Coming To A Crossroad -- Shopping-Center Developments May Help Issaquah Achieve Some Of The Greatness Pioneer Pickering Envisioned Long Ago.

Gen. William Pickering, governor of Washington Territory during the Civil War and early Issaquah booster, was what might be called a staunch growth advocate.

Nicknamed "William the Headstrong," the governor lectured the Legislature each winter on the need for territorial commerce. He wanted more miners, more farmers and more surveyors.

Most of all, William the Headstrong wanted a road.

He couldn't see how the territory, much less the area surrounding his Issaquah property, could grow without a reliable wagon road through the treacherous Snoqualmie Pass.

Pickering eventually got his road. Now, a century and a few more roads later, he is getting a shopping center. Pickering Place will be built on the Squak Valley land where three generations of the governor's descendants milked cows and cut hay.

A second center, almost as big, also will be built on the old Pickering farm. The centers will face each other from opposite sides of I-90 near the 17th Avenue Northwest interchange. Together, they represent $100 million in investment and about 4,000 retail jobs.

The city, which serves a suburban community beyond its border, could definitely use the tax dollars that will flow from the new centers. Still, some in Issaquah welcome the development only reluctantly.

"I have a feeling in here," says Rob Pickering, 71, great-grandson of the governor, as he gestures toward his heart. "I was born down there in the valley. My dad was born down there. There were hardly any roads then. You can't stop progress - I know that. If a developer goes in and does it all in good taste, I guess I can understand that."

As Rob Pickering hints, the development probably will exact some social cost - the compromising of much of Issaquah's small-town character and its historic business district.

"I don't think any of us like what is happening a whole lot," says Ava Frisinger, an Issaquah City Council member, "but this is not and won't be a town anymore where everyone knows everyone else."

Langly Associates, the developer, is aware of these tensions, even as it weighs in with traffic-producer Costco and other off-price giants. Yet it believes Issaquah's growth was assured with the paving of I-90 and the interchange at 17th Avenue (the old Renton-Issaquah highway).

"It's not realistic to say we're going to have a quaint little town with an eight-lane freeway running through it" says Russ Keithly, principal agent for Langly.

The changes in Issaquah were driven by developers such as Keithly, but also by the government and the voters. And they began with Gen. Pickering's dream.

GOING WEST

President Abraham Lincoln gave two choices to William Pickering, his old political ally from Illinois: He could be ambassador to England or governor of Washington Territory.

The 61-year-old Pickering, who was born in England and emigrated in 1821, was accustomed to pushing ever west. He jumped at the governorship.

His addresses to the Territorial Legislative Assembly reflected what he called his most urgent concerns. Among these were the "sad and immoral effects" of divorces and the need to "extinguish" all Indian land titles.

Then there was the road.

"We have every reason that the inhabitants of this region cannot and will not materially increase in numbers for many years to come," he said, "because the farming immigrants cannot bring their families across these tremendously high, broad, and rugged mountains, unless a good safe road is made at an early day through the Cascade Range."

Pickering once bought acreage that included Snoqualmie Falls and wrote letters about the metropolis that one day would be powered by the cascading waters. He was a 19th-century developer schooled in the marketing dynamics of his time: He bought his piece of the Squak Valley after the earlier landowners were killed in a fight with Indians.

"He envisioned a greatness for Issaquah," says another great-grandson, Drury Pickering.

As it turned out, other places - Seattle, for one - had the greatness market sewed up. Issaquah grew only in fits and starts, paralleling the mining and logging industries that fueled its pioneer economy.

Pickering was a full-time surveyor again (he was an Oxford-trained civil engineer) by the time the first good roads were hacked through the Cascades. The general was a historical figure by the time Highway 10 cut through the valley in 1940, and arguably obscure when I-90 roared through in 1972.

"I-90 changed the character of Issaquah just by the sheer momentum of being along that highway," says Wayne Hopman, city councilman.

In the modern business sense, I-90 also presented the city with the chance to achieve a modest measure of the greatness once foreseen by Pickering.

The more than 20 stores of Pickering Place will cover 550,000 square feet on 57 acres. The rest of the 138 acres will be parking and open space, including an amphitheater and a six-acre lake already stocked with carp.

In marketing parlance, Pickering Place will be a "power center," a collection of large, off-price retailers. Costco will be the big draw; other stores will include Food Pavilion and Olympic Sports. Langly has $51 million from investors to build the center and expects more than $300 million in annual sales.

Directly across I-90 will be Issaquah Town Center. Investment in the center totals at least $50 million and will include stores covering 480,000 square feet. Developer Trammell Crow has confirmed that Target, Marshall's and Olson's Food Stores will build.

Issaquah expects $1.5 million to $2 million a year in additional sales tax revenues from the two projects; the city's general fund now stands at $7 million. Some of that new money probably will go toward the construction of a fire station near the centers.

Keithly says retailers hope to capture the estimated 46 percent of shoppers who travel outside the community to buy things. Even before the Langly and Trammell Crow developments were proposed, Keithly says, market research showed the Issaquah area was underserved by retailers to the tune of 1 million square feet of store space.

Keithly points out that state growth-management laws encourage the sort of development he is putting in. Even Issaquah itself - despite deserved pride in its historical character - ushered the entry of developers such as Keithly. Zoning changes in the early 1980s opened the land near I-90 for commercial development. Voters also rejected a proposed municipal bond issue that would have paid for the city's purchase of much of the land associated with the Langly project.

The city encouraged this growth in part because it needed the money. Even now, a partial municipal hiring freeze is in effect. Some of the financial difficulties are linked to Issaquah's regional service role; for example, 80 percent of the people who use its parks are not Issaquah residents. The East Sammamish Community Planning Area just outside the city is also the county's fastest-growing planning district.

"Financially, we are doing about the same as most communities our size," says Leon Kos, the city's administrator for the past 17 years. "Our demands for services exceed our revenues."

Sue Mackey, an Issaquah business consultant, says the community couldn't afford to reject Langly, because the developer could build on county property even closer to the city's historical center. In that event, the city would lose out on valuable tax revenues.

"If these big guns do not come to town, I don't believe the city has the wherewithal to keep the city the way it is, to keep the improvements up," she says. "So the city would deteriorate. Now, with this development, are you going to lose something? Yes, you're going to lose the quaintness of it. Are you going to ruin the flavor of the place? The answer is yes."

CHARACTER OF ISSAQUAH

The landmarks of Issaquah's traditional downtown district include the 75-foot butter-colored silos at the Darigold creamery, a restored railroad depot, the state salmon hatchery, the bustling Village Theatre and Marga Ilic's life-sized wooden soldiers on Front Street.

Shoulder past the soldiers, follow the sidewalk Ilic has painted red and you will come upon her Nutcracker Tea Room and antique shop. Ilic offers a bit of her native Germany here: starched, pink table cloths and sugary desserts. The tearoom is also the headquarters of the Downtown Issaquah Business Association. Ilic is president this year.

Ilic feels the sort of people who take the trouble to find her tearoom probably will always be there for her. Yet she is worried about the historical center of Issaquah.

"It is discouraging walking down that street," she says, referring to Front Street. "You cannot hear your own voice. Why would anyone want to walk down that street?"

Front Street traffic is the town's most aggravating evidence of growth. Cars are bumper-to-bumper every afternoon, and volume may intensify as the Pickering and Town Center projects are built. A downtown bypass has been considered, but the proposal has not moved past the study phase.

Ilic believes the downtown must latch onto a distinct identity. She pushed through a plan this year to acquire evergreen wreaths to hang from downtown lamp posts. She envisions mechanical holiday displays in shop windows someday as part of an effort to preserve the small-town charm.

Others believe the city's traditional core could build on the arts-center atmosphere that may be created when the Village Theatre opens its $7 million facility downtown next year.

"We cannot prevent the shopping centers from coming in," she says. "We have to come up with unique ideas to bring people downtown.

"Personally, I would like this to become the Christmas town west of the mountains."

Keithly, the Pickering Place developer, pulls no punches when asked about Issaquah's historical center.

"The character of Issaquah is easier said than defined," he says. "It's very interesting when we bring an architect in here. They climb into their car and they drive down Gilman Boulevard (the broad tree-lined street linking the traditional downtown with the Trammell Crow-Pickering Place area), and they come back and say, `We don't see any character we haven't seen in any other community.' And they drive down Front Street and, well, they see some false fronts."

Studies have shown that small businesses are doomed if "they try to play the price game" against large-volume concerns such as Costco, said Charles Ingene, a marketing professor at the University of Washington. That leaves one key area in which Issaquah downtown businesses may have an edge: personal service.

Even this depends on local income levels, said Ingene. Better service tends to matter more to people with more money. People with less money consider price the paramount factor when they buy. In 1990, the median family income in Issaquah was $46,367; the median family income for all King County cities was $43,225, according to U.S. Census figures.

Ingene also said small shops that offer something that the new retailers cannot - Ilic's carefully chosen antiques, for example - usually are not affected by new development.

At 90-year-old Lewis Hardware in downtown Issaquah, the feeling about Pickering Place is glum. Owner Steve White will face competition from Home Depot.

"There's this old downtown, and now, there will be the new downtown," White says. "It bothers me, but what can I do?"

At the nearby Bicycle Center, owner Mike Judkins also is philosophical.

"Issaquah is losing its small-town charm. The hard part is, I like a small-town atmosphere, I live here, but as a businessman, I like growth," he says.

Drury Pickering is considerably closer to the pioneer generation than Judkins, but he sketches the same contradiction that bedevils towns such as Issaquah.

"My great grandfather was a pioneer," says Pickering, who moved to Oak Harbor because he tired of the Issaquah bustle. "He and all these people were really supportive of developing the West, and yet, they were seeking a place of their own, and even solitude.

"It's the way the world has always been turning, and now Issaquah has been caught up in it. When you got the big boys coming into the valley willing to spend millions, it's hard to buck it. That's Issaquah's destiny - to become part of that growth."

William the Headstrong probably would have agreed.