But more work is needed, according to many attending the meeting.
“This could be Anywhere, U.S.A.,” Carri Thurman told the project team during a question-and-answer session held after the 70-plus people in attendance reviewed the drawings. “It doesn’t look like it goes with our town at all. You guys can do better than that for us. I know I’m not the only one in the room that feels that way.”
Applause underscored her remarks.
The project team urged Thurman to put her comments — the more specific, the more helpful — on a comment-and-question form.
The store’s impact on traffic was a concern by others at the meeting. Plans call for the Sterling Highway entrance to align with the employee entrance to the Alaska Islands and Ocean Visitor Center. A second entrance will connect Fred Meyer to Main Street.
Other comments focused on lighting, ownership and development of neighboring parcels of land, inclusion of artwork, pedestrian trails and frustrations from trying to envision the drawings as three-dimensional shapes.
This was the first Fred Meyer meeting attended by Thurman, who lives outside the city limits, but owns a business in Homer.
“I just decided it was my last chance to make them hear, and I was really frustrated that we weren’t being more forthright. I had to say something,” said Thurman, who gave the project team photos of a Safeway store in the Lower 48 that had a timber-frame facade. “They wanted a visual. There you go. You can’t get any better than that.”
Asia Freeman urged a process for increased input from area residents.
“What I saw from those present was an urgent request for a unique approach which is a more public process, like the charrette process, to talk first and design after, that is based on a community process,” Freeman told the Homer News, referring to a process that allows collaboration by all stakeholders of a project. “A public process is not replaceable by a customer survey or a presentation. It’s something different. It’s a collaborative process.”
One of the closest neighbors to the site proposed for the Fred Meyer store is Matt Shadle, a member of the Homer City Council. Shadle lives and owns property on the northeast corner of Main Street and Sterling Highway; Fred Meyer is designed for construction between Shadle’s home and Petro Express.
“Am I proud to have Fred Meyer as a neighbor? I don’t know. They’re not a neighbor yet,” Shadle said. “But I do think they will work with Main Street traffic.”
Owned by the state of Alaska, two-lane Main Street is already a cause of concern where it intersects the Sterling Highway, with traffic backing up and frustrated drivers using the NAPA parking lot as an alternate access to the highway, Shadle said.
Homer City Manager Walt Wrede said Fred Meyer’s proposed location makes upgrades to Main Street “more urgent.”
“One of the city’s priorities is to reach an agreement with the state to upgrade Main Street like they did on Bartlett,” Wrede said. “Bartlett used to be a state road, too. The city reached an agreement with (the state) whereby the state would bring it up to city urban road standards, so they fixed up some of the drainage problems, put in a separated path for pedestrians and repaved the road. The deal was that if the state did that, the city would take over road maintenance. Now we want to do the same with Main Street.”
Fred Meyer hopes to begin construction of the store this summer and open it for business in 2007. However, Homer City Planner Beth McKibben said there are more steps to be taken by Fred Meyer before groundbreaking can occur.
“They have to submit a conditional use permit application, and it has to include a report about the two community participation meetings, a traffic impact analysis and a community economic impact study,” McKibben said. In addition, the application must include site plans, address landscaping and indicate how the city’s large retail standards and community design manual have been addressed.
Once McKibben ensures all the pieces are present, a public hearing will be scheduled before the city planning commission.
A traffic impact analysis is currently being done by Northland Systems Engineering. Due to site changes, this is the third study to be done, costing Fred Meyer in the ballpark of $6,000 each time a complete analysis is prepared. The community and economic impact study was done by Civic Economics and cost an estimated $25,000, McKibben said.
“We’ll try to see if we can make some changes that address the concerns that they express,” Merrill told the Homer News. “We do understand that different communities have different preferences and want to make sure we meet all of those the best we can. … In terms of making something appear nice and fit into a theme or neighborhood, we can work on that.”
McKibben Jackinsky can be reached at mckibben.jackinsky@homernews.com.
More wood, less white, more earth tones, less signage, more landscaping and relocation of the fuel center in order to resituate the Sterling Highway access were among the revisions based on feedback received at the previous open house, according to representatives from Fred Meyer, Barghausen Consulting Engineers and MulvannyG2 Architecture.
Written comments received at the Jan. 18 open house were “pretty mixed,” according to Melinda Merrill, director of public affairs for Fred Meyer.
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