New housing in Shelton

Two housing developments are underway in the City of Shelton.

Olympic Heights will feature 199 single-family dwelling units on 40 acres at the east end of Alpine Way east of Olympic College Shelton, south of Manke’s Alpine View subdivision and north of the Terrace Heights subdivision. The land is part of 400 acres recently annexed into the city. The developer is CES Northwest Inc.

The Olympic Heights development has entered the permitting process, City Manager Mark Ziegler told the Journal.

The residential lots will range from 4,500 square feet (0.10 of an acre) to 6,100 square feet (0.14 of an acre). The development will feature 2.5 acres of recreation and open space.

At a public hearing on the project last June, residents in the area expressed concerns about increased traffic on Peacock Hill Lane and Alpine Way. The city will allow for the occupancy of up to 30 single-family houses on the site prior to a new traffic signal being fully operational at the intersection of Shelton Springs Road/Alpine Way/North 13th Street. On June 3, hearing examiner Charlotte Archer approved the preliminary plat for the development.

Coffee Creek Estates will be built in phases and feature 365 lots on almost 98 acres southwest of Eaglewood Way in the Angleside neighborhood. The developer is Equity Assets International based in Auburn.

The size of the lots will range from 4,500 to 11,934 square feet, with most of the lots 4,500, Rob Terhune with Equity Assets International wrote to the Journal in response to questions. Home construction is expected to begin the summer of 2026, he wrote.

That development has been on the burner for about a year and a half, Ziegler said. The developer is completing the water modeling for fire flow, storage capacity and drinking water, he said.

“We have all the terms and conditions agreed to with the city and they are about to issue SEPA and then to a hearing probably six to eight weeks out from now,” Terhune wrote.

Terhune added, “The site is currently under contract with LGI Homes, they are contracting the horizontal construction themselves. LGI is a top Nationwide Home Builder out of Texas publicly traded.”

Both the City of Shelton and Mason County are working on new comprehensive plans. The group Mason

County Climate Change last month gave presentations on affordable housing to the League of Women Voters of Mason County, and at a study session, the Shelton City Council.

Quoting the Department of Commerce, Mason County Climate Justice reports Mason County needs an additional 7,848 housing units by 2044, an average of 327 per year. That’s a 128.4% increase in the rate of current production.

The median home prices in Mason County more than doubled from 2016 to 2023, from less than $200,000 to $400,000, according to the Washington Center for Real Estate Research at the University of Washington. The trajectory was almost identical in surrounding counties of Grays Harbor, Kitsap, Thurston and Jefferson.