The City Council got its first look Monday night at the possible designs for the Lynnwood Crossing development at the old Lynnwood High School site.
The developer, Cypress Equities, has two preferred alternatives. Both feature a Costco at the northeast corner of the site. The store, combined with the fueling center and parking lot, would take up roughly one-half of the space. The lower half would be occupied by other retail, office space, restaurants, recreation or amusement, and multi-family residential buildings (between 330 and 500 units.)
Three other options are being studied to provide officials a way to compare the impacts of the developer’s preferred alternatives.
One big question is what the development will do to traffic in the area. All alternatives feature a new three-lane road extending north from 184th Street SW along the west side of the site, then east along the north side to an intersection with Alderwood Mall Parkway at Maple Road.
“The final run-through on the traffic is still being developed but based on what we know today, it’s predicated on a new signalized intersection in the vicinity of where the old entrance to the high school was, looping through the site, coming out at the A.M./P.M. intersection,” Community Development Director Paul Krauss said.
He said the proposed loop road would actually relieve a lot of traffic congestion at the problematic Alderwood Mall Parkway/184th Street intersection (between the mall and Target.)
City planners are also working to ensure the new Costco store fits in with the character of the area.
“Costco is aware of the design ethic that the city has been working towards with development around the mall. It’s fair to say they’ve been told that standard boxes don’t work in this area,” Krauss said.
The Draft Environmental Impact Statement (DEIS) is expected to be released in the next 60 days. At that time comments will be solicited and incorporated into the plan. The final EIS should go to the Planning Commission this summer, at which time public hearings will be held. The City Council is expected to take up this issue in the fall.
Interesting. I am still not sure that Costco is really what we need there, but I definitely agree that they need another road to relieve congestion in that area.
Note: the loop road is shown as 3-lanes, but Lynnwood will want to expand it to five for better traffic flow. This will eat into half of the buffer of trees and wetlands currently surrounding the property. That’s a shame for the residents to the west and north.
Noise and pollution from the gas station traffic will be an annoyance. And the street sweepers that clean the parking lot will make a lot of noise when they go to work at 3 AM.
Should have been an Ikea, there are Costcos all over the area which does not justify the added congestion that will likely come with this.
I live east of this project, off of Maple Road on the other side of I-5. This is going to cause massive problems for our area. Maple Road approaching Alderwood Mall Parkway already backs up on weekends with people trying unsuccessfully to find a back way into the mall. Costco is going to add to the problem exponentially.
I am going to press very hard for the city to reconfigure the intersection of Maple and Alderwood Mall Parkway so that our neighborhood is not paralyzed by traffic. If they want our votes on annexation someday, they need to help us out.
The city’s long-range traffic plan is to open up Beech Road (the one that goes behind Target & Kohl’s) so it connects to 26th Ave W and then Maple Road. The idea is to offload Alderwood Mall Parkway and the AMP/Maple intersection.
I’m not sure it well help the traffic paralysis where you live, SnoCoDude. I used to live in that area, so I feel your pain. Good luck in your negotitations with the city!