Developers of the Olympic Towne Center in West Gig Harbor plan to break ground on the retail complex this fall — but whether the original anchor tenant, Fred Meyer, will be on board remains to be seen.
Earlier this summer, Fred Meyer withdrew its letter of intent with the developer, WWR Properties, to build a 100,000-square foot store on the site.
“They have enjoyed a very successful relationship with this community and they did not want to be perceived as trying to ‘jam’ something into Gig Harbor that the community simply didn’t want,” said project representative Randy Boss, broker with Seattle Pacific Realty, Inc.
Fred Meyer has a smaller, 65,000-squre-foot grocery store called Fred Meyer Marketplace, just a few miles from the proposed Olympic Towne Center. The retailer has been eyeing an expansion in Gig Harbor for many years — originally exploring the idea of building a new store just down the road, in the area now known as Uptown Gig Harbor.
The Olympic Towne Center project has been in discussion for several years, with Fred Meyer’s original plan to build a 150,000-square-foot retail center (standard stores are about 165,000). Current zoning only allows for maximum of 65,000-square-foot retail buildings and Fred Meyer later downsized its plans to 100,000. The zoning does allow for nonretail buildings such as hotels to be larger than 65,000 square feet.
Fred Meyer has been waiting for more than two years for the text amendment to come before the Gig Harbor Planning Commission and in the meantime another Olympic Towne anchor, Kohl, migrated to a project located next door to Uptown that is now in construction and will include a new Safeway.
“Unfortunately, the city of Gig Harbor delayed Fred Meyer’s expansion plans for a couple of years by not allowing for a public hearing on this retail building expansion request,” Boss said.
The text amendment finally came up for a public hearing at the end of July but it has created opposition. Many residents testified they did not want another big retail box in town and were concerned about traffic and other issues. However, many written comments that have come in to the planning commissions were also in favor.
Planning commissioners were scheduled to vote on a recommendation on the amendment at a work session in August, but the decision will ultimately be made by Gig Harbor City Council. Boss said he anticipated the matter to be resolved by the city council in September after another public hearing.
“We are hoping now that we have finally had a public hearing and an opportunity to discuss the facts of this request, that we will finally get the approval we have long awaited for and will then be able to re-interest Fred Meyer in returning to this project as our anchor tenant,” he said.
Regardless of whether the amendment is approved and whether Fred Meyer comes back, the project is moving forward, he said. Another anchor tenant already has an agreement for a 55,000-square-foot family entertainment facility. The name of the company has not been disclosed but Boss said it was a very upscale project. The developers have waited to submit plans until they know where on the site this facility would be built, which depends on whether the a 100,000-square-foot building is approved. The total square footage of the proposed complex is 185,000.
“Whether Fred Meyer returns or not, there is a huge construction advantage of being able to build a single building of 100,000 square feet as opposed to building two 50,000-square-foot buildings,” Boss said. “We have several other national junior anchor stores that are anxiously waiting for the outcome of the decision by the Gig Harbor City Council… The remainder of the project will be designed to accommodate our other interested retail tenants together with a couple of very anticipated national restaurants.”
