City will issue ruling on environmental appeal of Fred Meyer by next Wednesday

The city’s hearing examiner has until next Wednesday to issue her decision on an appeal of environmental concerns about the major expansion and remodel of the Greenwood Fred Meyer.
The appeal hearing was April 25. City Planner Scott Kemp says the hearing examiner has two weeks to issue a ruling.
Fred Meyer closed the store on Feb. 25 and planned to immediately begin construction of a major remodel and expansion. But neighborhood activist Kate Martin appealed the city’s Determination of Non-Significance.
Martin tells us she has a number of concerns about drainage on the site, as well as pedestrian safety, and she didn’t feel that the conditions the city placed on the project were adequate.
“I asked for a more walkable streetscape on 85th and 3rd where the Fred Meyer plans show no changes to enhance the 4’ buffer between the moving cars at curbside and the sidewalk,” she told us today in an email. “I also asked for them to meter the water going into the storm sewer from this site so that we could see a before and after quantification of dewatering. The existing FM lower level floor is built at, near or below the groundwater level and dewaters vast amounts of groundwater which is disposed in the sewer before it can make its way to the peat bog and eventually Piper’s Creek. Several times in the SEPA report, it is claimed that no new water will leave the site, but water leaving the site is not measured, so the claim will always be unsubstantiated without meters.”
We have asked Fred Meyer for an update on construction timelines, but they have not yet responded.