Celebrating 20 years of Redmond PCC

The Redmond PCC store broke new ground for green buildings when it opened in 2006.

The store, celebrating its 20th anniversary in May, was the first-ever grocery to earn LEED Gold certification from the U.S. Green Building Council, a globally recognized standard.

Redmond PCC featured energy-efficient lighting and equipment (plus 28 skylights!), sustainably harvested lumber, a focus on air quality, and recycled materials in everything from cabinets to copper piping. Hot water was heated with energy captured from the refrigeration system. The construction materials contained 40% recycled content.

The environmentally-friendly features were “long-term investments in the future of PCC and the communities we serve,” Lori Ross, PCC’s director of store design, said at the time.

Twenty years in, the investments continue.

The 23,000-square-foot Redmond store was PCC’s eighth outlet, opening during a time of significant growth on the Eastside.

“It feels like a small store… even though it’s big,” said store director Eric Branthwaite.

While the store draws from a large area, with shoppers from neighboring cities like Carnation and Duvall as well as Redmond proper, “it’s pretty tight-knit… We get to know the kids, we get to know the parents.” Families come in as part of their regular routines; high school students stop by for hot slices from the pizzeria.

“People come here because they know Alex in the meat department. They know the produce guys and call them by name,” Branthwaite said. The Health and Body Care (HBC) department is a big draw, he said, with staff members known in the community for their expertise.

Roxanne Green, former president of the Natural Products Association, was the store’s longtime health and body care coordinator before her retirement (Leslie Nudo currently holds the job); the department lead is master herbalist Kathi Bonnabel.

“They’re like legends.”

Despite the region’s growth, the Redmond store is still surrounded by hundreds of acres of farmland – including nonprofit neighbor Oxbow Farm and Conservation Center, as well as working farms originally preserved by the nonprofit PCC Farmland Trust, now the independent Washington Farmland Trust.

Community roots run deep. Redmond PCC has supported the food program at Hopelink, a 55-year-old nonprofit, since the store opened in 2006. Other regular community partners include the Little Bit Therapeutic Riding Center, currently celebrating its 50th anniversary.

The environmental designation is still a point of pride. Certifying a grocery store wasn’t something the LEED organizers had originally considered, and PCC staff worked with the agency to develop requirements to handle the unique needs of a grocery store, Ross recently recalled.

Achieving the certification was a major landmark for the co-op and the industry, celebrated with Fran’s Chocolate gold bars for all PCC staff.