Mike Martin is a happy man.

"I'm thrilled to be here," the new Burien city manager said in a recent interview. "I'm so excited about what's going on in this community that I could do handsprings."

It felt "like the table is set" when he arrived. "There's so much that's going on here, so much thoughtful planning and visioning.

"What you folks have done in 13 years is phenomenal," he declared. "Things older cities wouldn't think about doing. That's a real testament to the community."

Martin, who is selling his house and moving to Burien, believes he needs "to live here and shop here and eat here ... to be effective in my job.... I am anxious to become part of the community."

Burien's Town Square project will have impacts locally that go "far beyond the economic impacts," Martin predicted.

One is community identity. "We saw this happen in Kent with the Kent Station project," he said.

"Kent was already there, but people wanted a place to shop. They wanted restaurants and entertainment. They wanted a theater. This project kind of brought it all together."

Martin was chief administrative officer of Kent from 2000 to 2005.

Prior to that, he served for seven years in the San Francisco mayor's office during the Frank Jordan and Willie Brown administrations-first as a Senior Policy Analyst and later as the budget manager responsible for developing and balancing the city's budget.

He also directed a $167 million rebuild of San Francisco's entire 911 system and created a new Emergency Communications Department.

Martin succeeds former City Manage Gary Long, who resigned after the 2005 municipal elections. Assistant City Manager David Cline served as acting city manager in 2006.

Town Square will have "peripheral ... financial impacts" on real estate in the city and the way Burien's downtown core develops beyond the project site, Martin continued.

"I see a hotel in our near future ... a piece of 'municipal furniture' that I want to have and think the community wants to have."

But while Town Square "is a big brick" in the wall of economic vitality for Burien, "there needs to be other work done in other places," he said.

"Nurturing economic vitality is something you have to do day in and day out, year after year, and it doesn't stop with a single project."

Martin pointed to the First Avenue South Improvement Project as an example.

"The majority of sales tax in city is generated along First Avenue, so there's no question that it has to be attended to.... Thirty thousand cars a day travel along First Avenue. That makes it first and foremost among our pieces of infrastructure."

He also anticipates "a very close working relationship" with the Port of Seattle.

Already he has met with Mark Reis, the director of Sea-Tac International Airport. The Port operates the airport.

With the end of the fight over the third runway, the airport "can be a partner with us," Martin noted. "There are ways they can be very helpful to the city and ways we can be helpful to them."

This new alliance promises to stimulate business growth in Burien's 162-acre Northeast Redevelopment Area north of the third runway, he said.

"They're going to start flying commercial jets [from the third runway] in just about a year, and it's time we started doing something with that land that's useful to the Port and useful to the city."

Martin said while light industrial activity would take "advantage of our proximity to the airport ... I don't rule out retail, big-box retail, and [the northeast area] would be a good place to put it, right off the highway."

Calling the northeast area "a tremendous asset to the community," he cautioned, "We don't want to just plop stuff down. We need to be careful....

"[We] need to be mindful that people are living in that area right now and they need to be thought of."

Martin expects movement toward new business development in the Northeast Redevelopment Area to begin "in the near future."

New development, both downtown and in other areas of Burien, also poses a challenge, he observed.

"The community is focused on remaining a community with a small-town feel. We need a good economic base," Martin said. "Finding a way to make those two things work together is the trick."

Would annexation of the North Highline unincorporated area alter the small-town feel?

"I've heard both sides of argument and think the community is pretty well split on that one," he said. "There are people who believe that North Highline is historically an extension of the Burien community, and other people who make the opposite argument.

"The question of annexation relies on couple of issues," Martin noted. "One is clearly financial. The other is whether it is rightfully part of our community.

"I'd like to tell you that I have a strong answer for either of those [but] I don't."

Martin, 54, was a management analyst at the city of Fresno, Calif., before going to San Francisco position.

He started as a reporter with newspapers in Port Townsend, Port Angeles and Redding, Calif.-and with the Washington Post and the international edition of Newsweek in China.

"I became interested in local government covering it as a reporter," Martin said. "I went back to school and then started working in local government."

He also studied Chinese language and history at the Beijing Language Institute in China.