SEQUIM — Work began Tuesday on a $4.5 million commercial project off West Washington Street to build two big-box stores — Ross Dress for Less and Grocery Outlet.
Tom Lee, a developer representative for Madison Development Group in Kirkland, said the company secured building permits with the city of Sequim late Friday after lawyers for the city and developer hashed out an agreement.
“The project should be completed by the end of June,” Lee said Tuesday as heavy equipment began to move dirt around the site.
Ross Dress for Less’ structure will be 27,690 square feet, and the Grocery Outlet building is planned to be 17,784 square feet, the developer’s plans showed.
The northern half of the 7.61-acre site will be used for a paved parking lot.
Grocery Outlet will be constructed closest to Costco Wholesale Warehouse, while Ross will be adjacent to the Home Depot site, plans showed.
Vegetation was scraped from the new big-box store site last week before the building permits were secured, which is allowed under city law.
The stores are being built simultaneously, Lee said.
This week, a temporary chain-link fence was put up around the work site after heavy equipment began moving ground to make way for concrete pads for the foundations.
Madison Sequim LLC submitted a building permit application in June for the two store buildings.
No additional street access development will take place because traffic-related improvements were designed for long-term buildout, including two roundabouts along Washington Street at River Road and Ninth Avenue and a traffic signal at Priest Road, city Interim Planning Director Joe Irvin said.
At Ross, designer and brand-name fashions for women, men, kids and home should have everyday savings of 20 percent to 60 percent compared with department and specialty stores.
Ross, a national discount emporium of brand-name clothing, footwear, jewelry, bedding and housewares, has 903 locations in 27 states, including one in Silverdale.
The Grocery Outlet, headquartered in Berkeley, Calif., has more than 130 stores — 35 of them in Washington state — and calls itself an “extreme value retailer” of food, beer, wine, toys and personal-care products.
The Ross and Grocery Outlet projects come under construction about a week after Wal-Mart Stores Inc. officials announced they will break ground on a 35,577-square-foot grocery store addition to the west side of the existing 113,000-square-foot Walmart store off West Washington Street at Priest Road.
The grocery store project is valued at $3.8 million.
Wal-Mart spokeswoman Tiffany Moffatt said ground would be broken on the addition at a time next year to be announced and that the existing store would be remodeled.
Construction should take between 12 and 18 months, she said.
It is anticipated that about 85 new associates will be hired in addition to about 200 now employed at the store.
A Taco Bell restaurant with a drive-through opened a month ago at the other end of Sequim on East Washington Street.
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Sequim-Dungeness Valley Editor Jeff Chew can be reached at 360-681-2391 or at jeff.chew@peninsuladailynews.com.
