Last week, you might have read about the developer of the Fred Meyer project at Maple Valley’s Four Corners, where he’s complaining about the high permit costs and saying that the project might be dead unless the development fees and improvement costs are cut in half.
Ouch. Half of the total fees and improvements totals about $2 million, according to his figures.
The organizations who have their hands out include the city of Maple Valley, Covington Water District, the sewer provider and the fire district. The first one has some ball fields to fund, and the last three need cash for “service improvements”.
But let’s defend Maple Valley for the moment. The developer says he’s never seen impact fees this high (he must not do any developments in California, where the fees are double the national average), and cited as examples a large project in Marysville for $2 million in impact fees, while a Costco in Roseburg, Oregon was done for $780K.
Well, those two cities have similar populations, but they’re vastly different from Maple Valley. Both of those cities are fairly well developed with a lot of retail, both already have full-sized malls, and both are major stops on Interstate 5. They’re not in King County, and their median family incomes are below state averages.
Meanwhile, Maple Valley is a relatively rich community with minimal retail development. The median family income is way above the state average, and even higher than Bellevue’s. According to the Hebert Research report 75 percent of our households make more than $50,000 a year.
Maple Valley also doesn’t have many places left to put in new stores. There are only three empty lots left for new development, and only one has real potential for a big box store. Retailers like Target and Lowe’s are more interested in Covington anyway, since they know that Maple Valley’s retail dollars are already flowing their way, and Covington residents aren’t going to “swim upstream” to shop in Maple Valley.
Like it or not, that leaves only one retailer that’s a natural fit for this town; Fred Meyer.
For practical reasons, we should welcome them with open arms. According to the Puget Sound Consumers’ Checkbook, the average family would save about $500 per year if they bought groceries at Fred Meyer. We’d probably save even more than that, since our Safeway is a lot more expensive than other Safeways (and yeah, I actually checked that).
Also, having a Fred Meyer here would help us with those “oh fudge” moments when we forget to buy a birthday gift 10 minutes before the party starts (but I didn’t say fudge). Right now, we have to race down to Walmart, and that’s not on the way.
Personally, though, I rarely go to Fred Meyer. Their supersized general-store concept might have been innovative 60 years ago, but they’ve dedicated themselves to mediocrity ever since. Their clothing and housewares trends are about five years behind, electronics displays are dated, and even their radio ads sound exactly the same as they did 10 years ago. If you told me that Ned Flanders was in charge of their marketing, I’d believe you.
Their longtime strategy of scouting prime retail space in developing suburbs is one of the reasons they’ve survived in the vicious world of big retail. It certainly isn’t due to superior merchandising, marketing or product selection skills.
But that’s exactly why Fred Meyer should run to our open arms. The general-store concept still works in this town, and having their store at one of the two hearts of Maple Valley will make other large retailers reconsider putting a store here. Fred Meyer can truly own general merchandise sales in this town, because we’d have no other options.
Four million dollars is a lot of money. But we’re worth it.
Ryan Ryals lives in Maple Valley and writes a weekly column about politics and life in the city.
