The city of Covington’s identity remains under construction, but it’s being built with fewer drive-thru windows.

The city launched a new logo and slogan — “Growing Toward Greatness” — in July they hoped would help make the city more recognizable and to develop the idea that Covington is “a destination.”

But the heavy lifting behind the conceptual facade came years ago, during the vision statement for its Downtown Plan that cut the clutter of more than a dozen different zoning classifications to four. Among those changes was language aimed at limiting drive-thru services, instead focusing on pedestrian-friendly businesses and walkable streets.

“(The public wants) Covington to be more than a suburban shopping area, or more than a place you go through on the way from Interstate 405 to Maple Valley,” said Richard Hart, Covington Community Development Director. “The people who live here want to have an identity of what is Covington.”

In the eyes of one commercial real estate agent, though, this dedication to the plan means extra work, and, potentially, losing out on some business opportunities.

“(The Design Review) is put together by well-intended people,” said Brian Pounder, president of Regency Group, a commercial real estate firm located in Bellevue, who is assisting with the property previously home to the former Burger that closed in October. “But there’s the old saying about unintended consequences of well-intentioned ideas.”

Covington, which was incorporated in 1997, has developed commercial centers liked Costco and Walmart over the last few years, but is also working to build a true center of the community. Hart said surveys have shown Covington citizens want the city to be to be more than strip malls and drive-thrus.

The city’s design standards reflect that goal, with regulations depending on the street type — whether the area is more focused on pedestrians, normal driving traffic or commercial vehicles. Each standard provides a checklist of requirements, some with a “menu” approach, giving developers and architects a slightly broader choice for construction.

The City Council established the permitted uses during the city’s downtown zoning study, which was adopted in 2009. The zoning codes and downtown design guidelines provide the parameter on how the site is developed — setbacks, drainage, parking, building orientation, signs and safety requirements.

Hart said limiting the zones to TC (Town Center), MC (Mixed Commercial), GC (General Commercial) and MHO (Mixed Housing and Office) cut complication.

Hart said the land use regulations can’t be arbitrary.

“You can’t just say this looks nice or not nice — that is being arbitrary or capricious,” Hart said. “Our codes are very clear and say exactly what is required.”

New drive-thrus are not allowed in the Town Center or Mixed Housing and Office zones. The city’s intent is “to provide a pedestrian–oriented core to the downtown,” according to Salina Lyons, Covington’s principal planner.

Current buildings in the zones, such as the McDonald’s, which was renovated in the last few years, and the former Burger King, located on Southeast 272nd Street, are grandfathered in since their drive-thrus were built before the city implemented the zoning requirements. Still, the city mandates that new drive-thrus can’t be directly facing Highway 516. For the Wendy’s, currently being built on Kent-Kangley Road, across from Fred Meyer, that means the drive-thru design must be either behind or to the side of the building.

“They have made the drive-thru aspect very difficult, if not impossible,” Pounder said.

According to QSR Magazine, which covers quick service and fast casual restaurants, the drive-thru can account for between 50 and 70 percent of a restaurant’s sales. In 2012, The NPD Group, a market research company, reported customers made 12.4 billion fast food drive-thru visits in 2011 and 2012.

Hart said the design requirement enhances the city’s appearance and that studies have shown that city’s with high quality designs have greater economic value than communities that don’t.

Hart said design standards “very rarely” kill a project, estimating a 95 percent success rate of working with developers since the process began. Hart said the rigid regulations adopted by the city council make his job easier.

“We don’t have a lot of flexibility because if you don’t treat everybody the same, then the second person comes in and says, ‘you didn’t treat the person before me like that.’”

LAND AND MONEY

Pounder, who said Regency Group has leased more than 200,000 square feet of space in Covington, claimed tenant improvement requests can take months to complete and that the city lacks a predictable, efficient processing process.

“They analyze to a fault,” Pounder said. “If we want to attract good businesses, as much as it is important to analyze, time is money… If you can do it in two months, why should it take 10 months?”

Lawrence Campbell, a commercial architect in Kent for more than 40 years, voiced similar concerns during his two most recent project’s in Covington. The first permit he needed, Campbell said, was for improving a parking lot and went relatively smoothly. Meanwhile, he found that completing the second permit, a tenant improvement project, to be “time-consuming” and “irritating.” Campbell said the city’s major issue is cutting the delays on routine aspects — most notably the need to set up appointment for most everything.

“They were very thorough, but the other side of the coin is you can’t even perform a very minor thing, like turning in a form that you’ve downloaded off their website without making an appointment with someone to do so,” Campbell said. “And that’s highly unusual in the building department. To me, it’s not a good definition of public service.”

Campbell, who is semi-retired, called Covington “probably the least user-friendly department” he’s dealt with recently. Despite the complaint, Campbell said he respects the city’s dedication to thoroughness, a quality he doesn’t always see.

“There are some very nice people (on the staff) and, to a certain degree, they are trapped in a system that doesn’t make much of an effort to really provide that friendly, over-the-counter assistance that you experience in just about every other building department,” Campbell said. “…Covington doesn’t stack up real well against some of the other local building departments, but I’m certainly not going to condemn them.”

COVINGTON STILL NEAR THE TOP

The code requirements don’t appear to have any impact on Covington’s overall economic desirability. After at least six years in-a-row as the No. 1 city for annual growth in the Washington State Retail Survey, Covington dropped to No. 2 in 2014. Bonney Lake finished 19, Renton 20th, and Auburn No. 38. Neither Maple Valley nor Black Diamond cracked the top 50.

Josh Parnell, vice president of First Western Properties and a former member of the Covington Economic Development Council, said, as is the case with many newer cities, the permitting process is not always easy, but that Covington has shown a stronger willingness towards compromise since the recession “sobered everybody.”

Parnell said design review code sometimes has a disconnect with preferred layouts and designs that national retailers and developers prefer. Parnell said there are several jurisdictions that want ideas such as “walkable” communities, mass transit and no surface parking lots for retail experience. However, in his experience, the consumers actually prefer drive-thrus with lots of parking for ease of access.

Parnell said it takes time for smaller communities to develop and build a smart and efficient code, but that Covington seems to be “coming out with a sharper focus; more willing to be collaborative and helpful,” specifically pointing to the city’s ability to adjust and collaborate in moving the Inland Development apartment complex deal forward.

“There are good buildings that have been built in the city,” said Parnell, who helped broker the deal for the city’s new Wendy’s. “(The design review) just adds time and money to a process.”

When asked by The Reporter about some of the complaints, Hart said he believes Covington’s design regulations are simpler to follow and more readily accessible than those in larger cities around the state. He added that city staff being able to make decisions, rather than taking the time going through a design review commission, cut out unnecessary steps. State regulations mandate that a city can only take 180 days to review a project, according to Hart, after which time the developer has the right to say they want a permit.

“We’ve always met our time limit,” Hart said. “…I don’t think the process is difficult or onerous.”

CHICK-FIL-A UPDATE

Representatives with the popular and controversial chain restaurant Chick-fil-A met with Covington city staff for a pre-application process about taking over the Burger King location. Lyons told The Reporter Dec. 1 that the franchise is evaluating the site. Hart said the conversations have been “very positive” and that he believed the company is still interested in locating in Covington.

Pounder would not specifically state if Regency was working with Chick-fil-A for the land owner stating only there was interest from a “national company.”

“If the tenant determines it is too expensive or time consuming, we reserve the right to pull out,” he said.

If the permits are accepted, according to Pounder, the Burger King building will be torn down and a new structure will be built.

Hart said Chick-fil-A’s initial design needed to fix its drive-thru positioning.

“They have a particular business design,” Hart said. “Trying to fit that into the existing footprint wouldn’t work.”