Land use fight over Tacoma mega-warehouse project set for this week. Here’s what’s at stake
A mega-warehouse proposed in South Tacoma will be the subject of a multi-day development appeal with the city’s hearing examiner starting Tuesday.
The hearing is scheduled to run July 25-27, starting at 9 a.m. each day, according to the examiner’s online schedule.
Attorneys with nonprofit Earthjustice of Seattle are representing environmental group 350 Tacoma and the South Tacoma Neighborhood Council in the appeal, filed in early May against the City of Tacoma and Bridge Point Tacoma LLC, the permit applicant.
The LLC connected to Chicago-based Bridge Industrial gained conditional approval in April from the city’s director of Planning and Development Services for plans to redevelop the approximately 150-acre property, 5024 S. Madison St., with a multi-building warehouse-distribution site, including about 2.5 million square feet of buildings.
The city’s project page notes that approximately 75% of the project would be impervious surfacing — buildings, parking, circulation, but that a stream and biodiversity corridor on the property “will be protected and restored as part of the project.”
The appeal hearing is tied to the project’s mitigated determination of nonsignificance and critical area development permit and contends the decision violated the state’s Environmental Policy Act. The appeal asks the hearing examiner to reverse the SEPA determination and issuance of a land-use permit, and order the city of Tacoma to do a full review of the project’s environmental and health impacts before reconsidering the permit.
“The City should order an EIS to analyze all of the project’s environmental impacts and give residents a fully informed opportunity to weigh in on how the project will impact their lives and livelihoods,” EarthJustice says in its online page about the project.
In September 2021, Bellevue-based Bridge Point Tacoma LLC, representing Bridge Industrial, purchased the vacant parcels in the South Burlington Way area from BNSF Railway of Fort Worth for $158.3 million.
The purchase followed a pre-application developers filed with the city in February 2021, and the company has an online project page.
In response to the appeal filing in May, Bridge Industrial told The News Tribune via email that it agreed with the city’s decision on its SEPA determination, “which reflects the many measures that will be implemented to improve the existing site and guard against potential impacts.”
While the warehouse developer has faced opposition to its Tacoma project, it continues to develop elsewhere in the region. On July 19, Bridge announced its purchase of a 13-acre site in Kent for its future Bridge Point Kent 180 — a 180,000-square-foot warehouse facility and Bridge’s third site in the Kent Valley.
The company said it has acquired “over 8 million square feet of Class A industrial buildings across major markets in Washington and Oregon to date.”
Hearing procedure details
The online schedule noted, “The Hearing Examiner, the three principal parties, and their witnesses will all be participating virtually at the parties’ election.”
It added, “This type of appeal does not take public testimony. Only the parties and their witnesses speak.”
It also noted that the hearing is limited “to applying the law to the facts deduced from the hearing record and testimony. Nothing beyond that has any bearing on the Examiner’s decision, such as number of people present, for and against ...”
For those without Zoom/internet access, “Conference Room 138, First Floor, Tacoma Municipal Building, 747 Market Street in Tacoma, will be available to a maximum of 11 members of the public to observe the proceedings,” it states.
“Please make use of this accommodation only if you are unable to watch the hearing through Zoom elsewhere,” it added.
Information about online access to the hearing is at the Hearing Examiner’s online hearing schedule page.
