Christina Cox, one of the owners of the property where the Metropolitan Market is located, dropped a bombshell at the Queen Anne Community Council meeting last week with news that QFC is taking over the location of the longtime neighborhood grocery store.
She said the proposal is to take out The Elfrieda apartment house north of the store, along with two single-family homes on West Crockett Street, demolish the old grocery and replace it with a QFC that is-at 35,000 to 38,000 square feet-more than double the size of the current Metropolitan.
The plan also calls for building approximately 15,000 square feet of retail space on a second floor, where approximately 40 parking places would be located. Also planned are roughly 90 below-grade parking places, Cox said.
"We're really looking forward to having your support," she told the council members.
Judging from some of the comments at the meeting, that support might be in short supply, and Metropolitan president Terry Halverson has doubts it's really the done deal Cox contends it is.
Cox noted that a couple years ago a proposal was in the works to build a new grocery store on the site, with a 70-unit apartments built above it. "But we quickly discovered the project was overbearing... for the community," she said.
So the owners went back to the drawing board to come up with a project that better fit the community needs, Cox said.
Page & Beard Architects has been tapped to design the project, which was called The Queen Anne Marketplace at the council meeting and then renamed Queen Anne Place the next day, after it was pointed out that the Larry's complex on Mercer Street is named the Marketplace at Queen Anne.
The store will feature glass storefronts, setbacks, a grand escalator and an elevator, Cox said. "There's even an indoor-outdoor fireplace in the grocery."
QFC was chosen after talking to several grocery chains, Cox said to groans from some folks at the meeting. "They are rolling out a brand-new concept for this store," she insisted.
There will be a full-service deli at the new store, a bakery, seafood and meat departments, a staff chef, gourmet cheese, a wine steward, a florist and a pharmacy, said Kristin Mass from QFC, a division of Kroger.
Community council chairwoman Ellen Monrad was unimpressed. Formerly the Queen Anne Thriftway, the Metropolitan is not just a local grocery store, she said. "It is a local charity institution in this community."
That includes the store's support of the Queen Anne Helpline and its sponsorship of baseball teams, efforts Monrad said she's afraid would fall to the wayside under corporate bottom-line thinking at Kroger. Mass insisted that wouldn't be the case. "QFC does take a lot of pride in the charities we support," she said.
Council member and chair of the organization's Land Use Review Committee, Craig Hanway, brought up another concern. "We were very supportive of the previous (mixed-use) proposal," he said, adding that the residential aspect was very important. "We have been very consistent that we do not support multi-level projects with retail."
Council member Jeff Parker had similar concerns, saying that without mixed residential and retail components, the plan may not be the "the highest and best use" of the location.
Also of concern for some at the meeting was customer and delivery traffic, along with the potential loss of on-street parking. Based on initial studies done for the previous project, that shouldn't be a problem, Cox said.
Halverson at the Metropolitan isn't so sure-especially about delivery trucks. There are two options, according to him. One involves trucks driving up Crockett and backing into a loading dock at the north end of the store, a practice he said would require a zoning variance.
The other option would be to eliminate some of the space on the main floor in much the way the new Safeway did in Lower Queen Anne. The grocery would have to shrink quite a bit to do that, he said. "It would be that much more difficult to spend that kind of money."
The existing store has been involved for years in planning for an expansion, but owners of the property want double the amount that any other grocery store in the area pays for rent per square foot, Halverson said. "I can tell you, there's no way on earth we could make money with those rents."
Halverson said he suspects that Kroger is eyeballing the location for a new QFC not to make money, but to grab more market share in the competitive grocery business.
Cox said the lease with QFC is being finalized and that initial design plans will be submitted to the city early next year. Assuming plans are approved, construction could begin in fall 2006 or early 2007, and the project would take roughly a year to complete, she said.
Halverson said he thinks QFC might have to walk away from the deal because of zoning restrictions. Asked if the Metropolitan would stay if that happens, he said: "I think there would be an extremely high chance of that."
In the meantime, though, Halverson said the Metropolitan has people scouting around for new locations for the store in the Queen Anne and Magnolia area, "the closer to where we are, the better."
Staff reporter Russ Zabel can be reached at rzabel@nwlink.com or 461-1309.[[In-content Ad]]
