Not long before the ribbon was cut in front of Fred Meyer at Maple Valley Town Square, Victoria Laise Jonas and Peter Powell were chatting in front of the entry.
“History is being made in Maple Valley as we speak,” Jonas said to Powell.
For the city, the arrival of the big box retailer was a sign of the shift in attitude toward economic development in the past three years.
Fred Meyer had been interested in locating a store in Maple Valley for a number of years but the city had an ordinance on the books since incorporation that prevented big box stores coming in that had footprints of more than 60,000 square feet.
That’s not an unusual tactic, Powell told onlookers during a groundbreaking ceremony nearly a year ago, and in other cities such an ordinance has been called ‘The Walmart Clause.’
During the ribbon cutting ceremony, Powell who owns Powell Development which was responsible for bringing the Fred Meyer-anchored project to Maple Valley, described the process.
“This has been a labor of love,” Powell said. “This wouldn’t have happened without the Morris family (which owned the property).”
Or, he noted, without a great deal of time and energy by the city’s community development staff.
In 2009 the City Council adopted an ordinance that would allow for stores the size of Fred Meyer after close to three years of discussion.
“We had to figure out how to keep the value of this city,” Powell said. “We’re talking about a lot of work. It was a total team effort.”
He also credited Fred Meyer and its parent company, Kroger, for their persistence.
“If it weren’t for them sticking with us for seven years, this would not have happened,” Powell said.
Eric Georgia, the store director who took on the job Jan. 31, likened the efforts to a sport.
“We look at this like a relay race,” Georgia said. “This is the next leg. We get to pick up where you left off.”
Nearly 15 years ago, said Mayor Bill Allison, when Maple Valley incorporated the city was a small community away from the hustle and bustle of Seattle and the Eastside.
“But the popularity of our community, our school system and our way of life has drawn residents from all over the nation too Maple Valley,” Allison said. “As we grew in number the reality and necessity to provide services to meet the needs of our families grew as well. We all understand that change is difficult, with the growth of a community comes the pains of knowing our community will be ever evolving in looks but never in feel.”
In addition to Fred Meyer, a number of other businesses will open surrounding it including a 10,000 square-foot MultiCare health center, a Chase bank branch, a Sprint store, two restaurants in Farrelli’s Wood Fired Pizza and Hop Jacks, as well as Burger King, a Sprint store, a gelato shop called Nutty Squirrel, and more.
Allison noted that he was recently at a conference which focused on shopping plazas and that “this was on the radar” among those who attended.
As Jonas said before the ribbon cutting, it was a historic moment in the city.
For Allison, it is just the beginning of many more such moments to come.
“The opening of Maple Valley Town Square with Fred Meyer as its anchor store is one step in the process of improving the quality of life here in Maple Valley,” the mayor said. “What you see here today and what is yet to be finished will become a gathering place for families to shop, eat and be provided with some of the services they desire.”
