With the news yesterday that Mayor Adams is in talks with a developer to bring a Costco store to the central city, it’s become clearer than ever that a big box store could very likely be in Portland’s future. Let’s remember that back in September, Adams was actively courting Target to locate in the Galleria mall downtown.
Judging from your comments yesterday, most of you think an inner-city Costco isn’t such a bad idea. With a Mayor who is pro urban big box (as long as it’s done thoughtfully of course), and a public seemingly intrigued and mostly supportive of the idea, I think it’s safe to say this is something that could sooner than we might think.
I realize this is more of an economic development issue, but depending on where our urban big box store is located, the impact on transportation could be very significant — and since Costco tends to attract people driving cars, that impact is even greater for people outside of them.
With that in mind, I asked some transportation experts up in Vancouver BC for their perspective. Downtown Vancouver is considered one of the most successful, dense, and livable cities in North America. They also have a Costco store in the downtown core (and a Home Depot too, for that matter).
Arno Shortinghuis, President of the Vancouver Area Cycling Coalition, says their Costco happens to be sited in “arguably the the most pedestrian unfriendly spots in the entire city.” (check the Google streetview here).
The Vancouver Costco is located on the edge of the downtown core, under a SkyTrain (elevated rail) stop and the main entrance fronts a busy street that Arno calls “a very pedestrian and cycling unfriendly environment.” A dense residential area is adjacent to the store, but Arno says he’s not even sure how someone would approach it on foot.
Gavin Davidson, a former bike planner for TransLink (Vancouver’s bike/transit authority), echoes Arno’s assessment. Gavin says traffic in that location was bad before Costco go there, and that the store’s presence has “… definitely exacerbated the situation, since a lot of traffic now crosses the bike lane to access the Costco parking lot.”
So, it seems that, in Vancouver at least, the Costco isn’t exactly a dream destination for all modes and it has made the biking and walking environment worse. When/if one comes to Portland, hopefully the location and the developer takes non-automobile customers into consideration. (And yes, I realize Costco items are large/heavy/bulky, but that doesn’t mean you can’t carry them with a hand-truck or a cargo bike!).
James Howard Kunstler (and Orthodox Peak Oilers and New Urbanists) gets on my nerves but his attitude towards national chain stores and cities makes a lot of sense to me:
“The nationwide battle against chain retail in the downtown setting is a misguided one. The true mission for new urbanists should be to make sure the buildings are appropriate and of the highest quality. In 12 years, Eddie Bauer will probably be gone — but the Pfeil building will still be there. ”
http://www.tndtownpaper.com/Volume3/one_small_town_that_got_it_right.htm
I agree Carl. I think the trepidation of having them in the city is that people envision them being built the same as they are in more industrial/suburban areas. I think where we’re at is saying, “big boxes are here to stay, we might as well make them closer to where people live and built in a way that integrates with our urban planning goals.”
“big boxes are here to stay” – not necessarily. “Big box” stores exist because of economies of scale. They rely on a specific set of conditions, and if any of those conditions change, they are no longer viable. Specifically, they need cheap labor, high volume, cheap transportation, and quick turnover of merchandise. Transportation costs are no longer low, and are slowly increasing. Labor costs are stable at the moment due to the high unemployment rate, but that same unemployment is reducing volume and lengthening turnover. The big chains are showing some evidence of stress, and since they rarely build real relationships with customers, customers are equally mercenary in their decision to shop there. Change any of these conditions enough, and the big boxes will disappear – though it might take 20 years. In 20 years, many of your readers will be in their early 40s. Speaking as someone who is in his early 40s, I can honestly say that there are a number of trends / items which looked immortal in 1985 which have been consigned to the dustbin of history. How relevant are magazines and newspapers now? Fraternal organizations? Bowling leagues? The only universal constant is change.
Most Mal-Warts are built with the understanding that the building will be abandoned in ten years or less. My home town of only 8000 already has such an abandoned location of mass consumption. What do you do with a crappy, oversized building like that? Oh, I know, a MegaChurch, with ATMs in the lobby. This Costco deal needs to have an exit plan with teeth in it, complete with environmental remediation.
‘cheap’ is the operative word. That or maybe ‘low buck’. If the world’s extensive global transportation system were to shrivel dramatically, maybe the big box phenomena would shrivel too.
But maybe not, because despite conducting their business in what’s essentially a no frills concrete bunker, Costco has developed the knack to make the shopping experience within the stores very pleasant. It’s kind of complicated to describe how this can be. You got to go there to see it. Basically…the center floor plan is open, well lit…lots of volume, but fewer selections than in regular stores…makes the shopping simpler and quicker.
You can get a lot done there too…digital prints made, eyeglasses made, prescriptions filled. On the way out, there’s always some interesting pitchmen selling home improvement stuff and whatnot.
Once people get used to this way of shopping for certain things they need, I’m not sure this particular type big box will go away.
The pictures illustrating this story, with Vancouver B.C.’s sleek metropolitan towers soaring over Costco’s illuminated portico certainly do an effective job of depicting the big box from a different perspective. Except for the store’s sign and the lack of a doorman/greeter standing out front, it almost looks like a hotel entrance.
Kunstler would agree with you (more than I do, actually).
I think the point is that it makes more sense to force big boxes to build good buildings than to try to stop the big box.
Just FYI – San Francisco Costco with bike paths, http://bit.ly/fbNIaEQ8gEwAA
So why don’t we hate Fred Meyer’s?
Interesting how many parallels the Vancouver Costco has to the Portland proposal. It’s also next to a major stadium and within a few blocks of a rail transit stop.
Not sure where I fall on this issue, the traffic idea does bother me, but the decent jobs and convenience (which would, presumably, cut down on trips to the suburbs) are big plusses.
The brilliant part of the Costco in Vancouver is that it is largely underground. Big boxes don’t want windows and people don’t want windowless boxes above ground so everyone wins! As a non-driver, I only ever get to this Costco by skytrain (very convenient). I do recall a pedestrian asking me for directions to it once and I sent them in the general direction of the building but couldn’t actually think of how to get there on foot!
Jonathan, nothing to do with Costco but two people hit by cars, one killed one hurt very bad but no information on this site. Both in Portland in last 24 hrs.
I’m well aware of those incidents, thanks Jim.
I live in Vancouver, and cycling is my main mode of transportation, and I really like the downtown Costco. My spouse and I bike there often and load up our panniers. I have friends who live downtown who absolutely do walk there – not sure why the VACC person doesn’t know this, but you can take an elevator down from the sidewalk on Dunsmuir, or simply hop off of the SkyTrain. True, the bike lane West alongside the Costco isn’t for the faint of heart, but you can easily skip it by going one block south where there is a shared use non-car path. We do.
If that costco gets build it will be in my neighborhood and on my way of bike commute to work. I just hope they build the bike lane more thoughtfully through that area. It is going to be extremely hard to make sure cars don’t get in the way of us cyclists. I can’t even imagine what kind of traffic chaos is going to happen when justin beiber comes into town or a blazer game goes on while a costco is open. It is already chaotic as already is. The max stop is right next to the stadium and people still drive there. I don’t think the new street car is going to solve the costco traffic problem.
Besides, I don’t want a costco in my neighborhood. I want a fred meyer! Or trader joe’s!
You are the voice of reason, Ed. Seriously. Whether someone is driving or riding through that area, it’s a mess. Adding a “Buy and Large” will only make it worse.
a well-designed development would bring improvements for cyclists. as for driving…well…in my opinion the messier the better.
not everything can cater to bike traffic alone. Different strokes for different folks.
Fred Meyers? Good grief. The labor and environmental practices of the Kroger Co make Walmart look saintly.
There are many things I would like to see Costco do differently, but from both the labor relations and environmental perspective they are among the better examples of pseudo-benevolent capitalism.
That’s sad to know Freddy is owned by Korger. 😛
citations please? I know many people who work or worked at Fred Meyer offices in Portland (used to be corporate headquarters before Kroger bought them).
While few companies are saintly, Wal-Mart has a very well documented history of terrible business practices.
This is kind of besides the point because Fred Meyers has been a wholly owned subsidiary of Kroger for quite some time. Nevertheless, Fred Meyers is notorious for its never ending labor problems:
http://www.oregonlive.com/business/index.ssf/2009/10/spokane_union_fight_spreads_to.html
I’m also confused by the comments attributed to the Vancouver “transportation experts”. Like Janine, I live in Vancouver and have no trouble accessing the city centre Costco on foot. The elevator and stairs provide easy access and there is a SkyTrain station next door. Portland has a wonderfully walkable city centre and a Costco – if thoughtfully designed – would only enhance its appeal for potential new residents.
the site in question is not in the city center, but in an industrial area near what is already a completely screwed up traffic snarl
well sure, it’s not in downtown proper. but calling this location part of the city center isn’t unreasonable. but yeah, the traffic there isn’t great.
if this is true, and i don’t necessarily agree, it sounds very much like traffic calming.
I live in Eugene and have occasionally ridden to Costco there (though it’s on the edge of town). The traffic is manageable – bad but I don’t think it’s attributable to the Costco. As a Costco shopper and a cyclist I’d like to see that store in a central location. I wish more employers were as reasonable toward their work force.
Mandate that ulta dunse urban retail like this be planted right on top of (shorter walking distance than parking lot) a high capcity transit link.
Mandate that parking can be provided for the same cost as a full transit system fare.
Let the free market rip.
Second!!!
We’ve gotta make it work, but I think it’s a good idea to have the Costco here.
When I was a Costco regular shopper (Honolulu) I used to shop by bike and load up the panniers/ trailer. So in Portland this should be even easier…
Personally I find the selection less competitive now given other retailers selection (Target etc) and locations in this region.
Don’t hold your breath about a new Costco, layoffs of up to one year employees have just happened. Seems the economic crisis is finally hitting Costco where it counts, next year will be worse for these big box stores because the largest population to ever retire will occur and then spending just plummets.
Isn’t that a little counter-intuitive? Once the boomers retire I’d expect they’d put a greater emphasis on cost-savings, which means that stores like Costco would see even more traffic.
Seems to me that a costco in this location would attract mainly people from Vancouver WA, making a sane CRC even more important.
Their is a costco right off the 205 bridge. For some reason…its always very, very busy.
Yes, apparently one of the top Costco stores by revenue in the world. Hmm…wonder if there are any tax advantages driving that.
I wouldn’t call 40 blocks “right off the 205 bridge”. But yeah, if they are already driving from Vancouver…
🙂
Costco just built a Vancouver location off 192nd! Seems to me that they are going to build in every neighborhood! Not just in or near every town!
I shop Costco occassionally (most of the stuff there isn’t as cheap as you think and all the fat people eating bad pizza and ice cream make me sad). But I’ve got no problem with them building on the school district site. When I do go, I’d rather be able to stop by on the bike on my way home than have to take the mini van out to east county.
Well I for one am not for a Costco, but am for a well built, sustainable, and accessible building paid for by Costco. I won’t, and never will shop at this Costco or any other big box store regardless of all their fancy do-dads, eco-features or neat events. I am anti-big box, pro small, local stores. Especially Co-ops. Maybe that makes my input less applicable to this whole discussion.
Where do you shop?
I find that its really hard to not shop at a big box store in PDX. The co-ops are tiny and farmers markets are largely closed in the winter. Seattle has PCC (god I miss PCC) and year round farmers markets.
I shop mostly at People’s Food Co-op with their year round Farmer’s Market. Any supplemental food comes from New Seasons, witch only exists here in Portland and though it’s a chain store I don’t consider ‘big box’ due to the localism, profit sharing and re use of already existent buildings. New Season’s also has small parking lots to discourage driving and encourage neighborhood living patrons. I’ll also visit where Uncle Paul’s Open Air Market was, Krueger er something like that is what it’s called now. Pasta works on Hawthorne, Little T’s bakery on Division. I do admit I live in a great place for biking and local purchasing but that was on purpose.
Several people’s co-op members were among the most vocal critics of the seven corners new seasons. I am not a fan either (see new seasons thread).
Aw, well from what I gather the New Seasons actuallly boosted the co-ops sales. I like ns in that it gets people in and gets them thinking about where it comes from. I was raised surburban fred meyer and without those yellow tags and everything right next to each other I would have never seeked out my first co-op In moscow ID
I purchase a few staple items at Costco on a regular basis. Things that I absolutely cannot get for a better price anywhere else. Because I routinely shop at Costco for them, I have more money to spend at People’s, New Seasons, & farmers’ markets. I’m one of those oddballs that tracks their spending, so I’m not making guesses about that, either. This is true even when taking the annual membership fee into account.
I can’t be the only person who has experienced this.
Some clarification on PCC:
http://www.pccnaturalmarkets.com/about/
I love PCC. I’m going to gift a friend who lives in Seattle a membership there for her B-day!
I don’t get it. Costco isn’t very cheap, and they have limited choices. It seems like the only appeal is that you can bring your giant vehicle and do all your shopping for the month…otherwise if you want to go to a giant, cheap behemoth shopping center, there are already several to choose from right up the hill in the Lloyd district.
Why put this major driving (and freight) destination directly on what’s already one of the more troubled routes for riding and walking in and out of downtown? It’ll also be right at a major freeway bottleneck…which is projected to become much, much worse if the mega CRC is built. This just seems so ill-thought-out.
Costco is cheap. You have to compare unit cost, not total cost. I can get ski passes there too, cheaper than retail. I can get organic cereal there for half the price of Fred Meyer. Cliff bars and pistachios are cheap there, much more so than other stores. They have great deals on DVDs sometimes. Tillamook cheese is cheaper there. Vitamins at Costco cost half per unit that vitamins do in regular stores. We probably saved $1000 a year buying diapers there when kids were in diapers. I buy some canned goods there for much less than grocery prices. Snack goods for kids lunches are cheaper by the unit when purchased in bulk. Also, electronics are usually substantially cheaper there…
And every trip I have made to Costco by car (usually the Clackamas location) I could make by two trips on my bike, or one trip with a cargo bike or good trailer. And if Costco were closer I could go more often and just grab a couple items – as it is I go infrequently so I buy a lot of stuff at a time.
Of course at the new Hillsboro location last time I was there they had 55 gallon drums of motor oil. I have no need for those. And I have never bought a 100lb bag of pinto beans or rice either…
🙂
Freight is a good point to bring up. Not just more SOV’s but big ton trucks will be hauling their long trailers in and out of the area. Eish, I wouldn’t want to be near all those trucks on a bike!
I’m not saying this location is the best place they could place a Costco in the inner core of the city, but I disagree with your contention that Costco isn’t very cheap. It certainly *can* be cheap. The trick is to know what a reasonable price is for what you need *before* you walk in the door. I am sure there are many people that blow their spending budgets out of the water because they don’t use their brains before they buy. I honestly don’t see how someone could possibly shop at Costco for everything they need, but the same can be said for shopping at People’s, New Seasons, or local farmers’ markets.
Also, there are some items I will buy at Costco for a bit more than another store because of their hassle-free return policies. Planned obsolescence of many mechanical/electronic/electric items makes a store like Costco very appealing.
For what it’s worth… I shop at the downtown Vancouver BC Costco by bike… they’ve set it up so the bike racks are right at the bike lane and you don’t have to ride through a parking lot, but you have to be careful about driver pulling in and out of the loading zone. I have a video up that was actually supposed to be of the nearby stadium, but it includes me leaving the Costco bike rack and riding along the bike lane by it:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CySx5bWrmpc
“Big Boxes” retail have been around, practically since the invention of the store.
I think what we are talking about here is the quality of _building design and construction_ for the modern “big box” stores.
A hundred years ago there were massive SEARS AND ROEBUCK stores, all over the country – and they sold just as much merchandise as a Costco or WAL-MART. The Metro building near the convention center was one.
Meier and Frank built a 10 story “big box” of retail right downtown, it was there for quite a long time. Look at the old pictures of the inside of the store – they sold every kind of good that could be sold.
We have had all kinds of supermarkets, department stores, and shopping centers – for years and years and years. Heck, there is a massive “all in one” kind of store in tiny Long Beach, Washington that sells everything you can think of…
The difference is the race to the bottom that happened in the 80s and 90s and now the buildings are built to last less time than my kids shoes.
This discussion, along with the previous post, have been rather interesting, but indicate to me no one has bothered to read the article in the Oregonian.
The Portland SD commissioned a study in 2005 to find out what the economic advanatages/disadvantages would be of moving their headquarters to another location. That study indicated that the SD would receive about $20 million for their current property, and would cost about $75 million to move to another location, generating a net loss of about $55 million. The SD concluded that it did not make economic sense (duh!) to make the move.
So, unless these numbers have changed significantly in the last 5+ years, I do not see the SD moving. Consequently, I do not see the property becoming available to Costco, or anyone else.
“… no one has bothered to read the article in the Oregonian. …” Mark
If you think this, possibly you didn’t read all the comments. I’m sure at least some people commenting here, read the Oregonian story. I know I did, in fact, I commented that the school district is not enthusiastic about selling their property, partly because their building is paid for.
That raises the question of why Adams and his team are looking at this piece of property for a Costco, instead of something that might be more available and logical, on Swan Island (where big concrete slab tip-up buildings that would hold the business may already exist.), or over near Lloyd Center Mall.
i think most of us just assumed that the SD would get a fancy TIF-funded building in a blighted redevelopment zone (e.g. pearl district) faster than a pdc executive could snap his fingers.
Isn’t riding through this area bad enough already without adding a SUV/ big car charged brigade to Costco..
IMO, There is no way that this Costco is a good idea.
“Most” people buy too much to do anything other than drive a car there.
Cue Nightmare.
Roll camera.
Action….
We have enough Costcos to serve the monthly expeditions most folks make to them. This is not a good location to add another one. I shop there about 1 time every 2 or so months. Taken from a very European perspective… if we are taking the car out, let’s make it worth it. Canned organic tomatoes, wonderful dry pasta, organic spinach, organic carrots, potatoes, organic apples, Dave’s bread, organic peanut butter, Smuckers Jam, SF Organic coffee, bulk Boca burgers, Portland Buns (best for veggie burger BBQ’s),toilet paper that we can store in the basement and have enough for like a year, bulk soy milk that comes out to 90 cents each, Cetaphil face soap in bulk, salmon when it is wild caught (we avoid the farmed stuff that is sometimes the only choice),Organic cereal, Kidney beans for stew in bulk, Kirkland’s makes a damn good bulk Organic salsa, we have become mindful of where products are from..like we won’t buy the lettuce since it comes from thousands of miles away… Costco is great/when we spend $100-$190 on a trip every 3 months it ends up about 1/2 the cost of shopping at the Safeway, New Seasons, or Fred Myer (often equal or better quality)… but it should be reserved for a venture into less urban areas. People who do to drive can also take the Green line to Clackamas, including those living in the proposed site area. I’ve done it. They have a bike rack too boot. We shop Safeway since I can bike there, same with TJ’s…no co op near our home unfortunately (but if Food Fight or People’s wants to move to Woodstock, we want you!!!,,,check out Woodpro!, it is for sale!)
I will tell you one thing for sure….next time we decide to eat near the Costco.. I will NEVER have Sweet Tomato’s again. Worst food I have had.
You should start getting your hood together for your own Co-op!! The Folks at People’s are super helpful when it comes to start up Co-ops. Plus local flare is always super awesome and something you don’t get when you get chain stores.
Hey Michweek, I am certainly interested in working with the community on this… wonder if anyone in Woodstock, here on Bike Portland would contact me to chat about moving toward a co-op? Your advice is helpfull as well Michweek.