The Greenwood Market at NW 85th St and 3rd Avenue NW is closing its doors for good at 6 p.m. today. While many shelves are empty, Store Manager Patty Nolan says they still have a good variety of products, just not too much of any one thing, so customers can go on “a treasure hunt” for groceries.

Friday night, store employees held a low-key open house for regular customers, serving cupcakes…

And there was a goodbye book for customers to sign. (Thanks to Rae for the photos!)

Any groceries left at the end of the day will go to the Greenwood Food Bank.

Greenwood Market is closing to make way for an expanded Fred Meyer. The Greenwood Fred Meyer currently has clearance prices as it clears out its inventory before closing on Feb. 25 for remodeling. It will open sometime in the late fall.

Update 12:10 p.m.: At noon today, they started taking down the “Store Closing” signs on the outside.

Greenwood Market is in its last week of business at the corner of NW 85th Street and 3rd Avenue NW, before closing to make way for an expanded Fred Meyer.

I stopped by this afternoon to talk with Store Director Patty Nolan. She wanted customers to know that while everything is on clearance, currently priced from 10-50 percent off the lowest marked price, the store still has plenty of inventory.

Greenwood Market is still receiving shipments of bread.

While there are empty shelves, the store is still receiving dairy and bread shipments, and they’ve got a ton of canned pumpkin, plenty of juices, cooking oil and spices. The produce aisle is still fairly well stocked, too.

“We were joking that it looks like Thanksgiving,” Nolan said of the canned pumpkin display. “And we have lots of Gefilte Fish!”

Some shelves are empty, but Greenwood Market still has a lot of juice and crackers.

Nolan said Greenwood Market plans to hold a low-key open house for its regular customers from 5-7 p.m. Friday, as a way to say thank you to its loyal customers.

Greenwood Market’s last day will be Saturday.

Sam’s Espresso, which has been located just inside the front door of the Greenwood Fred Meyer since 1988, is looking for a new spot when Fred Meyer closes next month for extensive remodeling.

Salam Ballout, who started Sam’s Espresso in 1988 and gave it to his brother Sam to run, told me today that when Fred Meyer reopens in the late fall, it will be with a Starbucks, not Sam’s. So Sam and Salam are looking for a new spot in Greenwood where they can serve up their low-priced espresso and famous hot dogs.

Salam also owned a Sam’s Espresso inside the Fred Meyer at Aurora Avenue North and North 185th Street from 1993-2000, before it was replaced by a Starbucks. Another Sam’s Espresso is currently located inside the Lake City Way Fred Meyer.

Salam said the brothers will miss their regular clientele, so they hope to find a new location quickly. They’re working with real estate agents to find something, but so far they haven’t found a spot with parking or reasonable rent.

Sam’s is well-known for its $2 mocha and the scent of hot dogs as you walk through Fred Meyer’s front door. Salam said the business has some customers who’ve been with them since the beginning, including a woman whose mother was a customer when she was pregnant with her, and who now brings her own 3-year-old to the cart for hot dogs and treats.

Salam Ballout and his brother Sam serve up low-priced coffee, hot dogs, cookies, bagels, granitas and other treats just inside Fred Meyer’s front door.

“We have people come from Redmond, Kirkland, Snoqualmie,” Salam said. “They used to live here and they come back once a month just to have our hot dogs.”

The Greenwood Food Bank collects vegetables, fruit, milk and other groceries from local stores to help feed the hungry. But no local grocery store has consistently given as much as Greenwood Market, which will close in early February to make way for an expanded Fred Meyer.

Patty Leach, program manager for the Greenwood Food Bank, which is run by Volunteers of America, says that Greenwood Market donated 183,911 pounds of food and health care products to Greenwood Food Bank last year.

“The Greenwood Market made an incredible difference in our community, they donated not only nutritious healthy meat, dairy, fruits and vegetables but so many basic need items like laundry soap, personal hygiene items etc,” Leach said in an email. “The community supported the food bank weekly always making sure the food drive barrel was full on the scheduled pick-up day. Volunteers of America would like to express our gratitude to everyone for knowing the need in our community and for all your willingness to make a difference.”

This morning I tagged along as food bank employee Ken Stout picked up his usual load of food from Greenwood Market. Stout said he usually picks up about 1,000 pounds of food on each of his four trips to the store each week.

“They’ve been a very, very generous organization,” Stout said of Town & Country Markets, which also owns Ballard Market, Central Markets in Shoreline, Mill Creek and Poulsbo, and a Town & Country Market on Bainbridge Island.

Today, Stout was greeted with a large rolling cart of fruit and vegetables, another cart of dairy products, a grocery cart full of crackers and other boxed food, and another cart of ground coffee, flour and miscellaneous items. The food bank barrels at the front of the store, where customers can donate, brought in another fully-loaded cart.

The store, and customers, donate not only food but health products such as soap, shampoo and toothpaste. Stout has to weigh all the donations before loading it into the van.

Greenwood Food Bank employee Ken Stout weighs every box of donated groceries.

Today Stout drove away with 944 pounds of food. He expects his 1,000-pound average to be less and less as it gets closer to the store closing date, since they won’t be ordering as much inventory.

A full van of groceries collected from Greenwood Market on Friday, Jan. 6.

The good news is that when Fred Meyer reopens in the late fall with a full grocery section, it will partner with Food Lifeline/Feeding America to donate groceries to Greenwood Food Bank.

“Almost every one of our 132 stores is on this perishable donation program and it results in more than 4 million pounds of food donated to food banks each year. In Western Washington, Food Lifeline agencies receive about 2 million pounds,” Melinda Merrill, Fred Meyer’s Director of Public Affairs, told me in an email.

But there will be a gap of nine or 10 months between the time Greenwood Market closes and Fred Meyer reopens, and the food bank is hoping the community can help out.

“We are working very hard on building new relationships and appreciate this opportunity to get the word out that if our local businesses and churches would like to host a food/fund bin during this transition time we would greatly appreciate their help,” Leach said. “We currently have a food bank donation bin located in the Greenwood Safeway for the community. For every dollar used to support the food bank last year we were able to provide 3 meals. We are always grateful for the opportunity when folks hosts food and fund drives for the food bank! To learn more and stay informed join us at our Community Volunteer Night the 2nd Friday of the month from 6pm-8pm or the 4th Saturday of the month from 9am-11am.”

The Greenwood Food Bank is located at 9041 Greenwood Ave. N.

The Greenwood Fred Meyer will close at 11 p.m. on Feb. 25 for extensive renovation and expansion. Work on the site begins March 1. The company hopes to reopen the store sometime in the late fall. Melinda Merrill, Director of Public Affairs, tells us that all Greenwood employees will work at other nearby Fred Meyers during construction.

Customers of the Fred Meyer pharmacy won’t have to drive far to get their prescriptions filled. Fred Meyer is opening a temporary pharmacy just across the street to the east, in an empty retail space in Piper Village on First Avenue, near the Mud Bay pet store. The temporary pharmacy opens on Feb. 27.

The Greenwood Market will be demolished to make way for the expansion. The Market’s tentative last day is Feb. 4, and the lease is up Feb. 29.

Fred Meyer is adding approximately 55,000 square feet to its Greenwood store, and will add groceries.

Greenwood Market at 8500 3rd Ave. NW is tentatively planning to close for good on Saturday, Feb. 4. Store Director Patty Nolan tells us they aren’t sure yet what the hours will be that day, and that date could change based on inventory.

The store’s lease ends on Feb. 29.

Greenwood Market is closing because the neighboring Fred Meyer is expanding. Greenwood Shopping Center Inc., the company that owns the land and leases it to Fred Meyer and Greenwood Market, decided to lease the entire lot to Fred Meyer, which plans to demolish the Greenwood Market building and expand the current Fred Meyer by 55,305 square feet.

Many people have asked whether Greenwood Market could find a new space to reopen. Nolan told us over the phone today that the company is always looking for new opportunities, but there are currently no plans to open a new store.

Greenwood Market opened in 1991 as Greenwood Price Chopper.

Town & Country Markets is trying to find positions for employees at other stores, especially the nearby Ballard Market and Central Market in Shoreline. The company also owns Central Markets in Mill Creek and Poulsbo, and a Town & Country Market on Bainbridge Island.

“I’ve appreciated the opportunity to serve this close-knit community, where neighbors care about one another and where they live,” Nolan said in a press release issued today. “I’m very grateful for their loyalty and support, and will miss all the wonderful relationships formed over the last 20-plus years.”

The Seattle Department of Planning and Development hosted a public meeting last Monday night (Oct. 17) on Fred Meyer’s proposed expansion of its Greenwood store.

Dozens of people came to the open house meeting, viewing drawings and schematics of Fred Meyer’s plan to add 55,000 square feet to its current store. They pored over schematics of groundwater level contours, peat elevations and subsurface profiles. And they grilled Fred Meyer’s architects, engineers and consultants on storm water detention plans, pedestrian access across the site, and traffic.

Joel Howitt of Barghausen Consulting Engineers, which did the civil engineering and site planning, explained that trees and bushes will be planted in 53 locations throughout the site, most in the parking lot. And the existing fir trees along the back of the building on NW 87th Street will remain.

The pipe from the new underground storm water detention vault will connect to the current storm water pipe that goes off site. The water will be treated with a “storm filter” – essentially cans of compost material that naturally filters out pollutants. Those cans are replaced several times a year.

New sidewalks will be built along 1st Avenue NW and Northwest 87th Street, and a pedestrian walkway will run east-west across the length of the site, with a slight jog in the middle.

“We’re improving the site tremendously, adding landscaping and walkways,” Tom Gibbons, Fred Meyer’s Director of Real Estate, said. “The building as it exists today is a big sterile box and we’re adding some nice architectural elements to it.”

Terry A. Krause, architect with Group Mackenzie in Portland, said, “We’re trying to clean it up at street level…and creating green screens. It will have a much more natural look to it. Much more modern than what’s there now.”

Staff offices will be in the back of the building, along 87th Street, at ground level. That ground floor will be mostly for employees and the stockroom. Groceries will be on the west side on the upper floor.

The new entrance will be about where it is now, but will have a much larger vestibule, including an area for shopping carts.

“We’re just trying to keep it simple,” Krause said. “The main purpose of this is to add services to the building.”

Several neighbors said the plan doesn’t do enough to make the building fit into the neighborhood, that it’s still essentially a plain big box in the middle of a huge parking lot.

One neighbor wanted to see the “flexible programming space” discussed in prior development plans reinstated. In that scenario, a portion of the parking lot could be temporarily blocked off to cars and turned into a space for a farmers market, small carnival or other public use.

Evan Bourquard, an architect and co-chair of the volunteer group Greenwood Deserves Better, said bluntly, “Big picture, I think it’s a travesty that it’s going to be a parking lot for the next 60 years.”

He also felt the storm water detention vault was “pretty run of the mill” and wanted to see something more aggressive. He also wants better pedestrian access across the site, to bring people from the west side of Greenwood to the downtown core.

“We feel like they could do more to strengthen that,” he said. “We’re not real happy with it, but it is what it is. I do think it’s going to be better than it is now. But I think it’s a lost opportunity.”

One neighbor complained that the old DPD sign proclaiming the massive mixed-use development – which was shelved more than a year ago – still sits on 3rd Avenue NW. Several neighbors told me they believe some people are under the impression that the former development plan is still in the works since the sign is still there. City Planner Scott Kemp asked Fred Meyer representatives if they would take it down, and they agreed. (As of one week after the meeting, the sign was still there.)

The graffiti-covered land use sign on 3rd Avenue NW refers to mixed-use development plans that were shelved more than a year ago. A more current land use sign is placed on 87th Street, behind Fred Meyer’s underground parking.

Neighbors also were worried about pedestrian access along the west side, since there are no sidewalks on the west side of 3rd Avenue NW, except for the block between 85th and 86th streets.

They’d like the city to put in sidewalks along that stretch, as well as a crosswalk on the corner of 87th and 3rd. Otherwise, shoppers who are walking would have to walk up to 85th and 3rd, cross, then walk back to their houses without a sidewalk.

The west side of 3rd Avenue NW has just one block of sidewalk, then it disappears.

Fred Meyer’s loading docks will be in about the middle of the west side, facing 85th Street. Gibbons said they don’t like having the loading docks facing forward, but that the grading of the site demanded it, otherwise trucks backing up from the side could tip over. But those docks will be screened with some kind of greenery.

Fred Meyer expects to have about 50-60 trucks a week using the loading docks, with two or three a day being the larger semi- trucks.

There’s still time to submit your comments on the project. Send written comments to: Scott Kemp, Senior Land Use Planner, City of Seattle Department of Planning and Development, 700 5th Ave., Suite 2000, Seattle, WA 98124; or by email to scott.kemp@seattle.gov.

Don’t forget that Monday night is the public meeting on Fred Meyer’s expansion plans for its Greenwood store at 100 NW 85th St. The Department of Planning and Development meeting is at 7 p.m. Monday at the Greenwood Senior Center, 525 N. 85th St.

Fred Meyer’s plans for the Greenwood store have changed over the years from a proposed mixed use development with residential, to a plan to turn the Greenwood Market building into a garden center, to the current proposal to demolish Greenwood Market and expand the current Fred Meyer by 55,305 square feet, with parking for 449 vehicles.

The project requires a SEPA Environmental Review.

Seattle’s Department of Planning and Development will host a public meeting regarding Fred Meyer’s expansion plans for its Greenwood store at 100 NW 85th St. The meeting will be at 7 p.m. on Monday, Oct. 17, at the Greenwood Senior Center, 525 N. 85th St.

Fred Meyer’s plans for the Greenwood store have changed over the years from a proposed mixed use development with residential, to a plan to turn the Greenwood Market building into a garden center, to the current proposal to demolish Greenwood Market and expand the current Fred Meyer by 55,305 square feet, with parking for 449 vehicles.

The project requires a SEPA Environmental Review.

The city will be scheduling a public meeting regarding Fred Meyer’s plans to extensively remodel its Greenwood store at 100 NW 85th St.

Normally, a remodel to an existing building doesn’t warrant a public meeting, while more extensive redevelopment plans must go through the Design Review Board, as Fred Meyer’s previous proposal did.

However, a group of architects and designers, called Greenwood Deserves Better, recently collected about 75 signatures from neighbors of the Fred Meyer site and turned them in to the city, which forces a public meeting about the project. The city should be scheduling that meeting in the next few weeks.

Greenwood Deserves Better is concerned about Fred Meyer’s appeal of the city’s decision regarding environmental impacts of rezoning the site.

The city plans to rezone the 13+-acre portion of the Greenwood/Phinney Ridge Residential Urban Village, which includes the land under Fred Meyer and Greenwood Market, as well as some surrounding properties. The proposed zoning would change the site from C-1 40 (commercial zoning that is oriented more to big-box stores and car traffic, and allows for building heights up to 40 feet), to Neighborhood Commercial, which calls for more density, pedestrian access, and allows taller buildings, to encourage residential. The rezoning proposal breaks down the site and surrounding areas into four subareas with slightly different zoning for each. (See the map here and the city’s full report). The city held a public meeting on the proposal last summer; more than 100 neighbors gave input on the plan.

The Department of Planning & Development conducted a SEPA (State Environmental Policy Act) review, and determined that rezoning the site would have no significant environmental impacts (.pdf). But Fred Meyer is appealing that decision.

“They’re asking about transportation and utility impact topics,” Gordon Clowers, DPD Senior Urban Planner, explained. “That refers to our conclusion that there wouldn’t be significant impacts on those systems, and they want more information on how we made those decisions.”

A rezone appeal hearing is set for 12 p.m. Wednesday (tomorrow), at Seattle Municipal Tower, 700 5th Avenue, Room 4009. It is open to the public.

Greenwood Deserves Better (formerly called the Greater Greenwood Design Development Advocacy Group), is afraid that Fred Meyer is using the rezoning appeal as a delay tactic, to get their expansion plans approved before a rezone would affect them.

Fred Meyer had previously proposed a massive redevelopment of the site that included housing, a three-story parking garage, and other retail. That plan went through an extensive design and public review process. But the company abandoned that plan last August, saying it was just too expensive in the current economic climate. So, Fred Meyer put forth a new proposal to expand its current store by 55,305 square feet and remodel the Greenwood Market building into Fred Meyer’s home and garden center.

But then Fred Meyer found the Greenwood Market building to be in poor condition, so the plans changed yet again to the current proposal, which would expand the current Fred Meyer by 55,305 square feet. The Greenwood Market building would be demolished, and the Pacific Lock & Key kiosk in the parking lot would be moved to a different part of the site.

“Our group feels (that) is an underuse of the site, and an impact on the entire neighborhood,” Evan Bourquard, an architect and member of Greenwood Deserves Better, explained. “It really feels like they’re sneaking the permit into the city. They want non-significance on their project to increase the size by 55 percent. Even within the context of an addition, there are some areas of improvement. We’re just trying to get the city to force them to do the public meeting.”

Tom Gibbons, Fred Meyer’s Director of Real Estate, was unavailable for comment.

Fred Meyer has applied once again to the Department of Planning and Development to redevelop its Greenwood store.

After plans for a major development – including a 160,000 square foot store, approximately 250 units of residential, 25,000 square feet of retail space for other businesses, and a three-story parking garage – were shelved last August because of the economy, Fred Meyer decided to do a down-to-the-studs remodel of the existing store, and planned to turn the Greenwood Market building into its home and garden center.

Those plans have now changed again after Fred Meyer decided that the building currently housing Greenwood Market was not suitable for remodeling.

The new plans instead call for the 20,950-square-foot Greenwood Market building to be demolished, and for the existing Fred Meyer store to expand by 55,305 square feet.

The 340-square-foot kiosk housing Pacific Lock & Key will be relocated from the middle of the site to the west side.

The new plans call for parking to be reconfigured for a total of 449 vehicles at and below grade.

The plans are subject to environmental review. Comments on the plan may be submitted online through July 27.

The city’s Department of Planning and Development finally released its report on a proposal to rezone three areas in downtown Greenwood. The proposed zoning changes would have affected the Fred Meyer site on 85th Street, as well as surrounding residential streets. However, DPD’s report, released on Tuesday, proposes only moving forward with the rezone on the Fred Meyer site.

More than 100 neighbors gathered at an open house on June 29 to voice their opinions on the proposal, which included whether some surrounding residential streets should also be rezoned to allow for higher building limits.

The original idea was to rezone a 100-foot-deep swath across the street from Fred Meyer on NW 85th Street, NW 87th Street, and 3rd Avenue NW to allow for multi-family housing to provide a “step down” between the major development that Fred Meyer had proposed and the surrounding single-family neighborhood. Fred Meyer has since changed its mind about replacing the current store with a retail-residential development, and will instead do a down-to-the-studs remodel of the existing store, as well as the Greenwood Market building.

The comments at that June 29 meeting, and in an online survey, were overwhelming negative regarding the residential rezones. According to DPD’s report, more than 65 percent did not support rezoning Subarea 2 from Single-Family 5000 to allow for low-rise options.

And 61 percent did not support rezoning Subarea 3 from Neighborhood Commercial 40 to allow for heights of up to 65 feet.

The report says the city will “maintain future consideration” for rezoning those areas. For now, DPD proposes the City Council rezone Subarea 1 from car-oriented Commerical 1 with a 40-foot height limit to more pedestrian-oriented Neighborhood Commercial with a 65-foot height limit and a pedestrian zone overlay.

From the report:

This rezone represents an opportunity for a higher density, mixed‐use development including townhouses, condos, affordable apartments (required through incentive zoning with the height increase), that would be well‐supported in this area. DPD recommends increasing the height limit to 65 feet in order to encourage reuse of the site with housing while preserving the potential for retail tenants with high floor‐to‐ceiling heights to serve the neighborhood. Tall ground floors are usually a key driver for creating good retail space. Tenants, especially grocers, and developers typically need more than 40 feet of building height in order to
incorporate housing into a mixed use development. A height limit of 65 feet would maintain flexibility for a range of options in future redevelopment, while impacts from height, bulk and scale of a project can be mitigated through the design review process.

DPD will now work on an environmental determination to prepare legislation to rezone Subarea 1. After that there will be a three-week comment and appeal period before going to the City Council for a public hearing.