Costco sale cleared by RV park owners' signatures

With an agreement signed Friday by owners of a neighboring recreational vehicle park, the way has been cleared to complete the sale of city property along Clear Creek Road for a Costco warehouse store, gas station and tire center.

Eugene and Judy Lepire, owners of the Comstock Country RV Park, signed the agreement over construction of a 580-foot sound wall between the two properties.

The $3.6 million sale of the 16 acres of city property to Costco is now expected to close later this week.

Negotiations with the Lepires about how the city would mitigate the project's impact on their business were among the items that repeatedly delayed the planned closing date from April. Most of the Lepires' issues were settled in negotiations in June.

The final items resolved Friday involved the alignment of the sound wall to be built between the Lepire property and about three acres of U.S. Forest Service land along the RV park's west edge being used for dirt storage during the Costco construction.

City development supervisor Andy Burnham said a major concern was that several trees stood close to the wall's path.

"They actually went out Friday and strung out a line so everyone could see where it would run. It turned out there's just one tree that's actually on the line and that will have to come out," Burnham said Saturday. "There are seven or eight others that , if they are too close, we'll have to deal with.

"Walt Sullivan, the city community development director, actually was the guy out there shuttling back and forth between the Lepires and the Costco attorneys to get it all worked out."

The papers signed Friday also transferred about 4,600 square feet of city property to the Lepires to resolve an encroachment between city and Lepire property and to give the Lepires about 4 feet of space along that line, Burnham said.

Monday, a title company will order the funds from Costco, he said. After the money is wired to the title company, it will disburse the agreed upon amounts to the city, the Lepires, the real estate broker, the city utility department and "all the other places that get paid out of closing," Burnham said.

Grading began at the site about a month ago.

Plans call for the construction of a 148,385 square-foot warehouse with about 720 parking spaces and a six-pump gas station on Clear Creek Road just north of Fuji Park. The intersection of Clear Creek Road and Highway 395 will also be expanded and will include a stop light.