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No sign of long-awaited Meridian WinCo, but an apartment complex is coming in next door

There is still no word on when the long-awaited WinCo Foods store will be built on Overland Road in Meridian, but a 360-unit apartment complex will be moving in beside the store’s planned location.

The complex, Seasons at Meridian, will take over 15.8 acres of the WinCo Wells subdivision at Overland Road and Wells Avenue in South Meridian. The developers, Morgan Holdings and Stone Hill, will buy the property from WinCo following the Meridian City Council’s approval of its conditional use permit this month.

The apartment complex will be part of Phase 1 of the project on the subdivision and the WinCo store and other commercial property construction will be part of Phase 2. There is no word on when the WinCo store will be built on the company’s half of the property.

The apartments, located at 2700 E. Overland Road, will be a mix of studios, one-bedrooms and two-bedrooms. The units will range from 488 square feet to 1,328 square feet.

Jonathan Fragoso, chief investment officer with Stone Hill, said the company has yet to set rental prices.

The apartments “contribute to the higher density residential units needed in this area,” said Deborah Nelson, a land use attorney at Givens Pursley, who spoke to the council on behalf of the project applicant. “It is already planned with commercial and employment uses, but there is not a lot of residential. Higher density residential is going to support commercial usages. It provides a transition from the single-family-residential areas located on one side and large retail located on the other.”

The east side of the property lines up with single-family homes on Lode Place, and the north side is up against Interstate 84.

At the council meeting, one Meridian resident, Todd Ebeling, was concerned that the high-density housing would bring traffic congestion to the intersection of Overland and Eagle roads.

Council members said they were also concerned, but were not sure whether housing or commercial business would bring about more congestion. They ultimately approved the permit for the Seasons at Meridian complex.

The developers’ target date for opening is 2024. The construction will take an estimated 22 to 24 months.