Park, aquatic center want to eat fresh with Subway

By Nick Perry
Seattle Times Eastside bureau

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Subway Restaurants is negotiating with King County to open franchises at Marymoor Park near Redmond and at the Weyerhaeuser King County Aquatic Center in Federal Way. The aquatic-center store should open by December and the Marymoor store by next summer.

Subway, a privately held chain of more than 21,000 sandwich shops, turned Jared Fogle into its famous front man after he lost 245 pounds by exercising and eating a diet of Subway sandwiches every day. The company, based in Milford, Conn., continues to promote its products as a healthy alternative to traditional fast food.

That image convinced the county that Subway would fit into the parks system, said Tom Teigen, enterprise manager for King County parks. Combined, the new franchises should generate more than $60,000 annually for the county, he said.

The deals are part of a drive by the county to become more entrepreneurial at parks to generate revenue and overcome budget challenges. The concept may not please all park users, the county acknowledges.

"We consider these parks ... literally sacred ground," Teigen said. For that reason, the Marymoor franchise will be small and unobtrusive, located next to new restrooms that will be built in the fall, he said.

Neither deal is complete yet. But after seven months of negotiations, both the county and Subway said they expect to sign off on the aquatic-center deal within days and the Marymoor deal within six weeks.

Subway Northwest leasing director Steve Woolsey said the Marymoor franchise would be 180 square feet, large enough to hold a bread-baking oven. What hours it would be open are still to be determined. The aquatic-center franchise would be about 600 square feet and would initially be open during regular pool hours, Woolsey said.

If built tastefully, the Subway store at Marymoor could be an asset to park users, said Greg Helland, president of the nonprofit Friends of Marymoor Park. His group understands the financial pressures facing the county and has been generally supportive of new entrepreneurial ideas, he said.

Both Marymoor and the aquatic center have hosted small-scale vendors before, but nothing on the scale of an international chain. A few recreation areas — such as the Gene Coulon Memorial Beach Park in Renton and Seattle Center — already host larger food vendors.

Nick Perry: 206-515-5639 or nperry@seattletimes.com

Copyright © 2004 The Seattle Times Company

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