to challenge county traffic reviews that allowed the projects to proceed. The county has admitted errors in its calculations but concluded the projects would have been approved anyway. Carey said approvals won't change unless the projects are altered significantly, which Dennis says won't happen.

"We don't want to open that book," Dennis said.