Three takeaways:
- WinCo’s North Seattle project is delayed over process, not proven environmental harm.
- That delay means less food access, fewer job opportunities and less competition in an area that could use all three.
- Environmental review should protect the environment without letting procedure become a tool to stall opportunity.
An empty grocery store does not hire workers, lower food prices or help anyone build a better future.
That should matter in Seattle, where WinCo Foods has been trying to open a store in the former Sam’s Club at 13550 Aurora Avenue North. The building has reportedly sat mostly vacant since Sam’s Club closed in 2018. WinCo’s proposal would reuse an existing commercial site, remodel the building, reconfigure parking and bring a discount grocery store to North Seattle.
Instead, the project has hit another roadblock.
A group called Lake Washington Working Families appealed Seattle’s environmental determination for the project. The Seattle Office of Hearing Examiner reversed the city’s environmental signoff under the State Environmental Policy Act (SEPA), saying the city evaluated the project against the wrong baseline. The examiner concluded the city should have evaluated the project against the site’s current mostly vacant condition, not against its former use as an operating Sam’s Club. The decision sends the project back for further review.
That ruling matters for reasons beyond one store.
The examiner did not find that opponents had proved WinCo would cause significant environmental harm. The decision instead turned on process: whether the city’s review had used the proper comparison point. In other words, the project is delayed not because actual harm was established, but because the review process was found inadequate.
That is the policy problem.
Washington state’s environmental and land-use rules should protect the public from genuine harm. They should not become tools that allow third parties to delay lawful projects, limit competition and block job opportunities without proving serious, project-specific damage.
An employee-owned alternative
WinCo is different from many other grocery chains. WinCo is non-union, though records show unions affiliated with the United Food and Commercial Workers International Union have sought to represent some WinCo workers. The company is employee-owned, and WinCo promotes that ownership model as a core benefit for workers. WinCo says eligible employees participate in its employee stock ownership plan without making contributions, and that the company contributes 20 percent of eligible compensation in stock annually. That gives workers a good stake in the business.
A new WinCo in North Seattle would mean more job opportunities, reuse of a large vacant retail site and more grocery availability — in an area where local leaders and advocates have warned about food deserts. Those are public benefits. They should count in the policy discussion, not be treated as irrelevant paperwork crumbs swept under the permitting rug.
The Seattle Times reported that Lake Washington Working Families has no website and is not registered with the state. Public records list Lake Washington Working Families at the same Portland address as Karl Anuta, its attorney. Public records also show the same group, represented by the same attorney, challenged a WinCo project in Renton. That does not mean the group lacks local members, but it does raise a straightforward transparency question: When an organization can challenge major grocery projects in more than one city, the public should know who it represents and who is funding or directing the challenge.
This is not about denying people the right to raise legitimate environmental concerns. It is about making sure process is not used to block competition, limit opportunity or delay lawful projects.
Overregulation creates opportunities for strategic obstruction. Every additional appeal path or procedural hurdle creates another opportunity to delay projects and make it harder for workers and consumers to benefit from new competition. That is especially troubling when the blocked opportunity is a grocery store that would offer lower-cost food and employee ownership.
State lawmakers should look carefully at how SEPA and local permitting appeals are being used. Environmental review is legitimate, but so is transparency. And it is important to have a process that cannot be easily used to delay projects without proof of significant harm.
Lawmakers should consider reforms that make the process more transparent, more timely and less vulnerable to possible strategic delay. That could include requiring more disclosure from third-party appellants about who is funding or directing a challenge, tightening who has standing to appeal and setting faster timelines for review when an existing commercial site is being reused. This case suggests the current process does not strike the right balance between legitimate environmental review and the public’s interest.
The cost of delay is real: less access, less competition and less opportunity. Washington should not let paperwork preserve empty buildings. It needs rules that keep the state open to opportunity.