In the first of two public hearings on Issaquah’s potential development agreement with Costco Wholesale on the company’s international headquarters, speakers were primarily concerned with the impact the agreement’s road development projects would have on nearby businesses and public recreation.
Concerned parties at the Sept. 15 hearing included Randy Bass, owner of Issaquah Mini Storage and Truck Country; counsel for the East Lake Sammamish Center shopping complex; Issaquah Alps Trails Club president David Kappler and Gilman business owner Connie Marsh.
Also speaking was Costco Senior Vice President Rich Olin, thanking the city for its work on the draft development agreement.
“Issaquah is our corporate home and we’ve worked very closely with staff and with the development commission over the years to work on the architecture for the buildings and Costco’s campus in Pickering Place. We believe we have a beautiful campus in a beautiful community and we’re proud of that.”
If approved, the development agreement being negotiated would allow the headquarters, currently about 700,000 square feet, to develop out to 1.5 million square feet, with up to 250,000 square feet for non-office use such as retail stores. The agreement would require an amendment to the Pickering Place Master Site Plan to bring the new construction in line with the Central Issaquah Plan.
In exchange, Costco would invest $1.25 million into the city’s Density Bonus Program and aid with traffic mitigation by sharing costs on $50 million worth of road improvement projects.
Those primarily consist of three projects: East Lake Sammamish Parkway, Southeast 62nd Street and 12th Avenue Northwest near Northwest Sammamish Road.
Among the improvements to East Lake Sammamish Parkway would be a traffic circle at its intersection with Southeast 62nd Street. Southeast 62nd Street itself would be extended toward Pickering Place Plaza.
In public comment by Randy Bass — and later by his counsel, Sam Rodabough, as well as a privately hired engineer — the storage business owner alleged the development of 62nd and the traffic circle would overrun his property and cause him to lose his south access driveway. He also said he believed standard left turn lanes would serve traffic better than a traffic circle.
“I’d like my engineers to meet with city engineers to solve this problem,” he said. “This isn’t just my problem.”
Alan Wallace, the land use counsel for the principal owners of East Lake Sammamish Center, said the group of business’s main concern was with the public financing the road improvements. Legally, he said they objected to the agreement’s prejudgment of benefit to a Local Improvement District that hadn’t yet been formed.
Two speakers, Kappler and Marsh, said they wanted the final development agreement to honor the trail connections laid out in the Central Issaquah Plan, including a trail connection to Lake Sammamish State Park.
“There’s been a lot of talk at development commission all about plazas and public plazas,” Kappler said. “But the only way the public is going to get to those plazas, practically, is to walk.”
