By Zoe Deal One day in March 2018, Mike Mulder was sitting in a Woods Coffee shop, cushioned on both sides by close friends. The conversation turned to real estate development, and in unison, his friends exclaimed: “Mike, you have to go to Blaine!”
By that point, Mulder had lived in and around Whatcom County a long time and thought he knew the area like the back of his hand. He replied, “Why would I ever go to Blaine?”
As he later drove out of the parking lot, something shifted. He suddenly found himself cruising north on I-5 towards Blaine.
Two weeks later, Mulder made his first purchase in Blaine: the former home of Vista Pizza on the northern end of Peace Portal Drive.
A lifelong singer-songwriter, Mulder spent many years working for his father Gene, a contractor. One of their projects in Whatcom County was Ferndale’s Grandview Industrial Park. After Gene’s death in 2015, Mulder began looking for a project of his own.
The Vista Pizza building fit the bill perfectly. “I bought it without even knowing what I was going to do,” Mulder said. “One thing led to another, and I kept buying.”
Mulder now owns five properties along Peace Portal Drive through his business Nimbus Properties, including the former Goff building and the two units north of it.
Meanwhile, Mulder’s wife Deanna has grown a thriving thrift boutique named Wild Bird Treasure Nest in the Vista Pizza building.
“The thrift store has done really well. The public support was strong, so we had to double our size,” Mulder said.
Now open in a larger home in the Goff building, which Mulder is outfitting with a new facade and canopy with diffused light. Once Wild Bird has moved, Mulder will get started on his plans to develop the Vista Pizza property.
Mulder plans to build a high-rise with condominiums at the former Vista Pizza site sometime in the future, though until then, Wild Bird will be replaced by a bakery with a heated patio out back.
“It’ll be fresh baked goods, fresh cinnamon rolls that you can smell from the border,” Mulder said. “This is a bakery that will be legendary in the county.”
He’ll also start construction on Goff’s neighboring building – a grocery store that he plans to return to its former glory. An entryway with public restrooms will eventually run from Peace Portal Drive to a rear parking lot and the grocery store’s entrance.
Other ideas that Mulder is brewing include a tap room and a wood-fired pizza restaurant to enhance nightlife in Blaine. There is even more Mulder said he can’t discuss, at least for now. He’s bursting with ideas.
“We are going to start to build out our dream, and it’s going to be absolutely fantastic. We’ve got a great city to work with,” Mulder said.
Each of Mulder’s ventures will be leased to people who have experience. The grocery store will go to an experienced grocer, and the pizza place to a restaurateur.
“What I dream about for Blaine is tons of people coming to the downtown core and spending money and staying for hours, because it’s so fun,” Mulder said.
Mulder predicts that Blaine is on the precipice of something big. He feels that with new restaurants and businesses, along with a collection of interested investors and developers, the city is in store for great change.
“Everyone feels that we’re on the cusp of a boom,” said Mulder. “We anticipate that after long last Blaine is going to slowly explode.”
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