Regency continues to ignore Ace Hardware and efforts to extend its lease, according to reliable information.

Meantime, other tenants in the Sammamish Highlands (Safeway) complex fear that they are next on the Regency hit list. Tenants in the Pine Lake Center (QFC complex) ought to be worried, too.

Ace’s owner, Tim Koch, continues to seek a solution, including buying land and building, but with a lease termination in September 2012, doing a new-build means almost certainly Ace will close unless Regency extends the lease for at least a year.

City Staff is trying to find a solution for Ace as well.

Koch faces a greater challenge: if he wants to buy-and-build, the cost of doing so may be tough. However, I think that if other Regency tenants, with solid reason to fear for their future, combine with Koch, maybe there is a business case to present to Sammamish citizens to invest in a commercial structure that can lease space to the “Regency refugees.”

Residents in Pt Townsend did something similar when the city’s only general store closed. Residents invested in a new business (I do not know the business structure) to reopen a general store.

It is time for creative thinking and solutions.