From the Panhandle
Shopping for the Future in Sandpoint
An acre of asphalt between the store and the street - just what citizens said they didn't want.By Cate Huisman, 7-16-10
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| Sandpoint's new Super 1 grocery store: A big box with a lot of asphalt between its entry and the street. | |
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Twenty years ago, a repairman gouged me badly for a small repair job on my washing machine. I was a stay-at-home mom at the time, with two toddlers and a pile of laundry polluted by contaminants you probably don’t want to hear about, and I had little recourse.
The repairman was sent by General Electric, and I have not knowingly bought anything made by GE since. (This has made the purchase of light bulbs quite a challenge at times over the past two decades.) I know my small resistance must in itself have little effect on the corporate giant, but I feel better not feeding the mouth that bites me.
For comparable reasons, I have chosen not to shop at Sandpoint’s new Super 1 grocery store, opened a few weeks ago. It’s evident from their ads that they have lots of good deals on things I need, and my husband says they have a phenomenal salad bar. But they built a big box with a parking lot in front—a kind of structure that the people of Sandpoint had specifically said they didn’t want on the site Super 1 chose.
With the adoption of a Comprehensive Plan in 2009, citizens indicated instead that they wanted mixed-use developments in this area, with pedestrian-oriented storefronts near the street and parking lots in back. As Super 1 was being built, new zoning code was being written to implement the plan. By the time the store was finished, the code was in place, and Super 1’s design did not meet its design requirements. (However, the store as built was allowable as a “grandfathered” form—a form that met the requirements of the code that was in place at the time its permit was issued.)
As a result, Super 1 is kind of a museum piece, an instant anachronism—the last big box fronted by a big parking lot within walking distance of Sandpoint’s downtown.
The Comprehensive Plan adopts the ideas of what is sometimes called the new urbanism or sustainable design. But it actually replicates the past, encouraging a growing Sandpoint to develop buildings like those in the historic center. The new zoning no longer allows parking lots between businesses and the street, and it provides incentives for adding second and third stories that include residences. The goal is to grow new buildings that mimic those on First Street—the street that is often considered iconic of our small town.
It encourages higher density near the downtown core and allows citizens to live within walking distance of where they work, play, and shop. While the current market hardly justifies such an investment, single-story buildings may be built so that such enlargement is possible in the future, when the economy and Sandpoint’s growing population might support it.
The new Super 1 is close to shops and restaurants in the downtown as well as to City Beach, and to boating, biking, and hiking opportunities. If residences had been constructed above the store, they would have had lovely views of both Lake Pend Oreille and the southern tip of the Selkirk Mountains. The store is in an ideal location for the kind of mixed use development envisioned by the Comprehensive Plan.
This was all explained to the Super 1 folks as they were planning their building. But they chose instead to go with the model that had always worked for them in the past. The sad result for Sandpoint is a big step backward in implementing its Comprehensive Plan, anchoring the south end of a large redevelopment area (it used to house a lumber mill) with a building and site layout that discourage travel other than by car and that squander the advantages of the location for mixed use.
Admittedly, anyone buying groceries for more than a day or two for more than a person or two benefits mightily from using a car, and I use one myself for such purposes. But I think that Super 1 could have created a car-friendly store in this area that also aligned with the vision of the Comprehensive Plan.
I don’t mind so much that Super 1 chose to use its usual proven design; that seems like a reasonable business decision. What I mind is that their proven design actually makes it more difficult for us to achieve our vision, and it’s sad for us and them that they weren’t able instead to see the benefits of the approach we’ve chosen and to build in a way that both supported and took advantage of it.
This is not a personal vendetta. It is, instead, a use of my (admittedly very limited) power as a market force. If I shop at Super 1, I am tacitly reinforcing a choice that has impeded Sandpoint’s progress toward a sustainable future.
So I’ll be buying my groceries elsewhere.
Freelance writer Cate Huisman is a member of Sandpoint’s all-volunteer Planning and Zoning Commission. The opinions represented in this piece are entirely her own and must not be interpreted as representing those of the commission or the City of Sandpoint.
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Comments
Just kidding, Cate. Well said. I fully agree.
And Yokes is pretty awesome anyway.