The City of Mercer Island is seeking input from the community on the Thrift Shop Renovation Project and specifically on alternative locations for donations processing. The potential Thrift Shop Renovation Project includes expanding retail floor space at the current Thrift Shop (7710 SE 34th Street) and proposes to relocate donation processing to a secondary site.
Background
Since 1970, proceeds from the Mercer Island Thrift Shop have been used to support services provided by the City of Mercer Island Youth and Family Services (YFS) Department.
The Thrift Shop temporarily closed in March 2020 due to the COVID-19 Pandemic and has recentlyContinue reading
The City of Mercer Island is seeking input from the community on the Thrift Shop Renovation Project and specifically on alternative locations for donations processing. The potential Thrift Shop Renovation Project includes expanding retail floor space at the current Thrift Shop (7710 SE 34th Street) and proposes to relocate donation processing to a secondary site.
Background
Since 1970, proceeds from the Mercer Island Thrift Shop have been used to support services provided by the City of Mercer Island Youth and Family Services (YFS) Department.
The Thrift Shop temporarily closed in March 2020 due to the COVID-19 Pandemic and has recently re-opened for sales on Sundays only. Donation receiving and processing resumed in the fall of 2020 on Saturdays only and was relocated to the Mercer Island Community and Event Center (MICEC) to accommodate Pandemic-related operating restrictions.
The existing Thrift Shop does not have the capacity to "hold" donations for a minimum of 48-hours before the items are sanitized and moved to the sales floor. MICEC will continue to host Thrift Shop donation processing until recreation programs and services resume, tentatively anticipated for the summer of 2020.
Expanding Retail by Moving Donations Processing to a Second Location
The ongoing operating limitations at the Thrift Shop presented a unique and timely opportunity to consider a potential capital improvement project at the facility.
In the summer of 2020 the City Council directed the staff to explore a potential remodel of the Thrift Shop to expand the retail floor space. The expansion of the retail floor space requires donation receiving and processing to move to a secondary location.
The City owned former Recycling Center (3205 77th Ave SE), currently used for storage and park restrooms, is within walking distance of the Thrift Shop and was identified as a possible site to house Thrift Shop donation receiving and processing.
Click here for more information on the initial work performed by the architect.
In November 2020 the City Council paused work on the project to request community feedback and to solicit ideas for alternative donation processing sites.
How To Provide Feedback And Location Ideas
At its meeting on Feb 2, 2021, the City Council voted to suspend this project.
Feedback is no longer being gathered.
At its February 2 meeting, the City Council received a report on the community feedback on the proposed Thrift Shop renovation project.
Either 1) leave the Thrift store as-is or 2) use the Mercerdale recycling building. It's an old building and a parking lot that's off-limits to cars. If you separate the two functions and move intake to City Hall as some have suggested, you will lose donation and/or retail traffic because few will make 2 separate stops.
One of the selling points that brought us to MI was the wonderful parks. I'd hate to see park space used in a way that is better suited to a commercial or industrial zone. Our focus should be on how to make parks more accessible and enjoyable for residents, not using the space for non-recreation purposes. I have to believe that there are better, non-park, locations for a new building to handle donation drop offs and off-season storage. If the idea is to collect larger items, such as furniture, then those items will need to be trucked to the store, making proximity to the store a moot point.
Please, do not build a donation drop-off facility in beautiful Mercerdale park! Keep our parks green and full of opportunities to play, walk, run, cycle, skate, climb and gather. Modular buildings, dumpsters and a constant circulation of cars lining up to drop off their unwanted goods, is not how I would like to picture Mercerdale Park in 5 or 20 years. Let's keep our parks beautiful and fun for residents and visitors. It seems that the large parking lot of City Hall would be a better location for collecting Thrift Shop donations. Please, preserve our wonderful parks!
Please do NOT build in Mercerdale or any other park. There is a very large lot behind City Hall. A relatively small part of that lot could be used for the Thrift Shop intake center.
Due to COVID and our new future, more than ever we need additional parks for the Mercer Island residents to enjoy the outside.
I’m a huge fan of the thrift store but oppose using public parkland as part of its expansion. If you must expand (questionable), find another location that is not public parkland perhaps behind City Hall or on school property. After all, the City is funding 90% of the school counselors costs so the least the school district could do is provide a space for a donation center. Which begs the question, why aren’t schools funding the counselors? Why is our small thrift store tasked with this?
We are in the midst of a pandemic that is altering the way we shop and the types of products we buy. This is not the time to be moving forward on a redesign of the thrift store when post pandemic thrift shopping may look very different. Why not put this on pause until we have a better idea about what the post-pandemic future holds.
Stop Messing With Mercerdale.
Last year some special-interest group wanted to carve off a chunk for their theatre. Now a different group thinks the park needs a new thrift store intake center. It's time to say for now and forever, Mercerdale Park is off-limits to development.
If you can repurpose the existing building next to Bicentenial Park then go for it. Maybe someone can figure out a way to use the existing building that sits unused 90% of the time.
If using the existing building isn't possible then put a tent on the back lot by the police station. If restaurants have to seat their customers outside in a tent then we should be able drive up to a tent to drop off a donation.
Henry Hughes
Please NOT on any of our PRECIOUS PARKLAND. How about behind City Hall?