It’s been almost five years since the City of Snoqualmie annexed nearly 600 acres around the Old Weyerhaeuser Mill site – in the Mill Planning Area of the city’s Urban Growth Area. Now the public can finally see what’s being planned for part of the area.
Proposed development of the old mill site, located a few miles from downtown Snoqualmie, will be presented at a combined public open house and scoping process on Tuesday May 23rd, 4PM – 7PM at Snoqualmie City Hall, 38624 SE River Street.
The mill site is located north of the Snoqualmie River and northeast of SE Mill Pond Road and is part of a larger property operated as a lumber mill for nearly 100 years, recognized by the historic smoke stack near DirtFish Rally School.
According to a city press release, a proposed commercial/industrial plan and development agreement will guide planning and future development of the site.
The potential development of approximately 261 acres would occur in several phases over a 10-20 year period. Build-out could include a mixture of light industrial, manufacturing, warehouse, office, retail, and residential uses. The majority of the site, though, would remain undeveloped and maintained for open space, wetlands, streams, wildlife habitat, landscaping and flood storage.
According to the Snoqualmie Mill developer’s website, the master plan organizes the site into three distinct planning areas “intended to facilitate phased development of a compatible mix of land uses that can capture identified market opportunities.”
The mixed-use area in Planning Area 1 (first development phase) is envisioned as a mixed-use “village” developed along a pedestrian-oriented main street, offering “tech/flex space to accommodate traditional warehouse users, mezzanine office and light assembly, combined with retail and visitor oriented uses and housing”
If Snoqualmie Mill’s vision is realized, the preferred concept for the area will be wine-related uses, including wine production, wine tasting and other supportive wine-related uses, restaurants, event space and housing.
Per the website, “The village will be surrounded by green open spaces on all sides, framing views of Mt. Si and the surrounding mountains. An outdoor performance venue is to be located along the eastern edge of the village.”
You can learn more about the plans for the Old Mill Site by attending the May 23rd Open House. The informational part of the meeting will run from 4PM – 6PM, illustrating all the site features. At 6PM. there will be a brief presentation.
This is not a public hearing, but there will be an opportunity for the public to offer oral comments following the presentation. Written comments can also be submitted to Mark Hofman, City of Snoqualmie Director of Community Development by 4PM on May 24th.
More info on the Mill Site Plans can be found on the City of Snoqualmie website HERE or by visiting SnoqualmieMill.com
[** Of the 593 acres annexed by the City of Snoqualmie in 2012, 350 acres were zoned for open space and the rest were zoned for Planned Commercial / Industrial land **]
Comments
Interested to see how this develops, wanted to make sure I have the date right. I believe the event is on Tuesday the 23rd, but the 24th is mentioned in the latter portion of the article.
Thanks, Jason. Typo in the last sentence. Fixed now.
STOP!! PLEASE!
That seems a bit drastic just to get rid of a rally school that generates noise complaints.
I’m just going to wind up having to move to avoid the urban sprawl.
I am not absolutely certain, but I don’t believe DirtFish is going anywhere for several years.
This development is a very exciting opportunity for the local economy and quality of life. Thank god our local politicians are on board and not over regulating it to death. This is how we KEEP America great, by smart minded development that opens up opportunity for small local businesses to thrive. I would love to see this project be a success and for the “local” opponents to pack up and head east. Soon it will be Idaho and Montana folks complaining about them crowding up the place.
You obviously, don’t live here.
All these folks are going to bottleneck traffic at the bridges and the freeway onramps. Notice how the i90 traffic starts way before Issaquah now? A few more new neighborhoods in NBend combined with this and I90 commute will be stop and go in Fall city. Why are we striving to be Issaquah ridge?
Yesterday there was a presentation by the developer followed by public comments. A number of residents had done a great deal of research and found a lot of environmental concerns, below is a link to videos of the meeting:
https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC18BNY74atHt2mf8H3B1l6w
Please send me an email at snoqualmie1st@gmail.com if you would like to be added to our distribution list of residents who are concerned about the Snoqualmie Ridge Hotel and the Mill Pond proposed development of 200+ acres.
Regardless if you are for, or against the development of this property, you should not depend on the developer or the City to protect the best interests of your community. The devil is in the details as they say; and it is the details that are often glossed over in these types of processes. One example and a question we all should consider, is how can the developer produce an accurate Environmental Impact Statement when the actual use (tenants) has not been defined? The story I heard Tuesday evening sounded compelling; wineries, tourism, jobs, tax dollars, limited impact, repurposing, etc, etc. We were provided artists renditions of the “vision” for one third of the site. What if the vision changes? What about the balance of the site? How can the developer and the City accurately assess key environmental concerns and just as importantly, infrastructure requirements such as roads and utility services, when the end use has not been clearly defined. Pay attention, get involved, ask questions and demand that the City do their job to insure that the developer does theirs.
There are many concerns with a development at this site. Hazardous waste clean up, and traffic. They are considering making this a winery, where there are truck bays as part of the process of distributing the wine. They will have more trucks coming up Snoqualmie Parkway.
They are considering an amphitheater that is larger than the Snoqualmie Casino venue, so for events there will be a lot more traffic along Snoqualmie Parkway.