Greenwood Urban Village Update ala Chamber of Commerce

I went to the Chamber of Commerce Business Networking Meeting this morning to get an update on the Urban Village plans.

We better feel good about what is being built, because Gary Brunt is giving Kroger a 50 year lease.

Is that tantalizing enough? Read on for the Good, Bad, Neutral, and The fUgly:

Good

• They are planning to increase the verticality of the block to up to 6 stories
• They are adding new commercial spaces, that is not Fred Meyer, which would help promote diversity and small business
• The big box Fred Meyer has been broken up above ground, to give it more of a contemporary Urban Village layout
• A Fred Meyer rep and Gary Brunt were at the meeting, listening to people’s concerns

Neutral

• They are adding more residential space, which makes sense from a long term planning point of view, but is not prudent in our current situation.
• This plan has made huge improvements over previously released plans. The plans are are an improvement over the current block
• This meeting was at 7:30 A.M to 10:00 A.M. which seems to preclude community participation. We need more meetings at 7PM so everyone can follow along

Bad

• The big box still exists and has grown in size, it’s just not the top layer
• Most of the vertical space is a parking garage
• Fred Meyer is building a huge store. Massive. They are sinking the bulk of it 5’ below grade and building up from there. I don’t think this is a good idea for many reasons.

1. Impact on adjacent parcels – my house might sink
2. Impact on watershed – This is the greenwood bog, the will replace thousands of square feed of earth with concrete
3. Diversity – We are removing a fantastic community resource, the Greenwood Market, to replace it with a subterranean grocery store. Only Cheney would be excited about that.

• The piper village “Morrow Lane” is touted as a key feature, but the parking garages are fed via 1st ave which cuts from 85th through Morrow Lane. Also Morrow Lane jogs around Fred Meyer instead of continuing as a walkable arcade through the center of the land.
• The site is littered with stair cases, so we will have to fight for ramps and make sure I don’t have to learn how to be Danny MacAskill to ride my bike through this property on my way to the library.

The fUgly

• This talk was really fluffy. The top deck was being sold as a romantic plaza, but I asked to clarify that it was parking stalls and this stopped the waxing poetic. I’l buy into multi-use, but it should not have parking stalls. The are talking about these parking spaces being used for farmers markets and swap meets, but I am totally skeptical that Kroger is going to sacrifice prime loading space for selling gas mowers so a few hippies can barter heirloom tomatoes for city chicken eggs.
• This development project should be using it’s leverage to demand alternative transportation projects from various government sources.

There was a lot of marketing and hype during the discussion. Elephants in the room:

• The development relies heavily on cars, but 85th has reached capacity and is a bottleneck
• Greenwood Market was forced out and is a much better community citizen than Fred Meyer, which is perceived as “the drunk”, wearing a wife beater t-shirt, who has a pit bull, and is always working on his car on the front lawn
• Site/Building Design is still informed by cars and hasn’t been shaped enough by long term thinking (foot traffic flow, etc)
• Our economy is fine and that the fundamentals are strong (right?)

I applaud Fred Meyer for working closely with local organizations and consultants to help mold this into a European style village. That said, they have a long way to go. The current site, aside from McDonalds, is the worst in the neighborhood. If Fredrics of Meyerwood wants to get on the “Green” “Sustainable” train, than they can start today by fixing their dangerous North facing side of the block which is inaccessible as a pedestrian. I am skeptical that “Sustainability” is anything but a buzz-word to them. They aren’t sustainable today. They don’t maintain their c-r-a-p-p-y block now, and they aren’t a Greenwood Citizen like Mud Bay Granary or Greenwood market is, today.

When the loss of Greenwood Market was mentioned, it got quite emotional and the head (?) of the Chamber of Commerce stepped in and stopped the conversation, before the elephant’s tail was identified as indeed the tail of an elephant.

I understand this and I think it was very professional, as the venue was a Chamber of Commerce breakfast meeting. I may question the moral ground that Gary operates on, but he is within his legal rights as the land owner. The Fred Meyer rep said himself that Fred Meyer “controls the land” and “will develop it” as they please. He also gave a shout out to Kruger and acknowledged them as Fred Meyer’s owners, which must be a painful situation as he has been with Fred Meyer 14 years.

This is a very complicated project and it is going to be tough to make it work and end up with a great asset for everyone.

Major Risks
I am very naive when it comes to most aspects of this project, but I see it as incredibly risky, without any proper oversight to ensure a successful outcome for our community. Worst case scenarios:

1. The project is begun, we lose Greenwood Market and Fred Meyer and then funding is cancelled and we get a second “Leilani Lanes”.
2. The project is executed, but do to economic constraints all pedestrian, bike, “Green”, and social features of the project are cut out. We are left with a reconfigured parking lot and a 3 story parking garage.
3. The project is executed and no residents start renting the residential or commercial spaces. How long can Fred Meyer remain in the location before shutting down the store, talking apes evolve from man, and the whole complex becomes a haven for this human hating species?

All in all, lots of progress has been made on the Urban Village plan, by local consultants working with Fred Meyer. Please get involved with the conversation and let’s make sure that an Urban Village is built in a sane, eco-friendly, and economically viable way.