Business Community Government Transportation

Could new developments crash Canterwood Boulevard’s roundabout?

Interest in residential development projects is booming along Canterwood Boulevard and in northern Gig Harbor. The city and many residents are concerned this will make the surrounding road system go bust.

The roundabout at Canterwood Boulevard’s south end is close to reaching capacity, the city acknowledges. That intersection sorts traffic from Canterwood as well as from Borgen Boulevard, Burnham Drive and Highway 16.

In late February, Gig Harbor officials commissioned a traffic study to come up with ideas to preempt a possible “failure in operations” at the intersection due to new development nearby.

The city expects to have the study, now underway by consultants David Evans and Associates, by Friday, April 24. City staff will present its findings and recommendations at a public City Council study session on Thursday, April 30. The study will be in the agenda packet for that meeting.

Development proposed on and near Canterwood Boulevard, from north to south: Emblem Gig Harbor on Goodnough Drive, 230 to 240 apartments; Trailside on Canterwood Boulevard, 120 units; Parr Plat, eight single-family homes; Swede Hill LLC property, site of both commercial and multifamily proposals; Gig Harbor North Annex, 108 apartments plus medical offices. Map by Tony De Paul, GIS specialist, Pierce County
Assessor-Treasurer.

Neighbors concerned about traffic

Congestion in the Canterwood Boulevard roundabout and on surrounding roadways is a sensitive issue. Last fall, when Rush Companies’ proposed Trailside (120 apartments) and Gig Harbor North Annex (108 units plus medical offices) became widely known, more than 70 comments from nearby residents poured into the city’s inbox.

Nearly all opposed the developments or demanded improvement in the area’s traffic infrastructure before the projects move forward.

“The roundabout is a nightmare at times,” wrote Canterwood resident Ed LaFreniere. “I encourage city development, planning and engineering officials to work with the county in ensuring that upgrades to the infrastructure are instituted to protect us all. As is, the roads are often packed and hazardous.”

Other comments decried speeding vehicles on Canterwood Boulevard and traffic backed up on Highway 16 and Borgen Boulevard.

But strong currents propel multifamily development in the Gig Harbor North area.

Vehicles wait to enter the roundabout on Borgen Boulevard near the exit to westbound Highway 16 in 2022. Vince Dice

Multifamily housing goals

First is market demand. Gig Harbor remains a popular place to live, and much of its unbuilt land lies north of the Canterwood Boulevard roundabout.

Second, the city’s efforts to attract more multifamily housing appear to be working. The 2024 Gig Harbor Comprehensive Plan, adopted in 2025, aims to encourage more dense residential development, in part to comply with state law calling for more low- and moderate-income housing.

One change in the comp plan meant to help achieve this goal is an upzone that quintuples the number of dwelling units allowed per acre on land zoned B-2 (commercial/business).

One of the largest — possibly the largest — unbuilt properties in Gig Harbor with B-2 zoning is a roughly triangular, 7.92-acre parcel wedged between Highway 16 and Purdy Drive/Highway 302 on the south side of Goodnough Drive.

There, real estate developer Quarterra — a subsidiary of Lennar Multifamily Communities — hopes to build Emblem Gig Harbor. The development would have as many as 240 new apartments in six buildings, plus an outdoor pool and other amenities.

The Emblem Gig Harbor site’s northern border on Goodnough Drive is also the city’s northern border. (Fun fact: this site is in Gig Harbor but can only be reached by traveling outside the city, making it what geographers call a pene-exclave.)

Emblem Gig Harbor

The land lies across the freeway from Canterwood Boulevard. It’s within city limits, but unincorporated Purdy is just across Goodnough to the north.

The route to shopping, jobs and recreation in Gig Harbor North transits the Canterwood/Borgen/Burnham/16 roundabout. Many other Emblem residents, heading south to Tacoma or other parts of Gig Harbor, would hop on Highway 16.

Emblem’s current status is about as preliminary as a development project can get. Quarterra doesn’t even own the land yet.

Traffic backs up on Borgen Boulevard in 2022. Vince Dice

It recently paid the city $1,898.22 to host a pre-application conference on April 1. At the meeting, city officials answered questions on land use, environmental requirements, sewer availability, fire code and other aspects of building at the site.

It is not clear whether Quarterra liked what it heard at the meeting enough to continue the project. A representative did not respond to a request for comment.

Proposed developments

The city’s “task order” for the new traffic study instructs David Evans and Associates to calculate current traffic levels at the Canterwood Boulevard roundabout and at two other nearby intersections. The consultants will then factor in the increase in vehicles that four proposed developments could unleash:

Trailside. This development in unincorporated Pierce County has gained some of its required approvals. However, Rush is appealing the county’s requirement that it build sidewalks and other improvements along its Canterwood Boulevard frontage.

Gig Harbor North Annex. Rush in September 2025 applied to subdivide its land at 11303 to 11311 Canterwood Blvd. Its filings note that its plans for the site, including five buildings with 108 apartments, are consistent with the increased housing density allowed under the new comp plan. Another part of the almost 13-acre site is “being considered for medical office or senior living” or possibly more apartments.

Site of Rush’s proposed Gig Harbor North Annex project. Gig Harbor’s traffic study seeks to know whether it and other projects will cause a “failure in operations” at the nearby roundabout.

Documents in Gig Harbor’s permits portal state that the city is now “[w]aiting for additional information” from Rush on the project.

Gig Harbor Vista/Canterwood Commercial Center. Swede Hill LLC owns a forested, hilly 7.6-acre parcel, bounded by Canterwood Boulevard to the east and Highway 16 to the west. The LLC is controlled by brothers John and Luke Xitco, who also own restaurants and downtown Gig Harbor real estate.

Since at least 2018, Swede Hill LLC pursued development of Canterwood Commercial Center, with four commercial buildings, on the site. The city’s task order to its traffic consultants refers to this project as “expired.”

One project that won’t happen

In December 2025, Vista Residential Partners, an Atlanta-based multifamily development company, met with city officials to discuss creating Gig Harbor Vista Apartments there, with four buildings containing 156 units. The land is zoned B-2 and the developer said its project “intends to utilize” the upzone that is included in the new comprehensive plan.

Near the end of that meeting, Aaron Hulst, Gig Harbor’s city engineer, told the Vista Residential Partners team, “there’s a lot of development occurring in this area.”

“I don’t know how familiar you are with the area, but the large roundabout to where I’d assume … 95 percent of your traffic would feed to, is getting close to capacity.”

“I’d be remiss if I didn’t mention that.”

When contacted this month, a Vista Residential Partners representative said that the company is no longer pursuing the project, for reasons unrelated to traffic.

‘Failure in operations’

The city’s task order to David Evans and Associates does not say what a “failure in operations” at the Canterwood Boulevard roundabout would look like.

But officials have defined intersection failure as an average traffic delay that exceeds a predefined threshold.  In its Connect the Gig All Modes Transportation Plan, the city sets 55 seconds as the maximum acceptable delay at roundabouts.

If the consultants’ traffic flow modeling detects future failure at the roundabout, the task order instructs them to “identify up to two mitigation strategies.”

“The first strategy is to construct a metered traffic signal on the west approach to the roundabout to provide gaps for vehicles exiting northbound SR 16.”

The second mitigation strategy “will be determined based on the specific failure(s) identified” in the modeling. The mitigations “are intended to be lower-cost, shorter-term and more immediately constructable.”

More possible traffic sources

Solutions will “not include options such as full interchange reconstructions or conversion from a roundabout” to a different type of intersection, according to the city’s order.

The study is not exhaustive in identifying possible new traffic sources. Just south of Trailside, developers plan eight single-family homes on the 5.84-acre Parr Plat. Rush’s Burnham Heights, on the other side of Highway 16, will add 56 houses. East of the Burnham Drive roundabout, expansion of the Heron’s Key retirement community over the next year will add 54 new independent living units, each with a parking space.

The study also omits Emblem Gig Harbor on Goodnough Drive, where developer Quarterra envisions as many as 240 new apartments.