News
Addressing the Need for Affordable Housing in Spokane Valley
In 2019, the Washington State Legislature passed legislation encouraging all cities planning under the Growth Management Act to adopt actions to increase residential capacity, especially in areas with supportive transportation and utility…
Matt HoffmanPlanning for COVID-19 Recovery
October is National Community Planning Month and this year’s theme, Planning is Essential to Recovery, highlights how planning and planners can lead communities to equitable, resilient, and long-lasting recovery from the effects of the…
Lisa ParksDEQ Issues New Internal Management Directives
In September 2020, the Oregon Department of Environmental Quality (DEQ) released two new Internal Management Directives (IMDs) that will strongly influence risk assessment and site characterization activities at cleanup sites under DEQ…
Phil Wiescher, PhDCOVID-19 has revealed our potential as a society to slow climate change—and our shortcomings so far
It’s nearing the end of September, 2020. I have been working from home for more than six months—still feeling unsettled in the new normal of the COVID-19 pandemic. Rolling out of bed and immediately beginning my workday had its perks at…
Michael Tarbert, EITResults for "Planning & Community Development"
In 2019, the Washington State Legislature passed legislation encouraging all cities planning under the Growth Management Act to adopt actions to increase residential capacity, especially in areas with supportive transportation and utility…
Matt HoffmanOctober is National Community Planning Month and this year’s theme, Planning is Essential to Recovery, highlights how planning and planners can lead communities to equitable, resilient, and long-lasting recovery from the effects of the…
Lisa ParksWhere are you from and where do you live now? I was born in Ann Arbor, Michigan, and raised in Ames, Iowa. When I was growing up, my family would spend a few weeks every summer driving big loops around the U.S. to camp in and explore our…
Charla SkaggsHugo House is a Seattle-based nonprofit, with the mission of being “a place to read words, hear words, and make your own words better.” This literary house provides a home to everyone who loves books or has a drive to write. One of Hugo…
Charla SkaggsInternational Bridges, Tunnels and Turnpikes Association Summit Recently, Charla Skaggs and I attended the IBTTA Communication and Change Management Summit in Seattle. This conference is especially relevant to the work of MFA’s…
Kate ElliottYou may have heard of “PFAS” in a documentary or in the news recently. You also may have heard that, in the U.S., PFAS chemicals are in drinking water and in people’s blood. And you would be right to say—what!? How can this be? This…
Erik NaylorWhere are you from and where do you live now? I hail from Detroit—Birmingham to be exact. If you ever want to engage in a long conversation about Detroit history, I’m your man. I now live in West Seattle with my wife, Sarah, and two…
Victoria O'DanielThe SWIFT (Sedro-Woolley Innovation for Tomorrow) Center in Sedro-Woolley, Washington, is a portal from the past into the future, and a model for how underutilized spaces can be reborn as thriving community assets. The SWIFT Center, in…
Jim DarlingMFA is honored to have been part of a team that was recently awarded the 2018 Governor’s Smart Communities Award in the Smart Projects category for the Skagit County Community Justice Center Brownfield Redevelopment project. To assist the…
Yen-Vy Van, LHGOregon State University-Cascades and Deschutes County have reached an important milestone in their negotiations for the sale of an inactive construction and demolition debris landfill to OSU. On October 30, 2017, Deschutes County…
Ted Wall, PEWhen you think of job creation and economics, look no further than the Lower Grand Employment Area (LGEA). The City of Vancouver, Washington recognized the potential for the LGEA to help preserve jobs in the city’s core and drive regional…
James J. Maul, RG, LHGSince MFA’s founding as a small group of mostly engineers and scientists conducting environmental investigations and design work, we have grown not only in number of people but also in scope of services. We have also grown in our…
Charla SkaggsWenatchee visitors will have a new and stylish place to stay, and the City will have a new revenue source via sales and lodging taxes, as a former brownfield transforms into a new hotel. The August 4th groundbreaking for construction of a new…
Yen-Vy Van, LHGMany Oregonians are surprised to learn that Willamette Falls ranks just after Niagara Falls—it is the second-largest waterfall in the country by volume. MFA is happy to share the great news that just this month, final design was unveiled for…
Seth Otto, AICP, LEED APQ: What do City of Hoquiam, City of Aberdeen, City of Sedro-Woolley, Port of Skagit, and Skagit County all have in common? A: They recently were named 2017 Governor’s Smart Communities Award Winners – and they are all MFA…
Jim DarlingDuring the Joint Oregon and Washington Planning Conference on Thursday, October 27, the Planning Association of Washington and the Washington Chapter of the American Planning Association honored the Port of Skagit, the City of Sedro-Woolley,…
Kaitlyn BrunoMFA staff led sessions on brownfield development at the most recent Certified Commercial Investment Managers (CCIM) Conference, held on September 29 and 30, 2016, in Bend, OR. Jim Maul, Ted Wall, and Seth Otto prepared a dynamic, informative,…
Seth Otto, AICP, LEED APMFA Senior Planner Seth Otto was recently featured in the Oregon Daily Journal of Commerce for the work he has done in support of new brownfield legislation in Oregon. Seth was a member of the coalition backing House Bill 2734, which allows…
Ted Wall, PEUpon returning from Beijing, where I attended the 2015 International Symposium on Urban Stormwater Management and Landscape Hydrology and met with numerous experts in the stormwater, landscape architecture, and brownfields arenas, I have come…
Ted Wall, PEStatistics abound as to the current and projected pace of urbanization in the world’s most populous country, the People’s Republic of China. With a total population of over 1.35 billion people, a projection issued in March 2014 by the…
Ted Wall, PEA recent bill allowing the Washington Department of Enterprise Services to transfer the Northern State Hospital property to the Port of Skagit County was signed last week. This decision will allow Janicki Bioenergy to move forward with their…
Jim DarlingIn the world of economic development, nothing can add value to a large-scale project like a strong, mutually beneficial partnership between public and private interests. At the P3C Public-Private Partnership Conference & Expo 2015 in…
James J. Maul, RG, LHGOn March 9, 2015, the Environmental Protection Agency (USEPA) announced the recipients of its 2015 Area-Wide Planning (AWP) Grant. The AWP grant program assists communities that are responding to local brownfield challenges, including multiple…
Seth Otto, AICP, LEED APOver 100 years ago, the State of Washington took a bold step in opening the Northern State Hospital, a state-of-the-art residential mental health facility in Sedro-Woolley. The campus, designed by the world-renowned Olmsted Brothers landscape…
Jim DarlingIt isn’t often that one has the opportunity to work on a project with unprecedented local community benefits as well as a game-changing global reach. The adaptive re-use of the historic Northern State Hospital campus in Sedro Woolley,…
Jim DarlingAs mixed-used redevelopment forges ahead on the Zidell Yards property, NorthWest Ecosystem Services Ecologist Paul Fishman took a moment to reflect on the project’s myriad undertakings in the nine years since cleanup efforts got underway in…
James J. Maul, RG, LHGAre we in the right jungle? -Stephen R. Covey | As civil and environmental engineers, we must accept that recognition for a job well done will often take the form of indifference. We do our best work when no one does a double take. When…
James J. Maul, RG, LHGEvidence of the city and Port of Kalama’s successful collaboration on an underway project was publicly presented in the form of a 2014 Smart Communities Award. The Spencer Creek Business Park and a new, nearby multi-use recreational facility…
James J. Maul, RG, LHGPortland, OR –Following analysis and meetings with stakeholders, Metro staff, and council, Maul Foster & Alongi, Inc. (MFA) recently submitted its report to Metro Regional Council describing its analysis of the potential economic and…
Ted Wall, PEPortland, Oregon. July 8 – With federal and state permits in hand, Zidell is moving their cleanup activities into the Willamette River in the South Waterfront neighborhood of Portland, Oregon. The issuance of the Clean Water Act (CWA)…
Erik Bakkom, PEAt the May Brownfields & Land Revitalization 2011 Conference in Spokane, Washington, Maul Foster & Alongi, Inc. (MFA) will be conducting an interactive workshop on the potential adaptive reuse of a contaminated site. Based on a real…
Jim Darling