More than 50 residents of Greenwood and Phinney Ridge packed a meeting room at Loyal Heights Community Center Thursday night for an environmental review of the proposed Fred Meyer project on 85th Street.
This meeting focused on soil and groundwater issues only, not design. (The city’s Design Review Board approved the project’s preliminary designs in September.) The project includes not only a Fred Meyer store but up to 250 residential units and about 20,000 square feet of other retail, and will be called Pipers Village West.
The meeting began at 7 p.m. and was scheduled to end at 8:30 p.m., but lasted until after 9:30 p.m. The first 45 minutes was given to the project team to explain their hydrology studies of the site. The remaining time was given to neighbors to voice their concerns, which many did – vigorously.
The main issue revolves around the fact that approximately half of the project will be built on the Greenwood Bog. The peat bog covers a large area of downtown Greenwood. Issues arise when water is removed from the bog – called “dewatering” – causing houses and streets to sink.
GGLO Architect Ted Panton started off by explaining the concept of “infiltration” – which is when water moves from the surface into the ground in a variety of ways, whether through pervious paving or gutters or landscaping. Moving the water back into the bog is a good thing, because you want to keep it hydrated. It’s when you remove water from that compressible soil that it causes sinking.
City Planner Scott Kemp, in the background on the left, and GGLO Architect Ted Panton, in the background on the right, go over hydrology issues.
“This is one of the largest peat bog occurrences in the Seattle area, and that is really the critical issue for this project,” said Michael A.P. Kenrick, a hydro-geologist with GeoEngineers Inc., who was hired by Fred Meyer. “We want to try and preserve the existing nature of the peat. Everybody recognizes the significance of that soil. It’s very compressible. The whole emphasis here is to protect the peat and keep it from losing moisture.”
Kenrick said they have drilled 30 “bore holes” in various sites around the project and installed monitoring wells to get soil samples. He said that was a very high number of bore holes for a project such as this. They look at whether the soil is silt, sand, clay or peat, and how wet it is. The project needs to stay well above the water table, which is the area of saturation.
The bog area contains three different layers of soil. The top thin layer is peat. In some areas the peat is about three-and-a-half to four feet; the thickest location is about eight-and-a-half feet. The middle layer is silt. The bottom layer is glacial till, also called hard pan. The Peat Settlement Prone Areas Ordinance prevents them from constructing anything below ground water elevation.
Hal P. Grubb, director of engineering services for Barghausen Consulting Engineers Inc., hired by Fred Meyer, said the existing Fred Meyer site is almost entirely covered with impervious surface. Storm water is now collected in downspouts and catch basins in the parking lot, and routed straight into the city storm drain system on 87th Street and 1st Avenue. Then it travels to the north and out to Puget Sound, with no control or treatment measures, which is common for older projects.
However, the new project would collect it and meter it out either into the ground or into the city storm water system. The idea is to put as much of the collected water into the peat as the peat will accept – thereby keeping it hydrated – and put any overflow into an underground retention vault. Water in the vault would be metered out into the city system. The vault would be large enough to handle so-called “100-year event” flooding before it overflowed.
Many neighbors brought up sinking issues they believe were caused when the Safeway was built on 87th and Greenwood a few years ago. Some neighbors said they had to pay to jack up part of their houses and that their basements routinely flood.
Kate Martin, a long-time vocal critic to the project, has long complained that putting most of the proposed one-story Fred Meyer underground would cause irreparable harm to the bog and surrounding areas. She called it a “submarine superstore.”
Kate Martin argues that the project will harm surrounding properties.
“We knew that dewatering in and around this area damages public infrastructure and private property, because when peat is robbed of its water source because of dewatering, peat dries, compresses and sinks and anything resting on it goes down with it when it sinks,” Martin said. “Greenwood has been sinking and continues to sink.”
She said there has been a lack of data and science surrounding the project, and that too many assumptions are made. She – and many others in the audience – wondered why the city had not yet ordered an Environmental Impact Statement. Currently, the project only needs a Determination of Non-Significance (DNS).
City Planner Scott Kemp said the city had not yet made the decision on whether an EIS is needed, and that the first step is to approve or deny the DNS. One woman in the audience asked for a show of hands as to who wanted to see an EIS. Nearly every hand went up.
“It’s a very fragile site,” the woman said. “There are impacts, impacts and impacts. I know you can look at all the numbers in lots of different ways. So who’s going to be helping me when I have to move out of the city when my house sinks and I can’t afford to lift it up? It’s a serious possibility for some of us.”
Many others in the audience wanted to know how they could get relief if their houses do sink during or after construction of the project.
“My house is already sinking. I’ve been there five years and I’ve had to raise my house an inch and a half on one corner,” one man said. “What are the assurances that homeowners around the area won’t be affected?”
“If you do the things right on the project itself, there shouldn’t be any impacts on surrounding sites,” Kenrick answered.
A woman who lives directly across the street from the site on 87th Street said the city pipes in the street in front of her house have burst four times in the last few years. Kemp seemed surprised by that. “As you’re building, are our water pipes going to burst again?” she asked.
Matt Heilgeist, who lives across from the project, says he assumes there will be some movement of his home during the project. He asked if the city could establish baselines and elevations for neighboring houses before the project starts, then compare them afterwards. Kemp said the city could look into that.
“My approach is to be as careful as we can. We really don’t feel like we have experts who are trying to fool us,” Kemp said of Fred Meyer’s development team. “They are spending millions and millions of dollars…and do seem to want to do what’s right.”
Note: The meeting was long and many, many people spoke passionately, and there’s no way I can cover everything that was said. So if you think I’ve missed anything important, please put your two cents’ worth in below in comments.
One more thing: If you received a notice in the mail about the meeting from the Department of Planning & Development, then you’re already on the official mailing list for this project. If you didn’t and you want to be on the list, email Scott Kemp with your snail mail address.
24 responses so far ↓
1 Rob Fellows // Mar 12, 2010 at 7:10 am
I really appreciate your effort to cover this so thoroughly - your site is a great resource!
2 JD // Mar 12, 2010 at 8:24 am
Excellent summary. 2 things stand out from your article:
1. The excellent suggestion for baseline elevations of the surrounding properties. You can bet that the developer will have a survey team on site (if not already) . It would be a fantastic show of cooperation if they extended their project scope to include the neighboring properties (at a minimum). This would add a fairly small cost if it were added into the existing survey scope of work.
2. The existing site is an impervious surface that collects stormwater and pipes it away off-site. I hope we can agree that this is the cause of the bog sinking. Despite the inconveniences of the actual construction, anything that reduces the area of impervious surface and/or redirects stormwater towards infiltration would be an improvement, no?
2.a. Be wary of systems that claim to be able to handle a 100-year event. Many times these models don’t consider antecedent storms that saturate the soils (completely) before the actual 100-year storm event. If the ground were dry, than yes I’m sure the vault could handle every drop of rain, the question is can their system be relied upon if it’s been raining for many months AND THEN a 100-year storm comes.
my .02$,
JD
3 chuck // Mar 12, 2010 at 8:58 am
maybe if everyone stopped shopping at FM, they wouldn’t have the desire to build there.
my friends & family are already boycotting FM (all of them, not just this one). i encourage you all to do the same.
no shoppers, no store.
4 Rob McMurtrie // Mar 12, 2010 at 10:04 am
JD- Love your thoughts here. Very well reasoned.
That said, not sure anything saves the neighborhood from a 100-year storm and certainly not the current system which features a huge impermeable surface aka the Fred Meyer/Greenwood Market parking lot
Of course, those “act of God”-type situations are usually alleviated by government stepping in to aid recovery (low-/no-interest loans, etc.). Incredibly disruptive but, ultimately, the whims of Mother Nature are unavoidable.
5 Kate Martin // Mar 12, 2010 at 10:43 am
This existing store not only collects storm water and disposes it into the storm sewer, it also disposes massive amounts of groundwater under the lower level of the store which is below groundwater. The drawdown from that effect is on their maps and they blamed it on the sewer in the street. Yes, the sewer contributes, but they have a floor drain system under a 50,000 sf footprint into the ground water.
Great point made about the saturation of soils in the wet season. Once the soil is saturated and the vaults are full, everything will be overflow into a storm sewer system that is already a roller coaster due to settlement. When everyone disposes into a storm sewer system without capacity and in poor condition, flooding happens. We’ve already seen this. This is why the city, the county, and pretty much everyplace is trying to get stormwater out of the storm sewer with everything from big infiltration ponds to simple rain gardens. These dewatering buildings add vast amounts of water to the storm sewer system because they’re adding a constantly flowing supply of groundwater as opposed to surface water.
The old rickety storm sewers actually suck groundwater into them and around them as was mentioned last night - they’re below ground water level in this case - saturated soils infiltrate the storm sewer in addition to whatever the downspouts, foundation drains, sump systems, etc. add to it.
The timed release idea only works if it’s not full. When it’s full, it directly overflows, when soils are saturated, they don’t infiltrate.
Measuring settlement is a good thing for data, but not identifying culprits specifically because it will be impossible to say who is causing it. The house next door with its sump may be causing problems or the sump under a house itself may be doing it or Safeway or any of the buildings that dewater - or the city sewers themselves may be causing the settlement.
Measuring how much water they are removing right now in all of the disposal scenarios and doing the same at the other large dewatering locations would help to quantify who is dewatering how much both now and in the future.
The drains are side sewers that are on maps and those can be gauged.
Fred Meyer’s backup plan is to remodel the existing store. It would be interesting to see if they would be allowed to continue dewatering.
6 Kate Martin // Mar 12, 2010 at 11:06 am
If you google City of Seattle Sewer Cards and then type in the address 100 N 85th St and click search, you can see all of the side sewers (blue for storm, pink for sanitary) coming off the Fred Meyer building. The draw down of the groundwater was shown in the groundwater contours in the exhibit last night. It is no mystery why the groundwater drops off steeply at 87th and why the neighbors right across the street don’t pump their basement - between Fred Meyer and the sewer in the street, you can almost hear the sucking sound).
7 Greenlkgrl // Mar 12, 2010 at 12:18 pm
My alarm bells went off at the mention of draining a peat bog. Peat bogs are tremendous recyclers of CO2. We should not be covering up and draining this tremendous resource for a crappy FM.
Why don’t they look for another site like across the street where that restaurant is that can’s stay open?
8 outside the box // Mar 12, 2010 at 4:50 pm
How bout we just put a big park there….and include a SKATE PARK for you, Kate! Just saying…..
9 Whopper // Mar 12, 2010 at 6:39 pm
“i encourage you all to do the same.”
Thanks Chuck, I’ll be going twice a day to encourage FM. About time this sh*t-hole of a block get cleaned up. THanks FM!@
10 Whopper // Mar 12, 2010 at 6:41 pm
“tremendous recyclers of CO2.”
Oh yes, CO2, the new excuse to stop progress. Just pull it our of you *ss when ever you see something you want to gripe about.
11 Whopper // Mar 12, 2010 at 6:43 pm
“We should not be covering up and draining this tremendous resource for a crappy FM.”
Huh? It’s already covered up. What do you propose the owners do with their property, open it up to breath?
12 Chrisbap // Mar 12, 2010 at 9:46 pm
Greenlkgrl, they’re not talking about draining the peat, just the opposite in fact. They’re designing the system to, “…put as much of the collected water into the peat as the peat will accept – thereby keeping it hydrated”. Maybe go back and read the article more closely?
13 anon // Mar 13, 2010 at 7:04 am
To all the haters : let’s tear down downtown Seattle while we are at it, it was nothing but grass and trees 200 years ago.
14 Move Forward // Mar 13, 2010 at 12:50 pm
Boycott? DUMB
Move across the street? DUMB
Come on people…..it’s arguments like this that make Fred Meyer’s research look more and more sound. I’ll take research done by experts over emotional whiny neighbors.
Now, the emotional whiny neighbors do have a right to voice opinion - BUT…to a person who has no true stake in this either way, I think you are not representing your side very well.
15 JKM // Mar 13, 2010 at 6:14 pm
Excellent reporting, PhinneyWood.
Is chuck boycotting all Fred Meyers for reasons that have nothing to do with this project? If so, tell us what that’s about. What do those reasons have to do with this specific project?
It sounds like the new project might actually IMPROVE hydration in the peat bog? Is that correct? If that’s the case, then it seems like it would be better to rebuild than to preserve the status quo.
I understand that many residents are upset with problems that they blame on Safeway. That’s a good reasons to demand that the city make sure the same thing doesn’t happen with Fred Meyer.
To the haters on both sides: Seattle is not going to get less dense (population-wise). It’s vital to guide smart development without stopping development. But it’s also vital to understand that blind development is going to poison the city and the Sound.
16 Iron City Mike // Mar 14, 2010 at 6:38 pm
so…now that the meeting is over is the project moving ahead or not? What’s the next step, if any?
17 Fred M // Mar 15, 2010 at 9:17 am
If those posting about Fred Meyer had put as much effort into researching the area before they bought as they have put into attending these meetings, they would have learned that what many of us already knew. The area we now call FreddieMeyer land was formerly a swamp.
18 Jennifer // Mar 15, 2010 at 10:15 am
Here is a question that I have never seen raised..if this was a swamp area at one time, now a bog..isn’t it a wetland and therefore protected under federal law?
http://water.usgs.gov/nwsum/WSP2425/legislation.html
19 anon // Mar 15, 2010 at 11:28 am
It may have been a swamp at one time, but you do realize this is part of the city of Seattle now? Washingtion DC was a swamp 200 years ago, no one is protesting new construction there.
20 Rob McMurtrie // Mar 15, 2010 at 9:18 pm
Kate Martin, I’m confused by many of your arguments. Why don’t we see these displacement problems today due to the existing Fred Meyer which is underground?
Also, how does Safeway, which was completed several years ago contribute to new settling, flooding, etc.? Aren’t those effects already accounted for? A shame that those things happened but can’t penalize future development for mistakes in the past.
Frankly, it seems like the proposal makes conditions better for the bog by allowing more water infiltration. Ideally, we’d have no displacement, no flooding, no settling, but, if the situation with the bog is getting better and the development improves the neighborhood, why continue to hold out for some utopian vision? Some progress (both developmentally and environmentally) is better than the current situation and, as you’ve said, it’s hard to assign blame here. Fred Meyer and the current property owner aren’t solely responsible for the situation in Greenwood. It doesn’t seem fair to hold them to the standard you are demanding.
21 chuck // Mar 16, 2010 at 7:55 am
seems as though the debate has turned in to one of cleaning up the less-than-desirable state of the existing space vs. doing nothing at all (yes, that’s in reference to you whopper).
i don’t get why we’re letting FM off so easy. down in portland, FM’s rennovation in the Hawthorne district was LEED certified and fit within the neighborhood.
i don’t think holding them to that stame standard here is unreasonable.
smart progress, not progress for the sake of progress.
22 Rob McMurtrie // Mar 16, 2010 at 10:40 am
Chuck- I think we’re talking about trade-offs. What’s the cost/benefit of all these scenarios and how can we optimize? One of my fears, with a commercial real estate market that is extremely favorable to companies like FM, is that they will eventually give up on this property. With the current economic environment and existing vacancy rates, we could be waiting a very long time until this property is redeveloped. A vacant property would likely have a great impact on our community (increased crime via “broken window” theory, lower property values, reduced car/foot traffic negatively impacting surrounding businesses).
Ideally, we’d be able to alleviate all problems, get the perfect building, etc. but we don’t live in a utopia. Let’s make sure there is improvement in the existing situation and move on.
I don’t think FM has been let off easy. There has been debate over this site for 10 years and FM and the property owners (who are members of our community) have made many concessions. Ultimately, it’s their property, their investment at risk and their decision on how to develop their property. As long as they minimize the risks to the community and improve the site, they’ve met their obligation.
The only side that seems like their unwilling to compromise is the FM opposition who, while dedicated homeowners, have not really invested in our community. If the opposition really wants to create change in Greenwood, put your money where your mouth is. Create a non-profit to purchase vacant, distressed or underutilized properties, redevelop them and sell them. That way you can control how they are developed, remove blight and improve the neighborhood in your vision.
23 Greenwood // Mar 16, 2010 at 11:34 am
I gotta say, seeing what happened to the houses on 1st Avenue after Safeway went in (now all gone after the road sank about 12 feet and one house in particular tilted in just about every direction), and seeing the way the road in front of Pillages has sunk about 6 feet and been redone by the city multiple times, not to mention what has happened around The Baranof and, well, all over the neighborhood from 85th on, I’d be very nervous for homes and buildings around this new project. One interesting thing about Piper’s Creek is the sheer amount of permeable asphalt and sidewalk used in that area. Was that type of stuff discussed as a possibility for Fred Meyer’s new construction.
24 chuck // Mar 17, 2010 at 10:36 am
I definitely take your point Rob, but I see that as scare tactics — we better not try and hold them to high standards or they might leave. Seems like blackmail to me.
I totally get that this conversation has been going on for a long time and that both sides have made concessions.
But I take issue with how you characterize those in opposition. It’s unfair and inaccurate. Homeowners have been heavily involved and there are a lot of folks who are heavily invested in our community — I’m on the board of two neighborhood non-profits and work every day to make it a better place. So I take personal offense at your comment.
It’s this warped view of the opposition (i.e. against all progress vs. wanting smart progress) that has tainted this 10-year process.
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