Puget Consumer’s Co-op sprouts in Edmonds

EDMONDS — The leafy vegetables aren’t the only green features at the new PCC Natural Markets store in Edmonds.

The recently opened grocery store uses natural light, green building materials and even recycled water and heat. In the building’s extensive renovation, 97 percent of the construction materials removed were recycled.

The new store is being reviewed for a possible Platinum certification from the U.S. Green Building Council’s Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design program. That’s the highest level available under the LEED certification program.

It’s believed to be the first supermarket to apply for the Platinum LEED certification. PCC’s store in Redmond, which opened in 2006, received a Gold LEED certification, also a first for a U.S. grocery store.

“Going back 15 years, PCC has been ‘greening’ its stores,” said George Ostrow of Velocipede Architects in Seattle, who designed the store with two other firms. “But to do all this at once was a huge challenge.”

The designers weren’t working with a blank slate. Albertsons occupied the 34,000-square-foot building at 9803 Edmonds Way until it quit business there in late 2005.

They first made significant structural changes to open up the store’s front face, which looks to the south. It now is almost all glass, letting in huge amounts of daylight. That effect is multiplied by the 35 specially glazed skylights above the store’s sales floor.

“The first thing people notice is the lighting,” said Lori Ross, PCC’s director of store development. Because of all the natural daylight, the store plans to often turn off its regular lighting on sunny days, she added.

The building’s white walls and floor have been replaced by bright oranges and greens on the walls — done in environmentally friendly paint, of course — and heavy-duty ceramic tiles on the floor. Colorful tiles made of recycled glass accent some of the walls. Cabinets in the store are made from 100 percent recycled fiber.

In the state-of-the-art teaching kitchen, where PCC offers several cooking and nutrition-related classes most weeks, there are bamboo tables and chairs that use surplus automotive seat belts for their supportive fabric.

The freezer and dairy cases use LED lighting, which lasts longer and uses only 25 percent as much energy as fluorescent bulbs. The store uses a refrigerant chemical that doesn’t hurt the atmosphere’s ozone layer, and all the refrigeration is generated by smaller units spread throughout the store rather than one big, inefficient unit.

Additionally, the heat given off from the refrigeration units is captured and used to heat the store and the building’s water, Ostrow explained.

Then there’s the rainwater- collection system, which is unique for a grocery store. Water comes off the building’s roof and is fed into a 4,500-gallon tank installed on the side of the building. The tank, which formerly held sugar, was a deal, bought off Craigslist for $500, Ostrow said.

The water then is used for the store’s toilets and the landscaping sprinklers outside. Over the course of a year, that step could save up to 160,000 gallons of drinking water, store officials estimate.

Related to that, a rain garden in the middle of PCC’s parking lot provides natural drainage and filtering of the oil-laden runoff from the asphalt. The garden and the rest of the lot are surrounded by 27 new trees.

Amid all the impressive green features, the store has all the bells and whistles that PCC’s picky customers expect, including a huge bulk-food section. The Edmonds store has a fresh seafood case, a first for PCC stores, and a deli with hot meals and pizza, a gelato bar and, in the wine section, a fast-acting wine-chilling machine that customers are free to use.

The Edmonds store, which opened earlier this month, employs about 140 people and is the ninth PCC location. The Puget Consumers Co-op began in 1953 as a buying club of 15 families. The Seattle-based cooperative now has annual sales of $115 million and 42,000 members, although many customers don’t hold a membership — it’s $60 for a lifetime — as it’s not required in order to shop at the stores.

PCC Natural Markets, along with bigger chains that focus on organic, high-quality food, have grown in popularity.

“There’s been a very big macro trend of people getting much more interested in what they’re eating, not just what they’re paying for it,” said Bert Hambleton, an Issaquah-based analyst of the grocery industry. The economic slowdown may have cooled the trend, but he sees it continuing to help PCC and similar markets.

PCC’s Ross said opening a store in south Snohomish County makes sense, as many customers from the area have been driving 15 or more miles to shop at one of the cooperative’s other locations. Business at the new store in its first few weeks has been strong, she said.

Based on that, might the chain look at more locations around the county? Its first Snohomish County store actually was opened in south Everett in the early 1990s, but closed after three years. PCC has expanded slowly and thoughtfully since then, but the cooperative always is looking at new opportunities, Ross said.

“We would certainly consider it,” she said. “It all depends on finding good locations.”