SEQUIM — The national chains keep coming to the edges of this city — though not at the speed developers would like — while a downtown property owner plans a block of nine new retailers.
The biggest and soonest will be the Holiday Inn Express, with 77 rooms and 2,600 square feet of conference space.
It is slated for an April 1 opening, said developer Bret Wirta of Seattle.
The inn has been a long time coming, with groundbreaking in December 2008 and opening first projected for late 2009 and then February 2010.
At last, the hotel’s water feature is flowing out front at 1441 E. Washington St., and the sprawling building comes into view below U.S. Highway 101 as travelers cruise westward into Sequim.
Thirteen conferences are booked, Wirta added, though he declined to say what they are.
Construction and financing delays slowed progress on the inn, and it’s still not clear when the Black Bear Diner, planned as its next-door neighbor, will be built.
But Wirta said he’s working with a bank now on funding, and could have the diner built in time for Sequim’s late-summer tourism wave.
IHOP in June
On the other side of town is another haven for hearty eaters: the International House of Pancakes at 1360 W. Washington St.
Owner Mohammad Khadar of Lynnwood had planned to open the 156-seat restaurant in March, but he said Tuesday that financing issues moved that to June 1.
Khadar said he’ll employ between 35 and 40 workers at the Sequim IHOP — 80 percent of them full time — to serve pancakes and other treats from 6 a.m. to midnight Fridays and Saturdays and until 10 p.m. the rest of the week.
Also on West Washington Street, between Sequim’s biggest boxes, a deal is in the works for two more.
Ross Dress for Less and the Grocery Outlet are interested in the parcel sandwiched between The Home Depot and Costco, said Tom Lee of Madison Development Group in Kirkland.
“We’re talking with both, and we’re very close to getting this put together,” Lee said Tuesday.
No-frills emporium
Ross, a no-frills, discount emporium of name-brand clothing, footwear, jewelry, bedding and housewares, has 903 locations including one in Silverdale.
The Grocery Outlet, headquartered in Berkeley, Calif., has more than 130 stores and calls itself an “extreme value retailer” of food, beer, wine, toys and personal care products.
In the center of the city, a 5,000-square-foot structure has been gutted to accommodate five new retail spaces — and possibly to be part of a shopping block built by Brown Maloney of Olympic View Properties.
Maloney, who owns the Sequim Gazette next door, bought the building at 157 W. Washington St. last summer for $535,000.
He wants to divide it into four shops, erect a new facade and add on, filling in the vacant lot to the west.
The previous tenant was Lady Truffles, a kind of miniature Nordstrom offering upscale clothing and gifts.
Owners Deborah and Rick Roberts closed it nearly two years ago, blaming the economic downturn and soaring gas prices of spring 2008.
If Maloney’s hopes of developing the adjacent vacant lot are realized — he’s still working through the city permitting process — there will be spaces for nine new businesses including a restaurant.
“I’m going to have quite a bit of square footage I’m going to have to lease,” he said Tuesday.
It made sense, Maloney added, to purchase the properties contiguous to the Gazette building he already owns.
“If we do this, it’s going to be really a nice addition to the downtown core,” he said. “Stay tuned.”
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Sequim-Dungeness Valley Reporter Diane Urbani de la Paz can be reached at 360-681-2391 or at diane.urbani@peninsuladaily news.com.
