Since it first opened in 1985, Kirkland’s flagship Costco Warehouse has been a major source of sales tax revenue for the City of Kirkland, drawing shoppers in from neighboring cities as well as from Kirkland itself. For much of this time, the Kirkland Costco store has enjoyed the competitive advantage of having little direct competition from other Costco or other competing stores such as Sam’s Club. When plans were announced in 2007 for Costco to build new stores in Redmond and Bellevue, this was a cause for concern to the City of Kirkland, as it was estimated that the addition of these two new Costco warehouses could reduce the sales of the Kirkland warehouse significantly.

In Bellevue, Costco made plans to demolish the long vacant former Kmart store on 148th and build a new warehouse in its place. The City of Bellevue mandated that this project require Kelsey Creek (which currently runs through a culvert under the parking lot) be daylighted and rehabilitated — an expensive undertaking. Ultimately, the cost of this required stream rehabilitation would prove too much for Costco, and in November 2008, Costco announced that they were abandoning the idea of building a store on that particular site.

Meanwhile, plans for a store in Redmond were also announced in July of 2007 with an expected opening date of Fall 2008, but until recently there has not been much activity at the site. Land use applications for the new Costco warehouse were filed with the City of Redmond in November 2008.

 

In total, three different land use applications have been filed with the City related to the Costco store. One of these deals with the subdivision of 60 acres of property formerly used as part of the Cadman rock quarry into eight different lots of various sizes and the construction of necessary roads, with the largest being the lot for the Costco store at 15.6 acres. The other two applications are for permits to build the store itself, and to build the 16-pump Costco gas station which will accompany the store. The store itself will apparently be similar in layout to the Woodinville Costco store that opened a couple of years ago, and will include 644 parking spaces (compared to 716 spaces currently available at the Kirkland Costco, reduced to 682 after the proposed gas station at that location is constructed).

Based on the information in the land use applications, we can 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, an intersection which does not exist currently. Right now, 188th consists of 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 a portion of the Genie Industries complex that takes up much of this area. Under the proposal, 188th Ave. NE would be extended from NE 68th to Union Hill Road, creating another link between Union Hill Road and Highway 202. NE 76th (which passes between the Target and Fred Meyer stores about a half mile west of the proposed Costco) would also be slightly extended to intersect with the new segment of 188th.

This satellite image shows the expected site of the Costco (in green with a blue border), the space for the other subdivided lots in the area (in gray with the green border) and the extensions of 188th Ave. NE and NE 76th St. that will be built to service this new development in red. Aside from the fact that these lots will be zoned for light industrial use, it is unclear what exactly what will be constructed here at this time.

I made an inquiry to Asma Jeelani, the City of Redmond project planner in charge of these land use applications, and I found out that the application for the Costco store itself has now been approved, and that construction of the roads and infrastructure for the new Costco is expected to begin by April 1st. In the meantime, the gas station has not yet been approved, and a public hearing for that part of the project has been scheduled for February 9th. I suspect that adding a gas station to a Costco being built in a former gravel pit will probably be somewhat less controversial than one being built right next to a residential neighborhood.

While the construction of a new Costco will greatly benefit their members living in Redmond and the outlying communities in the Snoqualmie Valley, the effect this will have on the Kirkland store (and the tax revenues that it generates for the city) remains to be seen. When the new Redmond and Bellevuestores were proposed in 2007, it was estimated that these stores could reduce sales at the Kirkland Costco by as much as a third. With the cancellation of the Bellevue store, the effect was expected to be reduced significantly, but currently there is no estimate of how much the new Redmond store will affect sales in the Kirkland store. For many residents of Redmond, the Kirkland store will still be closer than its Redmond counterpart, which will be located well outside the downtown core of Redmond, but should be relatively accessible via 520, 202 and Union Hill Road. The addition of gasoline to the Kirkland Costco location is intended to mitigate the reduction of sales caused by the opening of the new Costco store in Redmond (and presumably the Woodinville store as well, although it is uncertain how much that store has affected sales at the Kirkland location). In spite of the city’s approval of the Private Amendment Request to allow gasoline on the Kirkland Costco property, it appears that this may be tied up in appeals for some time to come. In the meantime, it appears that Redmondians won’t have to wait too much longer for cheap hot dogs and HDTVs in their backyard.

Brian Lutz, author of this article, is a resident of Redmond and is author of The Sledghammer – Version 2.0 blog.

Related Stories:

Costco Wholesale Corporation Announces Plans to Close Costco Home Store in Kirkland Costco Wholesale Corporation today announced plans to close on July 3 its two Costco Home stores,...

Costco Gas Station Appealed The Estate of Ralph F. Nienaber has filed a Land Use Petition against the City of Kirkland and Costco...

Letter to the Editor – Costco Gas Station Kirkland Views received the following Letter to the Editor submitted by Mike Nienaber: Dear...

Appeals filed to stop development of Parkplace and Costco Gas Station Two separate appeals of Private Amendment Requests (PARs) granted to developers late last year have...