Kite Realty Group is pushing back development of Four Corner Square to at least next year.

Ty Peterson, Maple Valley director of Community Development, said via e-mail Thursday that the Indianapolis-based developer has revised its plans for the property.

“We have received a request that their construction bonds be released,” Peterson said. “This results in the city revoking their current development and construction permits. Their site-plan and design approval remains valid, but they will no longer have a permit for construction.”

Peterson added that Kite officials did not say they were pulling the plug on plans to improve the property.

“They indicated that they did not anticipate construction this year; hence the request, but that they are still planning some potential development in 2010 for the site,” he said.

Kite originally bought the property in late 2004 for $10.5 million. There is about 73,000 square feet of commercial space on the site, including Johnson’s 35,000 square feet for the hardware and equipment rental businesses owned by Brad and J Johnson.

In addition, Kite purchased the former wrecking yard site just north of Four Corner Square, with the intent of putting new commercial buildings including building a new Johnson’s Home and Garden that would triple the square footage.

The hardware store has been open in Maple Valley since 1969 and remains a family owned business, with its first location being a tiny 2,500 square foot building, before occupying its current space starting in 1979.

The Johnsons have been waiting more than a decade for a chance to move to a bigger location with its initial conceptual drawings for a new building having been drawn up in 1996.

Brad Johnson told the Reporter in 2007 that they hoped to be moving into a new store this year, but now those plans are up in the air with Kite’s changes to its development plans for the site.

J Johnson made a presentation to the Maple Valley Economic Development Council on Sept. 14 with the hope that the EDC could encourage the city to find ways to support local business owners.

“We would’ve loved to have had this building built 10 years ago,” J Johnson said. “When we signed our lease a year ago, they were starting the utility work. Then suddenly everything just kind of went away.”

Johnson explained that until Kite is ready to move on the project it “is not a company that talks until action is needed.”

For now, Johnson said, things are in limbo but that doesn’t mean Johnson’s Home and Garden is going away any time soon.

“We show up every day, we take care of our customers,” he said. “That’s all we can do.”

Re-development of Four Corner Square is also a piece of the overall economic development puzzle that the city is trying to solve with its subarea plan for the southern commercial node of Maple Valley.

The Four Corners subarea plan would create a blue print for further development for that section of the city, which already has businesses, but has room for more, and planning economic growth is important to the city as it approaches residential build out and slow down in new home construction.

Work on the plan has already been delayed while Peterson’s staff deals with all the work that comes with planning for the 156-acre Summit Place, also known as the donut hole, which the council has directed them to focus on while Maple Valley tries to get the King County owned property annexed into city limits.

Another hiccup in the adoption process came when a decision on the northwest quadrant, which includes Maple Valley Fire and Life Safety Station 80 as well as the Motorplex and a handful of other businesses and the city-owned Legacy Site, was deferred.

Right now there is a little breathing room on the subarea plan, Peterson told the Reporter in June, because the development moratorium expired in February and interim regulations are in place until next February. At that point the decision will have to be made about what permanent regulations should be in place for the northwest quadrant.

In the meantime, it may be at least another year or more before Kite moves forward with its plans for Four Corner Square.

Reach Kris Hill at khill@maplevalleyreporter.com or (425)432-1209 ext. 5054.