Costco plans to open its new Bend warehouse store on Cooley Road by late August; former location will close

Company official provides construction update to Boyd Acres Neighborhood Association

BEND, Ore. (KTVZ) – Site preparation, including blasting and grading, is under way six days a week at the site of the new Costco on Bend’s north end, and construction is expected to begin in early May, with the new store expected to open by late August, a company official told residents last week.

City officials approved the site plan for the 185,000-square-foot warehouse store last year at a site off Highway 20 and Cooley Road, to include a gas station and car wash, all part of a larger development expected to include apartments and other retail stores.

John Ellingsen, Costco’s director of international development, provided an update to the Boyd Acres Neighborhood Association of the timeline from here to opening the new store – and at the same time, closure of the long-standing Costco at the Forum Shopping Center off NE Highway 20.

Sanitary sewer work has part of Cooley Road closed near the project, and putting a Swalley Irrigation channel into a culvert means that pipe needs to be laid by April, with irrigation season on the way, Ellingsen said, referring to the juggling of several “competing factors.”

If all goes as planned, construction of the building will begin May, “and we’re currently on schedule for an end of August opening this year, so we’re excited about that,” Ellingsen said.

“We actually go up in about 110 days, and then we have about 20 days of moving inventory into the building and getting ready to open for our membership,” he explained.

Ellingsen said they have “no plans yet” for the current Costco, “but I would expect once that is vacant that we likely will be selling that building.”

At the new site, the planned developer of an adjacent multi-family property withdrew their plans, and nothing new is locked in yet. “We’re getting close there, so I’m hopeful we’ll have a solution, but currently we don’t have anything moving forward,” Ellingsen said.

Answering questions from the online audience, Ellingsen said the developer they are working with, Powell Development, is retaining three parcels adjacent to Highway 20, ”and they have tenants they are working with,” including a drive-thru, a medical building and possibly a bank.

“All of our employees will be transferring to the new building, and then we will be adding positions to the new store as well,” he said. “There will be no gap, so as soon as we open, the old one will close.” (And he said there won’t be a “closing sale” at the old warehouse.)

The gas station and car wash are planned on the northeast corner of the new Costco property, beside Cooley Road. Ellingsen said a new road is going in, called Costco Drive, to access those facilities. It will extend from Cooley Road on the south to Robal Road on the north, he said, “then there’ll be a connection to a connector road that bisects our property and continues up to Hunnell (Road).”