Business Community Environment

Rush applies to build triplexes in Purdy ahead of zoning change

The Purdy community may welcome 90 new units of multifamily housing, if a project based on Rush Companies’ latest development permit application goes through.

Rush submitted a short-plat application for a project it calls Purdy Interchange South to Pierce County Planning and Public Works in November. It shows 30 planned triplexes served by private roads on land next to the western boundary of Purdy Elementary School.

To make the development happen, the company is partnering with owners of two adjoining properties in the application, which covers a total of 18.64 acres.

Rush declined to comment on the project.

Comp plan changes

The company appears to be completing the Purdy Interchange South application just under the wire. Pierce County plans to downzone land in Purdy under its updated county-wide comprehensive plan.

The property, now mostly forested, lies south of Peninsula High School and slopes down from the elementary school to as far west as Purdy Drive.

The Purdy Interchange South application seeks to divide the 18.64 acres into four lots, an open space tract, and another tract for private access and utilities.

Lot 4, on the westernmost portion of the development, would provide a single-family home site. Lots 1, 2 and 3, on the eastern side, would be developable for multi-family housing or other uses.

Taken from a sewer report Rush Companies submitted to Pierce County, this image shows the 7.5 acres where Rush Companies hopes to build 30 triplexes within the overall 18.64 acre project site. It also shows a planned stormwater detention facility as well as streams and wetlands that are within the larger site. Access to the triplexes would be from 62nd Avenue, which runs east of Peninsula High School.

Rush Companies’ application comes amid a flurry of real estate activity in Purdy, triggered or accelerated by anticipated changes in the county’s comp plan. The updated plan, which the Pierce County Council passed Dec. 3, still awaits County Executive Bruce Dammeier’s signature. The county must adopt the new plan by Dec. 31 under Washington law.

Grandfathered in

By removing Purdy from the city of Gig Harbor’s urban growth area (UGA), the updated plan would downzone property in that area. Under the new plan, Rush’s holdings would likely receive rural R10 zoning, which allows a single home for every 10 acres.

But if a property owner completes a development permit application before the new comprehensive plan takes effect, its development is vested (or grandfathered in) with the land’s pre-existing zoning classification. For Rush’s parcels and those around it, that zoning is Mixed Use Dwelling (MUD), which allows up to 15 dwelling units per acre as well as some commercial and other non-residential uses.

Rush Companies has scrambled to ensure its Purdy holdings aren’t caught in the downzone.

It recently sold some 20 acres east of Peninsula High School to the Peninsula School District for $6.24 million. As part of that deal, the district has until March 31 to buy a separate 4.89 strip of land along the high school’s southern boundary for an additional $260,000.

That property plays a key role in Rush’s Purdy Interchange South plans. The strip’s western end abuts the city of Gig Harbor’s Sewer Lift Station 13, providing a key infrastructure connection.

Key utility easement

As Rush negotiated the land sale with the school district, it filed a permit application with Pierce County for Purdy Interchange North, a project that would have brought 130 homes to the same property. If the deal with the school district fell through, Rush could have pursued the residential project.

The deal didn’t fall through, so the 130-home subdivision is off the table. And as part of its purchase-and-sale agreement with the school district, Rush locked in a utilities easement running through the 4.89-acre strip.

The easement will permit Rush’s Purdy Interchange South project to access to the city of Gig Harbor’s sewer system, even if Peninsula School District winds up owning the property.

No guarantees

Even if Pierce County approves the Purdy Interchange South short plat, that is no guarantee that Rush will build the 90 units of triplex housing. The application does not lock the owners into a particular housing type or even into residential uses of the property.

“The short plat is the first step in planning and preparation for much needed multi-family attainable housing in a desirable area with existing services,” an application document states. “Preliminary verification of sewer capacity and water availability submitted with this application indicate multi-family residential is feasible.”

“If in finalizing the design and agreements necessary for those public services … [a] constraint precludes the intended multi-family use, the lots will be used for a planned business park with compatible uses served by common infrastructure,” it says.

“Provisions for potable water and fire flow are being coordinated with Washington Water from one of its water systems in the area with sufficient water rights and capacity,” it says. “An application has been made for connection to existing City of Gig Harbor public sewer at Lift Station 13.”

The red line shows the layout of the combined Purdy properties for which Rush Companies is filing a short-plat application. The Peninsula School District has until March 31, 2025 to decide if it wants to buy from Rush the 4.89 acre strip of land that separates Peninsula High School from the development site. Even if the school district buys the property, the purchase-and-sale agreement creates an easement through which Rush can obtain sewer access for the proposed development.

Other property owners

Outside the short plat application, property owners have not yet finalized some of the business arrangements underlying Purdy Interchange South. One of these details is Rush Companies’ relationship with the two other property owners contributing land to the project. In the short plat application, all three owners contribute portions of lots 1, 2 and 3, which comprise the 7.5 acres slated for intensive development.

Kent Kingman owns 4.3 acres at the center of the proposed short plat with his wife, Donna. He said he has a verbal agreement with Rush Companies to be part of the planned development, but not a written agreement.

Kingman is the owner of Minterbrook Oyster Company, a well-known, 92-year-old shellfish purveyor based at the mouth of the Key Peninsula’s Minter Creek. One of his current projects is developing the Laguna’s seafood restaurant that his company plans on Henderson Bay near the Purdy Bridge.

Kingman said that when he acquired the land for the waterfront restaurant, he also bought the 4.3 acres of uplands across Purdy Drive. He planned to use that land for a potential well and water tank to provide “fire flow,” or water used in firefighting, for the business.

Kingman said he subsequently made arrangements with Pierce County to meet the restaurant’s fire flow needs that do not involve using the 4.3 acres.

“I always planned on putting something” on the uplands property, such as housing or an office building, he said. Kingman was confident that demand would be strong in the “beautiful little community” of Purdy.

Motivated by rezone

The likely impending re-zone under the updated comp plan update diminished the probability he will be able to develop the property as he pleases. It motivated him to throw in with Rush Companies’ plans for the land, Kingman said.

“That’s why we had to move and do something relatively quickly,” he said, adding that he sees Rush’s plan to develop the site as having a “pretty good chance” of resulting in development of the property.

If the project moves forward, Rush Companies is offering the choice of either selling their land to Rush or having an ownership stake in the development, Kingman said.

He said he favors the latter option. “We like building and creating things in this area.”

Dave Morris, a real estate investor, represents his brother, Tom Morris, who owns two acres included in Rush Companies’ Purdy Interchange South short-plat application.

Morris said that he and his brother have a “gentlemen’s understanding” with Rush Companies to include their property in the project, but no written or signed contract.

Morris said he believes that moving ahead with development utilizing the city of Gig Harbor sewer connection is a better option environmentally for the site with critical areas such as wetlands and streams, compared to relying on multiple private septic systems on the property.

“If Rush is ever able to move ahead with their plans,” the Morris brothers have agreed to work with the company. In that event, they would “fold our ownership” into the development project, Dave Morris said.