Council holds first reading on Costco plan development overlay; debate centers on lot coverage, parking and traffic

The Common Council on Tuesday held a public hearing and approved first reading of an ordinance to create a plan development overlay district for a proposed Costco wholesale warehouse on approximately 23.26 acres at Pabst Farms. The applicant seeks permission to build a 161,552-square-foot store, a detached vehicle fueling facility with 12 pumps, and three future outlots; the plan commission had recommended approval.

The council’s substantive discussion centered on three site requests: increasing maximum lot coverage from 75% to 90%, allowing about 210 additional parking stalls above the municipal maximum, and reducing a required 3-foot pavement setback to 0 feet in locations where shared access and state requirements dictate. Jason Gallo, city planner, said the biggest zoning deviation that required council approval is the lot coverage increase and that this site lacks an on-site stormwater pond because runoff is routed to a regional pond designed to serve multiple parcels.

“The lot coverage is an interesting one because this site does not have on-site stormwater,” Gallo said, explaining that stormwater was designed to be handled off-site in an 11.7-acre pond that serves this area of Pabst Farms. Gallo also described the applicant’s landscaping revisions and said the plan commission removed language that would have required outlot architecture to come back to the common council, instead directing future architectural review to the architectural commission and site-plan review to the plan commission.

Steve Cross, Costco’s real estate development director, described how off-site, regional stormwater management affects the coverage calculation and defended the parking demand. “On a typical site where you do not have off-site storage, about 12 to 15% of the land does get allocated to get the detention,” Cross said. He added that Costco performs parking-utilization studies and seeks flexibility now to preserve options later, including possible future outparcel sales if additional parking is not required.

Council members and several attendees from the adjacent Village of Summit raised traffic and visual-impact concerns. Two nearby residents, Robert Schmidt of Bartlett Road and Mark Umhafer of Walai Drive, asked how traffic on Sawyer Road and at the Valley/Sawyer area would be handled and whether signals or turn-lane work is included. Gallo said the applicant produced a Traffic Impact Analysis (TIA) and that the TIA includes recommended off-site improvements; those recommendations are under review and will be followed as required by the city, county and state.

Gallo highlighted other public benefits the city will receive without city funding: the applicant has proposed to pay for required off-site road and signal improvements and to construct turn lanes and related pavement work. He also noted Costco’s local employment estimates in the application (the applicant provided a projected range of roughly 150–200 employees, about half full time) and said the applicant had reported additional developer interest in the area since the Costco announcement.

Several aldermen voiced opposition or reservations on planning grounds. Alderman Ellis said he was not convinced this was “the highest and best use of our licenses” when discussing a separate liquor-license item; on the overlay itself he and Alderman Spiegelberg said the public benefit did not clearly outweigh the zoning exemptions. Other aldermen, including Mulder and Altman Kloth, said the site’s location adjacent to I‑94 and the planned off-site stormwater made the requested coverage and parking less concerning.

The council approved the ordinance on first reading; a motion to waive the second reading was proposed and then rejected, so the item will return for a second reading at the next meeting. The ordinance language before the council also includes updated landscaping commitments (the applicant raised landscaping points from roughly 32,000 to about 34,158 points in the revised plan) and a conditional-use provision addressing gas-pump operating hours (the applicant asked to set fueling hours to 10 p.m. Monday–Friday to match a nationwide change in store operations). Gallo said the plan commission recommended approval after the review and after the applicant revised landscaping and other technical items.

What happens next: the ordinance will return for a second reading and final action by the Common Council; plan commission and county/state permits and compliance with the TIA remain prerequisites to site construction.