Sleepy town unsure about becoming bedroom community

By REBEKAH DENN
SEATTLE POST-INTELLIGENCER REPORTER

Despite -- or for some, due to -- its lack of freeway access, Granite Falls is fast becoming a bedroom community for Boeing in Everett, 17 miles of two-lane highways to the west, as well as Hewlett-Packard in the Lake Stevens area and other industries. Its population has roughly doubled in a decade.

The newcomers have helped reverse the dependence on timber and the economic slumps that made the town one of the poorest in Snohomish County in the early 1980s. But merchants and residents are now meeting to discuss how to avoid the pitfalls plaguing other growing bedroom communities: how to continue revitalizing Granite Falls without ruining it.

Already, traffic is becoming "a nightmare," says Delaine Lewis, who has worked at the Timberline Cafe since it opened under a different name in 1969. "I don't know how crazy I am about all the new housing," she says.

The first fast-food restaurant in Granite Falls, a McDonald's, recently opened near the entrance to town and has fueled some concern.

"I think if something isn't done pretty soon, we'll have Wendy's and Burger King and everyone else lining the streets as you're coming in, and I would hate to see that," says Trish Osgood, president of the chamber of commerce.