Daily Archives: December 4, 2012

City Council on Ace: We got the message; action, next meeting Dec. 11

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Mayor Tom Odell said the Sammamish City Council “got the message” from two hours of public comment in support of Ace Hardware at the Dec. 4 council meeting.

The Council will consider the proposal by Ace at its Dec. 11 meeting for a land swap immediately south of the Starbucks at NE 4th St. Tim Koch, owner of Ace, hopes to enter into a Development Agreement that will streamline the review and application process with a goal of beginning construction in February or March, in time for his lease expiration on August 28.

The Council asked Kamuron Gural, the Community Development Director, to produce a matrix that identifies Problems and Solutions involved with the land swap and the parcels, which are highly constrained by sensitive areas and buffers.

At the very end of the City Council meeting, Odell–speaking to the few people remaining in the audience and those watching on Comcast 21, that the Council received the message in support of Ace. Deputy Mayor John James said that he would like to see one last effort to accommodate the proposal than see it die without trying. City staff recommended against a Docket Request submitted by Ace. The attorney for Ace called the Request a “placeholder” required due to timing and Ace really wasn’t interested in the request, preferring a Developer Agreement instead.

Some kind of action is planned for the Dec. 11 Council meeting.

Civilized Nature is next locally owned store to leave Sammamish

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Civilized Nature, the local pet store in the Sammamish Highlands shopping center, is the next locally owned store that will be leaving the City.

I confirmed today (Dec. 4) that the pet store will move because it won’t be able to compete with mega-chain Petco, which will move into the former Hollywood Video that has been vacant for a couple of years, and the Rancho Grande and Sushi restaurants whose leases weren’t renewed to make way for Petco.

Ace Hardware’s lease expires August 28, 2013. Petco is said to start construction in January and to open several months later. Civilized Nature did not tell me where it will move to, but since there is no commercial space in Sammamish that is available, Civilized is all but certain to move out of the city.

At the City Council meeting tonight, which was standing room only, I presented recommendations to rezone more land commercial to serve local businesses. I’ll be posting my remarks later.

The City is about to undertake a Comprehensive Plan Amendment process. Astounding as it seems, the City Administration did not put commercial rezoning on the agenda for the Council, even after the lack of commercial zoning outside the Town Center became clear and may be a death knell for Ace. In fact, the Staff report recommended against a rezone for Ace Hardware, for a number of complex reasons.

In more posts this week, I’ll publish various documents concerning the Ace situation.