Sale of Pierce Co. land sought for gas station, Asian restaurant falls through
AI-generated summary reviewed by our newsroom.
- Fire district terminates sale after buyer fails to deliver required earnest money.
- Board cites buyer breach of contract, not community opposition or septic issues.
- Property returns to market; commissioners open to resident input.
Key Center might not be getting a gas station after all.
Since late last year, the Key Peninsula Fire Department has been awaiting what seemed to be nearing a done deal: the sale of their property at 15610 Olson Dr. NW to a gas station developer, Taechang, LLC. The transfer would have put an end to months of debate in the community about the best use of that property, which the fire department purchased along with two adjacent parcels of land for $2.1 million in 2021.
In a phone call March 17, Key Peninsula Fire Commissioner Chair Randy Takehara confirmed that the deal was dead. The reason?
“Just that the purchaser didn’t follow through with their obligations, so they never gave us earnest money,” he said. “Breach of contract.”
The deadline to receive the earnest money, which would signal the buyer’s intent to move forward with the purchase, was back in December, Takehara said.
“And apparently our agent is having a hard time getting a hold of them, so we’ll just cut our losses and move forward,” he said.
The board voted unanimously to formally terminate the purchase-and-sale agreement at their meeting March 10, following a motion from Commissioner Stan Moffett, who serves on the department’s facilities planning committee. Moffett said at the meeting that the prospective buyer had failed to deposit the earnest money, which was due Dec. 29, and sign a financing waiver.
Moffett also made a motion to put septic repairs at the property on hold. As the property’s owner, the fire department is obligated to fix the septic issues at the site and had been working with the buyer on a timeline to complete those repairs before finalizing the sale, The News Tribune reported.
The commissioners voted to table Moffett’s motion until their next meeting, with some saying they wanted more information before deciding whether to move forward with the repairs.
Asked if residents’ opposition to a potential gas station or the septic system issues at the property played a role in the decision to terminate the purchase and sale agreement,” Takehara responded “no” on both counts.
He acknowledged the group of residents who have expressed interest in shaping the property’s future. The fire commissioners weren’t going to back out of a sale in progress, but the property is back on the market, he said.
“If they want to help recruit a buyer, we’ll entertain whatever,” he said.
The potential buyer, John Park, wrote in an email to The News Tribune last year that he was interested in opening up a convenience store and a restaurant after remodeling. He listed a few possibilities: a “Teriyaki & Chinese restaurant, or possible Japanese restaurant etc.,” he wrote.
The News Tribune reached out to the registered agent for Taechang, LLC for comment but did not immediately hear back.
Lysanna Anderson, a founding member of the Key Center Commons Working Group which helped organize a petition against the potential gas station, wrote in an email that the group has asked the fire department for four to six weeks “to organize an offer that will hold the property and allow us to develop a community driven plan for development of the property.” The group seeks “a community facing facility that is defined by the community,” she wrote.
“We are currently surveying the population of the (Key Peninsula) for input through both a written survey and in person focus groups to assess the vision for the project driven by community input,” she wrote. “We are also in conversation with potential funding organizations and local agencies to detail how to progress the project with locally driven impetus.”
News Tribune archives contributed to this report.
This story was originally published March 17, 2026 at 12:17 PM.
