Innovation Realty Partners, LLC has secured $30 million in financing from The Benaroya Company to facilitate its continued assemblage of land located within the Sammamish Town Center district in Sammamish.

Innovation Realty currently owns or controls approximately 77 acres within the Town Center. The company is working with the city of Sammamish and the community to implement the Town Center plan the city adopted in 2008.

The Town Center is envisioned as a gathering place for social interaction, with well-designed mixed-use development, cultural and recreational opportunities. The transit-oriented lifestyle center will include long overdue retail and commercial space, a variety of housing choices, parks and open space, and new roads and other infrastructure rom regional storm water management, regional parking solutions, pedestrian-friendly street networks and other low-impact development techniques.

“The aggregation of more than 77-acres of adjacent properties enables us to create a world-class Town Center that the people of Sammamish deserve,” said Matthew Samwick, operating manager of Innovation Realty Partners, in a press release. “We’ve hired the most talented team members from the Northwest and throughout the country to implement best practices across the board and to create an enduring design and memorable public realm.”

“We are thrilled to play a role in the exciting new Sammamish Town Center project,” Larry Benaroya of The Benaroya Company added. “It will be one of the premier planned communities in the Pacific Northwest located in one of the best markets in the United States.”

Innovation Realty is working on its master plan for a phased Town Center development. In addition to providing a variety of retail and housing opportunities, the master plan will include innovative, site sensitive designs to protect surrounding natural areas and incorporate significant new open spaces to connect the Town Center to the existing trails and recreational opportunities in the Sammamish Commons.

“The Sammamish Chamber has been a longtime supporter of the Town Center because it will bring vital goods and services to our city and provide options for people who are currently forced to shop in Issaquah, Redmond or Bellevue,” said Deborah Sogge, executive director of the Sammamish Chamber of Commerce.

The Town Center will bring much-needed services and retail to Sammamish and absorb a significant portion of the city’s anticipated residential and commercial growth while minimizing impacts to established neighborhoods.

“Not only will the Town Center keep tax dollars in Sammamish, it will also improve traffic and create synergies between new and existing businesses,” Sogge said.

Highly sought after for the quality of its schools, natural beauty and proximity to Microsoft and other employers, the population in Sammamish is growing rapidly, however access to retail in the area is limited. The average and median household incomes are nearly double that of the Seattle-Tacoma-Bellevue Metropolitan Statistical Area.

The Sammamish Town Center district is roughly bounded on the north by East Main Street, on the south by Southeast 8th Street, on the east by 233rd Avenue and on the west by 222nd Street. The area also includes the 30-acre Sammamish Commons that is home to City Hall, Sammamish Community and Aquatic Center, Library and park.

The city has begun upgrading its infrastructure to accommodate the Town Center and make the mixed use commercial and high-density residential development possible. Major improvements are underway to SE 4th Street, the backbone of the Town Center Plan, which will increase capacity through the installation of two-way left turn lanes, separated sidewalks and bike facilities on both sides of the street. These capacity and non-motorized improvements connect with and extend existing improvements located along 228th Avenue Southeast, the city’s principal arterial roadway.

Innovation Realty spent the past two years aggregating land and is now the largest property owner within the Town Center district. TRF Pacific recently completed the Village at Sammamish, which includes Metropolitan Market, restaurants, general retail, office and medical and Sky Sammamish, a mixed-use apartment building. Two other apartment projects have also been built within the Town Center by other developers.

The Innovation Realty Partners project team includes Shook Kelley Architects, an architecture and planning firm that has designed some of the most successful town centers in the U.S., engineering firm Coughlin Porter Lundeen and land use attorneys, Hillis, Clark, Martin and Peterson.