The Redmond Costco Moves Forward (Updated 9/9/09)

Update 3 (9/9/09):  An article over at the Redmond Reporter about a recent public Q&A session with Redmond mayor John Marchione contains the following information about this project:

One resident asked about the plans of Costco coming to Redmond. Marchione confirmed that Costco planned to open in store on Union Hill, but negotiations between the land owner and Costco have stalled, putting the plans on hold. He declined to comment further about the Costco development, but did say he is optimistic that a deal will get done.

I’ve heard mixed messages about the status of this project, ranging from it being on hold for economic reasons to having been cancelled completely.  Either way, I’m guessing it’ll be quite some time before we see anything happening here, assuming anything happens at all.

Update 2 (1/20) : Another version of this post has now been posted at Kirkland Views, which discusses the potential effect that a Costco in Redmond may have on the Kirkland store, which is a significant source of sales tax revenue for the City of Kirkland.  That article may be found here.

Update (1/20) :  In response to an inquiry, I have received the following information from Asma Jeelani, the City of Redmond project planner working on this application:

• The application for the Costco store itself has been approved;
• A public hearing for the gas station has been scheduled for February 9th (as mentioned below);
• The city is working with the applicant on civil construction plans;
• Construction of infrastructure and roads for this project is expected to begin by April 1st.

I will also post any further updates that I hear of on this.

I am just now getting around to some of the things that I missed around here last month while I was either trying to hide from the weather, run away from it or celebrate it in some festive manner, all while trying to convince myself somehow to believe in fairy tales.  It turns out that there’s a surprising amount of stuff going on around here, so I am trying to catch up on some of the things that I missed, and try to get a couple of other projects underway.

For some time now, we have known that Costco has been planning to build a new warehouse in Redmond out near Union Hill Road, although for one reason or another, the process has been delayed for some time.  Initially, the proposal made in 1997 when the portions of the current Cadman site it will be built on was purchased was for it to be open by Fall of 2008, but since we now are into 2009 and nothing appears to have happened yet, we can assume that this schedule has been pushed back.  There was some concern when a proposed Costco store in Bellevue was cancelled that it might affect the proposed Redmond location as well, but since it turns out that the cancellation in Bellevue was more the result of zoning issues and red tape than economic issues, the Redmond location would not be affected.

In mid-November,  three land use applications were filed with the City of Redmond pertaining to the Costco store and its site which shed some light on the proposed Costco store’s location, and what else might be done with the area.  Two of the three applications pertain to the Costco store itself and the Costco gas station which will be located on the premises.  Included in the application for the store is the tree preservation plan shown above, which not only shows how the site will be landscaped, but also how the site will be laid out.  The store itself looks like it should have virtually the same layout as the Woodinville store that opened a couple of years ago.  The third application deals with plats  for the Costco site and seven other sites in the area totaling 60 acres,  as part of what will eventually be known as the Union Hill Corporate Center.  This application also deals with construction of the necessary roads, as outlined below.

Click image for an interactive map

Based on the information in the land use application, we can also get a better idea of the location as well.  The new Costco store will be located at the corner of NE 76th Street and 188th Ave. NE, which turns out to be an intersection which does not even exist currently.  There are two different segments of 188th, one short segment north of Union Hill Road next to the Millennium campus, and one that goes from 202 up to NE 68th, passing through a residential neighborhood and next to the Genie Industries plant.  Under the proposal, 188th Ave. NE would be extended from NE 68thto Union Hill Road, creating another link between the two major roads.  NE 76th  (which passes between the Target and Fred Meyer stores about a half mile west of here) would also be slightly extended to intersect with the newly extended 188th.  The map above shows the site of the Costco store in blue, the other proposed sites in gray below, and the proposed road additions in red. 

In addition to the Costco store, an additional 45 acres will be subdivided into seven other short plats, although this particular land use application does not explain what they will be used for, or any details beyond the divisions of the various parcels on the site.  Given the fact that much of this area is zoned for light industrial use, I would expect similar uses for these sites.  Since this site has been a gravel pit for many years now (Cadman purchased the gravel pit in 1936 from the Columbia Leather Company,)  this should not be too much different from what’s going on there now.

It is still not certain when construction will actually begin on the new Costco, but there is a public hearing (PDF link) on issuing a Conditional Use Permit for the gas station on February 9th.  In the meantime, the other land use application filings can be found at the City of Redmond’s Land Use Applications page.  I suspect thaf from where I live the Kirkland Costco store will still be closer and easier to get to than this one (getting out of the place can be a different matter entirely depending on how much traffic there is and how fickle the stoplights are being at the time,) but it’ll still be nice to have another one here.

As a side note about the Kirkland Costco, they have now received approval from the City of Kirkland to add a gas station in the back parking lot for that location, but an appeal has been filed by a nearby resident to prevent this from happening.  Rob Butcher over at Kirkland Views seems to be much more on top of that situation, so if you have any interest in this I would recommend visiting that site for more information (and presumably updates on the situation as it develops.)