Harvest Woodinville, a long-planned, oft-delayed mixed-use development, is now beginning to open to the public. It promises to dramatically reshape Woodinville and, perhaps, even Washington wine itself.

“I think it will be the center of gravity for hospitality in Woodinville,” says Marty Taucher, managing partner at Avennia, which will have a tasting room at Harvest.

A mixture of residential and commercial use

To say that the scope of the Harvest Woodinville development is ambitious would be a gross understatement. The approximately 20-acre project includes 230 apartments and 75 town homes with three more parcels available for future development. There is a sizable hotel, called The SOMM. Hotel & Spa.

Then there is The Yard, a mixture of tasting rooms, restaurants, and boutiques, with space for 30 tenants. There is also a large co-working office component. The original press release stated that Harvest would have over 100,000 square feet of leasable space.

“The most unusual thing about Woodinville is that there is not a place to go shopping that reflects the lifestyle and the taste of the people who have homes here,” says Woodinville resident Jennifer Seversen, vice president, retail services at CBRE, Harvest’s leasing agent. Harvest aims to change that.

Backen & Gillam Architecture, based out of St. Helena, California, was responsible for the vision. The company concepted the size, shape, design, and basic layout for the buildings. Jensen Design Architecture, based out of Woodinville, Washington, took things from there.

“This is such a unique blend of architecture that came out of the Napa Valley along with a Pacific Northwest craftsman style,” Seversen says. “It really is quite stunning.”

The property is surrounded by an agricultural area, adding to its visual appeal. It is a block – a very long block – away from Chateau Ste. Michelle, the first winery to plant its flag in Woodinville 50 years ago this year. The town is now home to 100+ wineries and tasting rooms.

Seversen has thoughtfully filled The Yard with restaurants, tasting rooms, and other businesses. The point of consistency is the Washington vibe.

“Most shopping centers are national chain tenants. We don’t we don’t have any of those at Harvest,” Seversen says. “With the exception of one tenant, all of our retailers are from Washington.”

The food offerings at Harvest and The Yard will be varied. Cactus Restaurant, which has locations in Seattle and Kirkland, is one of the anchor restaurant tenants.

“As a resident, we might not decide where we’re going to go for dinner until we get there,” Seversen says. “Do we feel like Mexican or do we feel like Vietnamese? Do we feel like a burger? There are going to be so many choices.” 

The tasting rooms

In addition to restaurants and boutique stores, The Yard will feature numerous tasting rooms. These will be in a series of separate buildings, surrounded by an open space.

“We’ve been pretty strong believers in this project for a long time,” Avennia’s Taucher says. Avennia’s tasting room at The Yard is twice as large as its existing Woodinville space. There are two outdoor patios as well as a club room. The winery worked with Boxwood on the design.

“I’m calling it an elevated experience, where we’ll have glass pours, we’ll have food service, and we’ll have a great way for people to come and stay and hang out and enjoy The Yard,” Taucher says. The winery is planning a grand opening for September.

“We’re thinking it’s going to be a big draw,” Taucher says of Harvest.

Walla Walla Vintners is another one of the winery tenants. This is the winery’s first tasting room outside of Walla Walla Valley.

“It just opens up a plethora of opportunity to engage those who have been loyal for a long time, as well as start to engage a new audience,” says Vintners president Scott Haladay.

The Walla Walla Vintners tasting room will be 1,900 square feet with ample outdoor space. Haladay hopes to have the location open by the end of the year or shortly thereafter.

“I think the concept is great. The mixed use is great. Parking’s great. The open feel is exceptional. So I think all the ingredients are there for success.”

Grosgrain Vineyards is another tenant. It will be among the first to open, with a preview event slated for August 22^nd.

“We’ve been wanting to open a space on the west side to get a little closer to our audience there,” says Matt Austin, Grosgrain’s owner and winemaker. “When we heard about Harvest and the plans for it, it just really got us excited.”

The Grosgrain space is approximately 1,300 square feet. It will feature Kelly Austin’s design aesthetic, with assistance from Graypants. There is a large outdoor patio that wraps around the tasting room. Grosgrain will offer glass pours and bottle service.

“We really love the location,” Austin says. “We’re right on the main courtyard, so that’s really, I think, the most lively part of the development. It should be a pretty busy environment that’s going to have a lot of energy to it, which is something that we really value.”

Other announced tasting rooms include Cascade Cliffs, Dossier, Elk Haven, Gård Estate Wine, Matthews, Lachini Vineyards, and Zirckle-Rousch. (See a complete list of other announced tenants.)

The SOMM. Hotel & Spa

The SOMM. Hotel & Spa, meanwhile, boasts 165 guest rooms and a 4,200-square foot spa. The hotel is part of the Marriott Autograph Collection, managed by Columbia Hospitality in Seattle. The SOMM. opened last fall.

“I’ve been in the hotel business for 42 years, and this is my fifth opening,” says general manager John Evans. “This is a special hotel. It really is.”

Sixteenfifty Creative Intelligence is responsible for the design. Not surprisingly, the hotel has a wine theme from the moment guests enter and throughout the building. The registration area, for example, has a wall of 1,700 wine bottle punts, each individually illuminated.

“It is upper upscale, but in a wine theme,” Evans says of the hotel. “By that I mean it’s not ostentatious. It is tastefully done, from the reclaimed woods to the hard rock surfaces to a little bit of whimsy.” Such whimsy can be found in the Sommsquatch, an image of sasquatch holding a glass of wine and a bottle.

The SOMM. has two restaurants. Bin 47 is the hotel’s top-end restaurant. Maximilian Petty, a three-time semi-finalist for Rising Chef of the Year from the James Beard Awards, is executive chef. The second restaurant is The Shed. It is a casual restaurant with a rooftop setting. The design has callouts to the local logging, farming, and wine communities. The Shed also has an outdoor area with four fireplaces that are used year-round.

“The Shed is far exceeding our initial projections and expectations,” says Evans, noting that reservations are currently recommended weeks in advance. Both restaurants, of course, have Northwest-focused wine lists.

The SOMM. has other wine-centric amenities. There is a Wine Wednesday, where a local wine winery comes to tell their story and share their wines. There is also a wine blending seminar held twice each day. The session is complimentary for hotel guests and ticketed to non-guests.

“It has been our biggest guest satisfier from day one,” Evans says. “It’s a differentiator for us.”

The SOMM. also has over 10,000-square feet of banquet and event space. Finally, there is a large outdoor plaza.

“I’d go so far as to say it’s probably the hottest hotel in Washington State right now,” Evans says.

A project long in the making 

Harvest Woodinville has gone through multiple iterations. The project had its earliest visions back in the mid-aughts and was originally called Woodinville Wine Village.

The Great Recession stalled and ultimately ended that project. Its next iteration was named Farmstead. Finally, it was rebranded Harvest Woodinville.

There have been ownership changes and other intrigue along the way. Harvest Woodinville is, quite simply, a project that long seemed as if it might never happen. Until it did.

Seversen joined the team in February, 2021. The timing was difficult to say the least. Due to the pandemic, construction halted, as it did with most large commercial projects. A number of tenants with options to terminate their leases did so.

“When COVID hit, everybody just stopped working on it,” Seversen says. Once work restarted, there were inevitable construction delays.

“It’s been a long process,” Austin says. “It’s good to finally have it come to fruition.”

“It’s been frustrating that it’s taken this long,” agrees Taucher. “We had anticipated originally being open last summer. But it’s not an insubstantial investment to make this thing all come together. You’ve got to tip your hat to the people who had the vision and the resilience.”

Commercial tenants at Harvest will open on a rolling basis starting in early September. There is signage of what business will be occupying each space and when they will open.

Redefining Woodinville

Woodinville has long been full of contradictions and an unusual experience for wine tourists. The town is far from eastern Washington’s vineyards. Tasting rooms have been in a mixture of warehouses, strip malls, and chateaus.

Additionally, there has been a shortage of restaurants, hotels, and other amenities that one would expect for a wine region of its size. As Seversen noted, there’s been a lack of amenities for local residents too. Parking has been a significant problem in certain areas. (Harvest has three levels of underground parking.)

Harvest Woodinville has the potential to address almost all of these issues. The development is sure to reshape Woodinville and give it a clearer cultural center. Harvest also promises to expose many more people to Washington wine, including locals and out-of-towners. Overall, the effects of Harvest Woodinville on the region and on Washington wine will be profound.

“I think it’s going to have a very strong regional draw,” Seversen says. “I think we will also become a tourist destination. I think there are going to be people in places like Dallas, Chicago, and Phoenix who have gone to Napa and Sonoma who will want to come check this out.”

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