SNOQUALMIE – Business and city leaders celebrated the construction of the KeyBank Retail Plaza Oct. 9 at a groundbreaking ceremony on Snoqualmie Ridge – the first building to be developed in the three-block neighborhood retail center.

The 11,000-square-foot structure at the corner of Center Boulevard Southeast and Snoqualmie Parkway will house a KeyBank branch as well as seven other tenants. KeyBank will lease 3,000 square feet of space, and other businesses to set up shop include Andre’s Cleaners, Mail Boxes Etc., Ichiban Teriyaki and Snoqualmie Florist and Gifts.

Leases are still under negotiation for a sandwich shop, ice cream parlor and coffee shop.

The plaza marks the biggest retail development in more than 10 years in the city of Snoqualmie, and it helps complete the Snoqualmie Ridge master-plan community.

“[The KeyBank plaza] really is, in our opinion, a milestone for Snoqualmie Ridge and the city,” said David Dorothy, director of commercial development for Weyerhaeuser Real Estate Co., adding that the neighborhood retail center represents the “missing piece” of the Snoqualmie Ridge development. Businesses are expected to open in February.

“The addition of a retail plaza to this community provides a new level of convenience for residents – for example, they can now walk to the bank on a Friday afternoon as they take their kids to one of the community’s many parks,” said George Sherwin, senior vice president at Snoqualmie Ridge.

Incorporating retail businesses, residences and parks into the Snoqualmie Ridge community, which has more than 750 families, helps set it apart from other developments, said Nancy Tucker, planning director for the city of Snoqualmie.

“I think it’s fairly unique. I think it’s one of the positive aspects of the Snoqualmie Ridge development – that we wanted to create a real civic core,” she said.

KeyBank officials said the new bank branch will have both a drive-up and walk-up automated teller machine, as well as areas inside to speak with bank tellers and handle financial planning.

“This new [branch] is another example of our belief in the increasing importance and growth of our Eastside markets,” said Jim Peoples, president of KeyBank’s Seattle-Bellevue District. He added that another influential factor was transportation, as the branch will be close to Interstate 90 and state routes 18 and 202.

Design standards for the neighborhood retail center were passed earlier this year by the Snoqualmie City Council. The KeyBank Retail Plaza and future buildings in the retail center will reflect the look of downtown Snoqualmie, with strict regulations on signage, rooflines and building facades.

“There has been a lot of effort on our part and the city’s part in putting together development standards for the retail center,” Dorothy said. “Those development standards were put together very deliberately, with a lot of thought and a lot of discussion.”

Buildings will be close to the street, with broad sidewalks. Parking lots will be located behind buildings and screened from view with bushes and trees.

“The major focus is to make it as pedestrian-oriented as possible,” said Tucker. “We wanted to maintain that kind of same, small-town neighborhood retail scale.”

The neighborhood retail center extends along Center Boulevard Southeast, close to the city’s largest park and future sites for a Snoqualmie Valley School District elementary school and community center.

There will be some non-retail businesses dotted along the three blocks, but each corner business will be retail in nature, and the biggest one could be a grocery store.

“We’re still pursuing that,” Dorothy said of the grocery store. “We think having a grocer there as kind of an anchor is important.”

One thing the city has been conscious of is the potential for competition between the retail center and established, downtown businesses. Tucker said to help ensure that doesn’t happen, the city hired an economic development consultant to create an analysis that can help officials plan retail development throughout Snoqualmie.

The city is also engaged in a study of the SR 202 corridor, part of which will focus on getting the more than 1 million visitors a year at Snoqualmie Falls to come into downtown Snoqualmie.

“They come to the Falls, and then they turn around and go back down 202 or the parkway,” she said.

You can reach Barry Rochford at (425) 888-2311, or e-mail him at barry.rochford-@valleyrecord.com.