The Walker Planning Commission voted Jan. 7 to approve an amendment to the preliminary area site plan (PASP) for the Meijer property at 315 Wilson Avenue NW that adds two outlots, subject to conditions requiring engineer-sealed plans, adherence to the city engineer’s technical items and staff approval of island landscaping.

Commission staff told the panel the two outlots would be smaller than the C2 district’s usual minimum area but argued that the PUD and the applicants’ design met the standards that allow the commission to relax minimum-area requirements when a better design protects public health, safety and welfare. Staff said the main Meijer parking field currently contains 1,097 spaces, that adding the two outlots will remove 156 spaces and reduce the total to 941 spaces, and that the store’s parking requirement is 670 spaces — leaving the site above the minimum even after the change.

Jason Vander Cody, senior civil engineer with Fischbeck representing Meijer, told commissioners the PUD is about 50 acres and the two outlots total roughly 0.66 and 0.79 acres — “literally, it’s approximately 4% of the PUD,” he said during his presentation. Vander Cody also said Meijer intends to own and maintain the internal Ring Road and that one of the outlots is intended for a Chipotle, though tenants for the second outlot had not been selected.

The city engineer’s report, carried in the Jan. 7 materials, identified technical items to be addressed before final site-level approvals: sealed engineering documents, clear truck-turning templates, stop control/stop-bar locations where the Ring Road connects to public streets, and additional dimensional calls on plan sheets. Commissioners said they wanted the new islands to be built so they are visible and durable given long-standing cut-through traffic across the parking field and asked that landscaping materials be specified either in staff-approved details or on a return to the commission.

Staff proposed and read a motion to grant approval of the PASP amendment, conditioned on the commission’s decisions on outlot parcel size and freestanding signage, satisfaction of the city engineer’s conditions (including sealed plans), and island landscaping approved by the city planner; the motion also included the two additional islands the applicant had agreed to provide. The commission approved the motion by voice vote.

Next procedural steps noted during the hearing: detailed landscape and construction materials for the islands can be provided to staff for approval, and required information for individual outlots — including final primary site plans, parking layouts and any crosswalk or shared-parking agreements — will be reviewed at the time a tenant-specific primary site plan is submitted.

The public hearing record and staff report for Case 25-022 will remain the administrative record for implementation of the conditions the commission imposed.