The Overlake area between Bellevue and Redmond is going to grow.
Redmond wants it, Bellevue accepts it.
Puget Sound Energy understands it, and is planning accordingly to provide the necessary power that the area will require.
The question facing the company, and the surrounding community, is where PSE will put a needed electric substation.
Puget Sound Energy appears to be ready to make a strange choice on where it wants to build the electric substation. It has chosen a site on Northeast 24th Street, just east of 156th Avenue Northeast, where a complex of medical and dental offices now are located.
PSE apparently likes the fact that the owner of the complex is willing to sell to the utility where other nearby property owners are not. Picking another site would mean that PSE would have to go through condemnation proceedings to get the land it needs.
The site on Northeast 24th would put the substation between a rehabilitation center and a single-family neighborhood. Not surprisingly, neither one wants the substation there.
There are other choices. One is the former Group Health Eastside Hospital site. Another is along Bel-Red Road adjacent to Microsoft. There’s also a couple of spots in Bellevue, just south of Northeast 24th Street.
Each site has its own problems.
The Group Health site has a buyer – maybe – who doesn’t want to sell. But that deal may have fallen through. However, Redmond won’t accept this option because it wants a higher use development on this property.
The Bel-Red/Microsoft site includes the requirement of a 100-foot buffer along Bel-Red Road to protect the Peachtree neighborhood from looking into Microsoft’s domain. That might be hard to maintain.
PSE has property on 152nd Northeast that could handle a temporary expansion, but it isn’t big enough to handle future needs and PSE would be back looking for another site within a couple of year.
So, what’s a utility to do?
PSE apparently likes the site on Northeast 24th because it would be cheaper to acquire. PSE also says the site makes sense from the standpoint of running the electric lines that will feed the substation.
No decision will make everyone happy. We need to remember that this is one of the prices we pay for living in a growing, ever-changing area.
