The 50 acre blank slate named the the “Legacy Site,” now has a plan. For five acres of it that is.
During a June 17 study session, the Maple Valley City Council decided to move forward with a temporary farmers market on the legacy site. Four acres will be for parking and one acre would be slated for the actual market and vendors.
The money for the farmers market project is already in the 2019-20 budget for about $820,000, according to Community Development Manager Matt Torpey.
“It was just reaffirming something was already approved in the budget,” Torpey said.
He explained the idea of adding the temporary farmers market is to “activate the site,” get the public interested and get it out there that the city is working on the Legacy Site.
Councilmember Les Burberry said clear cutting trees and then adding asphalt or gravel would be concerning for the community. But, if trees can be saved, Torpey said they will save them.
And while this is a temporary farmers market, Councilmember Erin Weaver said it’s worth it.
“It’s not a throw away project,” she said.
Weaver explained it is an investment that will get people out there to see the property.
The farmers market would be slated to open in 2020, but looking to the future of the Legacy Site beyond that, Torpey said the Legacy Site Task Force approached city council in 2018 with a diagram that had areas where certain uses within the site could take place. The diagram was accepted by council in November 2018.
For instance, the task force put a civic center on the diagram to be placed in the northwest corner of the Legacy site and for the alignment of the road that passes through the site to align with the existing right of way on Southeast 260th Street.
Another item that was discussed during the study session was the vision of the downtown Maple Valley area.
There was a full council consensus to move forward with moving to plan with the Planning commission for further discussion of downtown. The downtown area was defined during the study session as well. Torpey said downtown is defined as the area north of Southeast 264th Street to the Legacy Site.
There will be further discussion during a future study session about mixed use developments in other areas outside of the defined downtown Maple Valley area.
“So that would be the rest of Four Corners, south of Southeast 206th Street and the commercial area on the north side of town near Wilderness Village, the QFC shopping center,” Torpey explained. “Those areas are still up for discussion and consideration of how, if and why the city would want to move forward with mixed use and multifamily residential in the commercial zone. So there has been no decision on that yet.”
He said this study session will likely take place before the council’s August recess.
For more information about the Legacy Site, go to maplevalleywa.gov/city-government/citizen-boards-commissions-and-committees/legacy-site-task-force-2016.
