‘Thousands of daily trips’: Costco unveils early plans for first Eagle store
AI-generated summary reviewed by our newsroom.
- Costco unveiled early plans for a 160,000-square-foot Eagle store with 900 parking stalls.
- Engineers predict store will generate 1000s of daily trips; road improvements considered.
- Roughly 150 neighbors and residents showed up to learn more and raise concerns.
Boots squeaked on the gymnasium floor as Eagle residents filed in and found their seats. The occasion: Costco’s unveiling of early plans for a new store, the first in the pipeline for the fast-growing city.
At the front of the gym, representatives for the members-only discount retailer stood by a line of posters and maps: A red Costco front entrance sign; a rendering of happy shoppers exiting the store; a diagram of a 900-stall parking lot.
The neighborhood meeting was the first step in a long process for the proposed store at 9755 N. Horseshoe Bend Road. To be built, Costco would need to submit a formal application to the city — and then win a series of approvals from the City Council in public hearings.
But if residents had hoped for a public presentation and comment period Thursday evening, they were quickly disappointed. After a short introduction, John Shaw, Costco’s director of real estate development, instructed the crowd of roughly 150 residents to check out the posters and speak with representatives.
He declined to answer questions in front of the group.
“We do recognize from emails that we’ve received, Facebook comments, that sort of thing, that traffic safety is a primary concern,” said Shaw in a brief statement at the meeting. “That’s the reason we have commissioned a full traffic-impact study and why ... traffic improvements are a part of the project.”
Early site plans for the proposed Costco showed a 160,000-square foot store with parking, fueling stations and a separate 100,000-square-foot retail space that could include a restaurant or bank.
Traffic engineers with Boise consulting firm Kittelson and Associates shared traffic improvements considered as part of its study, including the addition of two roundabouts on Hill Road and possible signal-timing changes or “capacity upgrades” on Idaho 44 and Idaho 55. The study also considered the need for widening Horseshoe Bend from Hill Road to Arnold Road, materials at the meeting showed.
The store is expected to generate “thousands of daily trips,” said Kittelson Engineer Jamie Markosian.
Not everyone is happy with the early takeaways from the traffic study, which engineers said had been submitted to the Ada County Highway District and Idaho Transportation Department and is under review.
“It’s very slipshod,” said Kecia Carlson, who owns the Madeline George Garden Design Nursery just east of the development site. Carlson told the Idaho Statesman that while she’s not opposed to a Costco, she’s concerned about cars stacking on the roadways surrounding the store. She wants to see the plan for access points to the store changed.
“It should be a win for everybody, not just a win for Costco at the expense of everybody who has to drive those roads every day,” she said.
Carlson also expressed frustration with the meeting’s format, calling the lack of an open public comment or Q&A period a “corporate dismissal.”
The business owner said she has her own idea for a traffic and access plan she had hoped to present.
Heavily trafficked roads remained ‘largely unchanged’ for years
In an email to the Statesman, ITD Spokesperson Jill Youmans said it’s too soon to know what improvements may be needed on Idaho 55 and Idaho 44.
“We are in early discussions with the developer,” Youmans said, but the transportation department has “not yet accepted a traffic-impact study.”
Six years ago, a planned development on the same parcel was expected to require a $20 million widening effort on Idaho 44 to be able to move forward, the Statesman reported in 2019. That plan, for a pared-down, Eagle version of The Village at Meridian, was never built.
Youmans emphasized that “traffic mitigation recommendations are tied to a specific development and its projected impacts at that point in time.”
“If a project does not proceed, ITD does not independently advance improvements solely based on that proposal,” she added. So the state highways near Horseshoe Bend and Hill Road have remained “largely unchanged” since the 2019 proposal, she said.
In the meantime, traffic is increasing as the Treasure Valley’s northern stretches continue to grow. Vehicle trips on Idaho 55 at West Dry Creek Road, less than 3 miles north of the planned Costco, have nearly doubled since 2010, the Statesman previously reported.
But growth along the major north-south corridor is something Costco is also hoping to tap into, according to Steve Bullock, an architect with Costco’s MG2. Bullock noted that Treasure Valley customers can shop in most pockets of the Valley at stores in Boise, Nampa and Meridian, where a second Costco is planned in the city’s south. The addition of a store in Eagle would draw nearby residents but also provide some connections to fast-growing points north, he said.
Said Bullock, “I’ve talked to a number of people here tonight who say, you know, ‘We’re going to be gassing up there every time we head north.’”
