A powerful Western Washington business has finalized plans for continued growth in Issaquah.
Costco plans to build a new 640,000-square-foot building that will have a parking garage across the street. The construction will take place just off Interstate 90 and is expected to be done in 2020.
“The challenge is how do you ensure they stay here? What if Las Vegas or Phoenix decide to offer them a big check to move there,” Issaquah Director of Economic Development Keith Niven said. “We talked about how do we assure that they grow here, in Issaquah? What we talked about was giving them the assurance and the predictability that they could grow.”
The new building will mark the first construction after an agreement from a few years ago that allowed Costco to build 1.5 million square feet of new office space, and in exchange, the city and Costco agreed to partner 50/50 on nearly $50 million in new street improvements.
“As the city’s economic development director, this is an opportunity to keep our city’s biggest employer here and growing for the next 30 years, and so that’s just a great thing to have in place,” Niven said.
Niven said at the end of the day this type of growth is good for everyone.
“Having an employer like Costco in your city, it drives a number of other businesses and vendors and employees that want to be proximate to Costco so there’s kind of a whole little universe that’s associated with this particular employer being in town,” Niven said.
Aside from Costco developments, there are also other big projects in Issaquah from housing to education to tourism. The city recently started a new tourism effort and currently under construction are two elementary schools, a middle school, and a high school.
