Cost of Development
How does the cost of building in Kirkland compare? Development fees affect the upfront cost of investing in a new space. Explore how Kirkland’s building permit and impact fees compare with its peer cities.
When a developer is deciding where to build, city fees are one of the cost considerations. This section looks at the cost of development for Kirkland and four peer cities: Bellevue, Bothell, Issaquah, and Redmond. This page analyzes the two largest and most visible categories of development costs: building permit fees and impact fees.
This analysis is intended to show how these fees work and how Kirkland compares with nearby cities, rather than estimate the total fees for a specific project. Actual development fees vary based on project characteristics like exact valuation, size, use, trip generation, utility meter sizes, review hours, and required land use approvals.
What Does This Analysis Mean for Kirkland?
- Building permit fees are a small share of overall construction costs, and differences among peer cities are relatively modest. For a $90 million project, the difference between the highest and lowest cost cities is about $170,000, and Kirkland becomes relatively more competitive for larger projects because it has the lowest top-tier permit rate.
- Kirkland’s commercial impact fees are comparatively low. Kirkland has the lowest impact fees among the five cities for office development and is substantially lower for retail, driven primarily by its lower transportation impact fee.
- Kirkland’s multifamily impact fees are comparatively high against peer cities because of its transportation and parks charges.
- Lower impact fees do not necessarily mean a city has lower costs associated with growth. Cities that do not levy certain impact fees must fund those capital needs through other revenue sources, so impact fee comparisons partly reflect differences in how cities choose to allocate the cost of growth.
Permit Fees
Building permit fees are cost-recovery fees. State law and the City’s own fee policy tie them to the City’s actual cost of plan review and inspection. The fee is calculated on construction valuation using a tiered schedule: a base amount for the first portion of value, plus a rate per additional $1,000. Because the schedule is tiered, the effective rate falls as projects get larger. Revenue goes to the general fund and supports the staff who do the work. If the fee is set too low, the general public subsidizes review of private projects. If it is set too high, the City is effectively taxing construction, which state law restricts.
In the graph below, each line uses the city’s top valuation tier, extended across the whole range. It is exact above each city’s top threshold ($50M for Kirkland, $5M for Bellevue, $1M for Bothell, Issaquah, and Redmond), beginning at the highest starting valuation across all cities ($50M). Figures are permit fees only and exclude plan review, which most cities charge as a percentage of the permit fee.
TipWhat to notice
First, the spread between cities is narrower than the debate suggests: at $90M in valuation, the difference between the lowest and highest of these five cities is about $170,000, on a project whose hard costs are $90M. The permit fee is roughly one half of one percent of construction cost. Second, permit fee schedules are tiered so the per-$1,000 rate drops as valuation rises; Kirkland’s top-tier rate ($5.14 per $1,000 above $50M) is the lowest of the five, which means Kirkland becomes relatively more competitive as projects get larger.
Impact Fees
Impact fees are authorized under the Growth Management Act (RCW 82.02.050–.110). They are one-time charges on new development to fund a proportionate share of the public capital facilities needed to serve that development: streets and intersections, parks and trails, fire stations and apparatus, and schools. They are calculated on a measure of demand, not on cost: square feet of gross floor area for commercial uses and dwelling units for residential. The rates come from adopted capital plans and rate studies, and the revenue is restricted; it can only be spent on the capital projects identified in those plans, within a set period. Impact fees are not a fee for service, and reducing them does not reduce the City’s obligation to build the facilities. It shifts the cost from new development to existing taxpayers, or delays the project.
The table below outlines the impact fee schedules for each peer city based on office, multifamily, and retail development. Office and retail development fees are per gross floor area (square feet), while multifamily impact fees are per unit. School impact fees (collected for the Lake Washington School District on residential units in Kirkland and Redmond) are excluded here but are a meaningful share of a multifamily project’s total.
| Kirkland | Bellevue | Bothell | Issaquah | Redmond | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Transportation | $8.70 | $9.89 | $15.26 | $13.18 | $11.91 |
| Parks | $0.00 | $0.00 | $1.09 | $1.17 | $1.84 |
| Fire | $0.11 | $0.00 | $0.29 | $0.83 | $0.21 |
| Total | $8.81 | $9.89 | $16.64 | $15.18 | $13.96 |
| Kirkland | Bellevue | Bothell | Issaquah | Redmond | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Transportation | $4,510 | $3,110 | $5,470 | $4,430 | $3,155 |
| Parks | $5,180 | $0 | $4,010 | $4,660 | $4,706 |
| Fire | $300 | $0 | $459 | $1,650 | $251 |
| Total | $9,990 | $3,110 | $9,938 | $10,740 | $8,112 |
| Kirkland | Bellevue | Bothell | Issaquah | Redmond | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Transportation | $8.32 | $28.76 | $28.72 | $35.76 | $30.33 |
| Parks | $0.00 | $0.00 | $1.09 | $0.59 | $0.81 |
| Fire | $1.34 | $0.00 | $0.87 | $2.30 | $0.24 |
| Total | $9.66 | $28.76 | $30.68 | $38.65 | $31.39 |
TipWhat to notice
Kirkland is the lowest of these five cities for office and dramatically the lowest for retail, largely because its transportation rate for retail ($8.32 per square foot) is roughly a quarter of what peer cities charge. On the other hand, Kirkland is near the top for multifamily with a high parks and transportation impact fee. It is useful to note that Bellevue looks low across the board because it has chosen not to levy parks or fire impact fees; it funds those facilities through other means. A comparison of impact fees alone will always favor a city that funds growth facilities from its general budget rather than through impact fees.
Appendix: Permit Fee Schedule
| City | Base fee | Starts At | Plus, per additional $1,000 |
|---|---|---|---|
| Kirkland | $289,639 | $50,000,000 | $5.14 |
| Bellevue | $37,075 | $5,000,000 | $5.63 |
| Bothell | $8,540 | $1,000,000 | $7.00 |
| Issaquah | $7,799 | $1,000,000 | $5.39 |
| Redmond | $11,198 | $1,000,000 | $7.29 |
Sources: Building permit fee schedules and impact fee schedules adopted by the cities of Bellevue, Bothell, Issaquah, Kirkland, and Redmond, effective 2026 (Bellevue Ord. 6879 and Ord. 6888; Bothell 2026 Building Permit Fees and 2026 Impact Fees; Issaquah Building Permit Fee Chart, Nov. 2025, and Impact and Mitigation Fee Schedule; Kirkland Building Services Fee Schedule and Jan–Jun 2026 Impact Fee Schedule; Redmond Commercial and Multi-Family Building Permit Fees, eff. Feb. 1, 2026, and 2026 Impact Fees Schedule, Ord. 3240).
Compiled by ECOnorthwest for the Kirkland Economic Competitiveness Study, September 2026.