What may be the single largest retail/residential development ever in the Highline area - SSI Pacific Place in Des Moines - is now in the design stage.

"It is one of the greatest projects that the city has ever been involved in," Mayor Bob Sheckler said last week.

Noting the development will revitalize the Pacific Ridge area along Pacific Highway South (Highline 99), Sheckler added, "It will help reduce crime. It will create jobs and generate revenue. It will increase affordable housing [for seniors]."

Located east of Pacific Highway just south of South 216th Street, Pacific Place will include an 18-floor, 320-room hotel with amenities and 155,00 square feet of office and retail space, 89 town homes, 1,098 residential units and 200 senior housing units.

The 11-acre complex will transform "a blighted area" - long a magnet for gangs, drug dealing and other criminal activity - "into a vibrant setting where people can live and work," said Matthew Chan of Normandy Park, president of Sunway Services Inc.

Sunway Services, a principal member of the development group behind Pacific Place, is a real estate investment advisory company specializing in acquisition and management of income properties.

Chan said construction of the first phase of the nine-building project likely will begin in late 2009. Development "based on market demand" will continue in stages until the project is completed over an estimated 10-year period.

"In all likelihood the name 'Pacific Place' will change," he noted. "This is a work in progress."

But the vision for Pacific Ridge that Chan, Sunway Services and Rushforth Taylor Construction, also a member of the development group, share with Des Moines will remain unchanged.

The complex will be a view-oriented urban neighborhood that "supports the vision of the city all the way," Chan declared.

"We want to have a contribution to society," he told the Des Moines City Council members in November before they approved the public/private development agreement.

The agreement allows an expedited permitting process and a transportation mitigation plan to address potential future traffic impacts.

Chan recalled last week that at the public hearing on the project, response was "all positive ... we are encouraged by community support."

Des Moines lawmakers adopted in 2001 a master plan for long-range redevelopment of the Pacific Ridge area following a lengthy planning process.

"But not until the current council came on board did the city begin to implement this plan," Sheckler said.

While Pacific Place varies from the original plan for that area, it will achieve the original goal of revitalizing this stretch of Pacific Highway South, he continued.

"The original plan was good as far as its insight, but there was no implementation," Sheckler said. "Nobody was doing anything. Then we got a city council that actively pursued this vision.

"A lot of credit is due to this city council for taking the plan, making subtle modifications and actively implementing it. This council took the plan off the shelf ... and made it happen."

Pacific Place, described by Chan as "an affordable project for the masses," will include both high-density and low-density housing units.

And he expects the hotel planned for the corner of Pacific Highway and South 220th Street to be a four-star facility.

Chan recently placed the eventual value of Pacific Place at more than $400 million.