The meeting will be held in the Fellowship Hall of the Phinney Ridge Lutheran Church, located at 7500 Greenwood Avenue.

The agenda for the meeting is as follows:

6:00-6:30 Meet and Greet
6:30-6:45 Overview Presentation
6:45-8:00 Open House/Public Comment

As we’ve previously reported, proposals are in play to rezone the neighborhoods surrounding Fred Meyer Greenwood’s expansion. This will likely add the ability for townhomes and increased neighborhood density around soon-to-be-remodeled shopping center. The graphic shows the detail of the proposed impacts to the surrounding homes.

Fred Meyer Greenwood Peat Bog

What will the new Fred Meyer development do to Greenwood’s peat bog? That’s what Seattle’s Department of Planning and Development has to decide before they either let the project stand or order an additional environmental review.

Over 50 concerned neighbors showed up to a public meeting at Loyal Height Community Center on Thursday night to discuss the environmental impacts of the project. The central issue was the potential loss of water in Greenwood’s peat bog.

If a new development pushes water out of the peat bog, it could compress, and cause neighboring buildings to settle and start sinking. That’s what happened with the Safeway at 87th street, and neither Greenwood residents nor Fred Meyer want to see it happen again.

The meeting was run by Design Review Board representative Scott Kemp, and Fred Meyer engineers were present to field questions about the environmental studies they’ve done so far.

The Fred Meyer project could be fast-tracked without an EIS (Environmental Impact Statement) based on a preliminary finding that it would do no harm to the surrounding environment, including the peat bog. That’s called a “Determination of Nonsignificance,” in city-speak.

Fred Meyer Greenwood

Kate Martin, neighborhood activist and somewhat of an expert on the peat bog, says there’s nothing non-significant about the potential impact.

“Greenwood is sinking, and continues to sink,” she said.

She explained how burying the new building 16 feet underground would displace a large amount of water from the area, and called for the use of pilings to elevate the building until it hovers above the peat, instead of sinking into it. The 8-acre development would take up 1/6th of the entire bog, Martin said.

Martin’s accusations that the science behind the project is unsound seemed to strike a chord with neighbors. Almost everyone at the meeting wanted to see an Environment Impact Statement, which would provide some of the science and hard data Martin called for. Several neighbors asked, “What’s the downside to getting more information?”

The only downside is for Fred Meyer, who will have to put additional time and money into something they say they’ve already studied carefully. There have been dozens of borings into the ground on and around the site of the new development, to determine where the peat bog ends.

There was some concern about whether Fred Meyer’s studies took into account the surrounding homes, and not just the site itself. What neighbors don’t understand, according to the project architects, is that any neighboring parcel that the peat bog “buffer zone” touches becomes entirely part of the buffer area. Because of that, they argued, their plan is actually conservative and fair.

Also, revisions to the plan include some of the pilings that Martin and others suggested, in areas where the architects found them necessary. That’s a good start, but the crowd didn’t seem to think it was enough. During a show of hands, support for the environmental review was near-unanimous.

Kemp said the ultimate decision about whether to issue the determination of non-significance or order further study wasn’t made in front of the Design Review Board last night. The Board will take neighbors’ concerns to the director of the Department of Design and planning, who has the authority to order the EIS.

Throughout the community, whether neighbors arrived via foot, bus, or Seattle taxi – there is no question that the Fred Meyer expansion and its impact on the environment is a hot topic in Greenwood, Phinney, and North Seattle.

Fred Meyer Greenwood Expansion Plans

Make sure to attend this meeting if possible and we’ll be sharing our coverage with the neighborhood.

MEETING DETAILS:
Thursday, March 11, 2010 at 7:00 p.m. at the Loyal Heights Community Center, Room 2, 2101 Northwest 77th Street.

Written and/or oral comments may be submitted at the meeting.

Environmental Review Fred Meyer Greenwood

A geotechnical report has been submitted by the developer which identifies the soils on the site and will allow designers to accommodate for the soil conditions.

It will address any peat found on the site and the potential impacts and/or recommendations for anticipated construction.

Electronic copies of the project are not available. Hardcopies may be obtained from the DPD Public Resource Center, 700 5th Avenue, Suite 2000 (206) 684-8467. The Public Resource Center is open 7:30 a.m. to 5:30 p.m. on Monday, Wednesday, Friday and 10:30 a.m. to 5:30 p.m. on Tuesday and Thursday.

MEETING LOCATION:
A public meeting to review this application will be held on Thursday, March 11, 2010 at 7:00 p.m. at the Loyal Heights Community Center, Room 2, 2101 Northwest 77th Street. Written and/or oral comments may be submitted at the meeting.
LINKS:
Fred Meyer Meeting Bulletin

Peat Settlement Issues

Greenwood Rezone

Some neighbors expressed concerns that an upzone could also mean increased property taxes for residents who chose not to sell their lots to developers. Barbara L. Shale, of the King County Tax Advisory Office, addresse the issue by explaining that a jump from single-family to L3 zoning — L3 is the low-rise zone most commonly occupied by clusters of townhomes — wouldn’t increase anyone’s taxes overnight. She said that the value of a house often goes down when the value of the land itself goes up, and that taxes would likely stay about the same until the next physical property inspection of the area, in 2015 or 2016.

Although most of the debate was about the “buffer” of single-family homes, neighbors were also concerned about upzoning the commercial lots at the core of the Fred Meyer development. Proposed changes would allow buildings that currently top out at 40 feet to be raised to 65 feet. Although this is obviously attractive to developers, Stanley made it clear that the Advisory Group behind the zoning proposal was thinking about the future growth of Greenwood, not about Fred Meyer.

Fred Meyer’s plans for a new shopping center don’t actually include or require any zoning changes.
“I’m going to sorely miss Greenwood Market,” Stanley said, “but that’s not something [the GCC] have any control over. That’s not something we’re trying to have control over.”

The neighbors at the meeting felt they hadn’t been given enough time or information to make a decision about the new changes, so they unanimously passed Resolution 2. That resolution opposes the changes “at this time,” and urges the City Council to “demonstrate community support for [future changes] and the notify those impacted by the change.”

PhinneyRidge thanks our sponsors who make our community reporting possible on an ongoing basis — Seattle Limousines and Airport Shuttles

All in all, the DRB meeting was less eventful than people following the situation might have expected. The group from Fred Meyer opened their presentation by trying to reassure the audience that they’re committed to the community, but the opposition they seemed to be expecting never turned up. Although there were a handful of constructive suggestions to improve the design — better bike access, more entrances to the store, space for a farmers’ market or other local event — nobody was up in arms about any particular element of the proposal.

As Fred Meyer’s Real Estate Director, Tom Gibbons, pointed out at the beginning of the meeting, the design has come a long way since the company proposed a generic big box store back in 1997. Fred Meyer is in no hurry to return to the previous two-story version of the new store. Pushing an “urban village” model appeals to the community, but it’s also motivated by profits. The project’s designers acknowledged that the foot traffic generated by an open, walkable space with retail storefronts and kiosks is going to make or break the store in Greenwood.

Now that the plans for the building include sinking it as far into the ground as Greenwood’s peat bog will allow. The bog is a still a concern for some residents. Former Greenwood Community Council president Kate Martin showed up with a map of the bog, and used it to illustrate the point that water is always going to travel in and out of the area, and Fred Meyer is building at its own risk. In response to other neighbors’ concerns about the bog and the depth of the building, the Board assured everyone that the peat had been thoroughly studied, and that the building wouldn’t be approved if it was too low to meet code.

Several people felt that new building needed more parking, especially with 200 apartment units and new retail that could attract a lot more cars to the area. The Board shut these comments down, though, because parking isn’t a design issue, except that the code requires a minimum number of spaces. The 680 proposed spaces for Fred Meyer meet code, but there’s nothing from adding more if it turns out to be necessary.

For a play-by-play of the meeting, check out phinneyridge.org’s liveblog from Monday night.

Update: A Seattle attorney criticizes - point by point – the city’s design review process and it’s result on the Fred Meyer Greenwood project, sub-optimization of result.

As the Design Review Board approved the Fred Meyer Greenwood Design with comments from the audience, our survey showed the public roughly 57% supporting the project to 43% opposed. Some great comments from the survey are listed below:

Survey Quotes:
Why do I support the project? Because it has financial backing and will happen. GG.DDAG dreams of mix use development on this site are nice but unsustainable.

Combining the store and grocery makes sense, since they’re both already Kroger and shopping all together is convenient, and the current set up is pretty ugly (but I hope the combo would retain the local feel of Greenwood Market as well as good organics and bulk sections). But the neighborhood does not need 300 new apartments. Traffic is bad enough already, and new condo projects all over town are sitting incomplete with no buyers. A quick Craigslist search comes up with 285 apt listings with keyword Greenwood.

We don’t need a superstore in a small retail area.

Megastores are an abomination.

Can’t wait for this project to happen! We need a decent, low-price grocery in this area and to in-fill around Greenwood to build a better neighborhood.

Fred Meyer Greenwood Design

The major design element is that the Fred Meyer store will occupy a primarily underground space, with only four feet of the height of the store appearing above ground. The store will be approx 15 ft underground on the 85th St side, although the 5ft that is above ground will not actually “appear” because it will be wrapped with retail and housing. The full 20 ft of store height will be visible from 1st Ave, and from the proposed extension of Morrow Lane. What this means is that top or “lid” can be divided with housing units and retail facing 85th – so that pedestrians can walk throughout the housing grid. It does mean that the “lid” is at a height from the street ranging from 20 feet on 1st avenue to 6 feet on 3rd Avenue which requires a ramp, elevator, or stairs to reach that level of the development. There are a good variety of ways to walk through the housing development (approximately 200 rental housing apartments) and small retail spaces (25,000 square feet in total) that are above ground.

Vehicle Access Design Changes:
Vehicle access is proposed on 1st avenue at two ground level points, 3rd avenue for the lower level, and via 85th street through the rough center division of the housing area. This is intended to respond to community feedback that entry from 87th street would be destructive to the home environment for houses on 87th and nearby.

Pedestrian Access Design Changes:
Pedestrians may enter on all four sides of the development: on 87th, 1st Avenue, 3rd Avenue, and 85th. This is intended to respond to community feedback that the 160,000+ square foot Fred Meyer for Greenwood would block movement through the development lot. It remains that there is no access near the 85th Street bus stop. The main entrance to the Fred Meyer store will be via 1st Avenue through a pedestrian plaza. You can also enter the store via the parking lot in the rear, from a set of stairs.

Height and Scale:
The development will mix heights ranging from four stories at the 85th Street frontage to the lowest levels at the back of the development’s parking lot. The parking area which will be buffered by trees was focused towards the back of the development at 87th to protect the integrity of housing on that street. Housing was eliminated on top of the parking garage as part of the design changes from the previous community meeting.

Space Alignment with Neighborhood:
The housing units / apartments on the above-ground lid of the Fred Meyer Greenwood store are split into streets so that pedestrians and vehicles can pass through. There are a number of ways to move through the development via a grid, although it is not perfectly aligned to the existing street grid. Morrow Lane will also extend through the development to allow vehicles to pass fully through the alleyway (with parking spaces alongside) between 1st and 3rd Avenues.

Environmental Impacts / Peat Bog Risks
Community members have raised issues regarding the environmental impacts of the peat bog in the area. The developer noted that there are stricter environmental regulations in place today, versus the rules from when Safeway developed nearby. Many believe that the Safeway store had severe negative impacts on the peat bog in the area, by blocking water flow through the peat. This may have caused damage / settling to nearby housing due to changes in soil density. The developer noted their priority to understand the water flow through the building site today, and to ensure that the curent water table (which is 1-2 feet below the store’s planned level) needs to maintain water flow. The existing Fred Meyer and Greenwood Market are alredy built on top of peat, and how this development impacted the peat bog (upon its original construction) is unknown, prior to the current peat bog regulations being developed. The developer has set up numerous monitoring wells and soil logs on the site and is continuing to study the soil hydrology.

The current Fred Meyer and Greenwood Market stores are leased on an “air rights lease” from Greenwood Shopping Center, Inc. The lease for the Greenwood Market expires in 2011, and they have chosen not to renew at the current lease rates. The leases are written as 20 year leases with 5 year extension options.

This area of Greenwood has been designated as an Urban Village, with a goal of concentrating density in the area, convenient to major transit links. The planned site developer – Lorig – has developed over 2,500 apartments in the Seattle area, much of which is focused on student housing. This includes development of Thorton Place, Pike Place Market, and Ujimaya.

The Fred Meyer store is planned to be appproximately 160,000 square feet in a one story plan. Fred Meyer’s other stores (including Redmond) have demonstrated that a second story for the Fred Meyer stores both have much lower sales (by as much as half) and much higher maintenance costs to deliver goods to the 2nd story. The company has determined that a 2 story Fred Meyer at Greenwood is not an economic option to pursue.

Only four feet of the store will be above ground, with the remaining 16 feet below ground, depending on the side of the development that you are facing. The full 20 foot height of the building will be visible, above grade on 1st Avenue. The focus of the new plan is to allow multiple routes for vehicles to enter and multiple routes for pedestrians to pass through the housing grid. In addition – the design works to avoid impacts to the housing on 87th Street. Fred Meyer will also feature a seperate Garden Center with plants and gardening supplies near the small business retail area (above ground) which will have a “sunlight” roof to allow light to pass through to the plants.

Another big change was to eliminate the previously planned housing on top of the parking garage. Now the parking garage remains at the rear of the property – with two stories of parking and a top (3rd floor) for 3 total areas for stacked parking. Note that parking will be shared for the apartment tenants, and the store’s customers. There are 700 parking spaces planned — keeping in mind that we would estimate at least 200+ spaces to be filled by the apartment tenants. The intent here is some alternation of tenants heading to work versus Fred Meyer shoppers, and the store eventually closing. We could see some demand competing for these parking spaces and the average family tenant may have more than one car.

Lorig noted there is no rezoning required by their analysis for the current design of the Fred Meyer complex, named “Piper Village West” after the current Piper Village housing adjacent to the site. The current relatively narrow sidewalks on 85th would also be widened. Where the housing borders the street, a 15 foot setback will be planned that leverages a landscaped berm to buffer pedestrians and traffic from the apartments.

There is currently over 500,000 square feet of retail space in the Greenwood area, and a moderate degree of both vacancies, renovation, and out-of-date / uneconomic retail in the area by the developer’s analysis. The size of the Fred Meyer planned is very similar to the retailer’s presence in Ballard and other Seattle neighborhoods. The independent retail section is now continuous along the 85th street heavy traffic corridor for visibility of these businesses.The independent retailers would have 3 stories of housing atop their stores to make maximum denisty use of the land.

We wanted the community and surrounding Greenwood neighbors to be aware of the proposed changes and will continue to update the story with additional detail as it breaks.

Click Here to take survey

The Greater Greenwood Design Advisory Group has proposed in June 2009 that the proposed development be rezoned to Neighborhood Commericial. The detailed Fred Meyer Greenwood Design rezoning proposal can be found from the link which includes a number of drawings for the alternate vision of the site.