A South Kitsap developer Dick Brown is involved in plans for a major new Sequim shopping center slated to house 395,000 square feet of retail space. The project, dubbed Sequim Village Marketplace, features 12 new buildings. By comparison, Kitsap Mall in Silverdale has about 800,000 square feet of shopping area under one roof. Brown was instrumental in assembling the individual property parcels needed to make the project work.

Pacific Land Design (PacLand), a firm that specializes in site design, transportation design and landscape architecture, provided a project overview that said, “We anticipate that the shopping center will include a combination of sit-down and quick-service restaurants, a grocery, home improvement store, discount retail store and other specialty retail uses.”

Architectural building amenities include design focused on reducing the apparent bulk of large buildings, extensive glazing for smaller free-standing retail stores, multiple roof lines and entryways where practical, and variations in building materials and colors.

According to Brown, “The goal of the design is focused on maintaining Sequim’s friendly, small town, rural atmosphere, while meeting the needs of national retailers and their customers — the residents of the area.”

Artists’ conceptual drawings indicate an Albertson’s food store will be built as part of the shopping center, which will be situated on the west end of Sequim. Other than Albertson’s, there are no other tenants shown in the drawings.

Sequim real estate broker and city councilman Paul McHugh, who represents the property buyer, said he wasn’t at liberty to divulge the names of any other occupants or prospects. However, a site map included with the plans show one building containing a home improvement store. McHugh did confirm Home Depot has done a feasibility study of the North Olympic Peninsula and admitted the Atlanta-based retailer has had conversations with the principals about opening a store in the new development as an anchor tenant.

C. Don Berry, a partner at AVB Development Partners L.L.C., also said he was not at liberty to name any of the numerous tenants his firm is working with, but noted the project, will be built in three phases. It should begin in late summer or early fall, with stores opening seven to eight months later.

AVB is a 70-year old real estate development firm based in San Diego, Calif., with offices in Phoenix, Ariz., that specializes in retail centers — including one in Gig Harbor.

The first phase of Sequim Village Marketplace is scheduled for construction and opening by 2004 and the second in 2005. That schedule assumes all permitting will be approved without any glitches.

Market demand will be also be a major driving factor in the construction schedule. The third phase wasn’t detailed, but would be on property south of the planned center, which hasn’t been annexed into the city.

The city Planning Commission and City Council still have to approve plans for the project before it can be built. The project was delayed while the Sequim City Council worked on development design standards it ultimately approved on Nov. 11, 2002. The project was designed in accordance with the city’s interim design standards, based on a mixed-use (MU-II) zone with a large regional retail (C-IV) overlay.

“My partner is used to doing business with design guidelines, so it did take a little longer,” McHugh said. “We have had four or five pre-application meetings,” McHugh added. “We did have a slight delay with a traffic study.” Plans released show a stoplight being installed at the intersection of Washington Street and Priest Road – a planned main entrance to the shopping center.

Meanwhile, Wal-Mart, the world’s largest retailer, has also filed plans with the City of Sequim to build a retail outlet, and later a grocery store, on the northwest corner of that same Washington Street and Priest Road intersection, which is directly across the street from the proposed project.

According to the plans, approximately 900.000 square feet of usable land in the development will be used for more than 2,000 parking stalls, while over 400,000 square feet will be left in open space.

A quarter of the project acreage is earmarked for future development, but has no detailed site plan.