PLUSH Recap: Downtown Livability 2.0, the BelRed Street Grid, and a Looming Power Crunch

Bellevue Chamber |  June 23, 2026

On June 23rd,  PLUSH Committee covered three interconnected aspects of growth across the  Eastside. The City previewed Downtown Livability 2.0, a targeted set of code amendments aimed at reviving after-hours vibrancy and stemming small business loss; Chamber land use consultant and architect made the case to rethink BelRed's rigid street-grid requirement; and members discussed a quieter threat: electricity capacity.

Downtown Livability 2.0

Mathieu Menard and Nicholas Whipple of the City of Bellevue's Code and Policy team framed their efforts on Downtown Livability 2.0  as a refinement, not a rewrite. The original Downtown Livability, completed in 2017, was downtown's first major code update since the 1980s and shaped the dense, mixed-use core we see today. This round works within the existing Comprehensive Plan and will not raise building heights or floor area ratios.

"We are not planning to increase building heights or FARs through this code amendment. We don't have the policy support for that, nor do we have an environmental impact statement for that." — Mathieu Menard, City of Bellevue

Instead, the update organizes around five themes: vibrancy after 5 p.m. and on weekends, reversing small business loss, encouraging more housing, preserving Old Bellevue's Main Street character, and easing design rules that complicate permitting — from restaurant hood-vent requirements to inflexible build-to lines. The Chamber is driving active collaboration with stakeholders, city officials, and the Planning Commission this summer, keeping us on target for an early 2027 adoption. Code updates must remain feasible to businesses, predictable to property owners and developers who deliver projects, and intentional to protect Old Bellevue and the historical Main Street. 

The BelRed Street Grid

Matt Roewe, an architect and development planner, walked the committee through the draft BelRed Land Use Code Amendment (LUCA). It is generous on height and density — much like Wilburton — but its required 300-foot street grid is the sticking point. Roewe traced the grid back to 1890 Oregon Territory survey lines and showed how poorly it fits a built-out, hilly district crossed by creeks and existing uses.

"The grid would be great if we were in the desert in Las Vegas. But imposing a grid that came from 1890 Oregon Territory mapping is really challenging against a very intense, well-developed area that has a lot of history." — Matt Roewe, Roewe Works

His examples were concrete: Fire Station 6 sits in a mapped street that would cost roughly $60 million to relocate, T-Mobile's launchpad has grid lines running through an active building, and earlier projects were forced to build roads to nowhere that connect to nothing. Our discussions with six planning commissioners have been very positive, with strong consensus around the need for flexibility in the requirement. We are continuing our outreach to City staff to help bridge the remaining gaps. Our asks are to drop the grid in favor of the existing 1,200-foot perimeter block limit, or at minimum allow interim walkways until neighboring parcels develop, and to bring BelRed in line with Wilburton's code. As a result of the complexities, an additional Planning Commission study session is needed. A revised draft is due before the July 8th meeting.

Parking and Sign Code

On the parking reform code amendment, now headed toward a July 22 public hearing, we are still tracking unresolved items from the Wilburton list, chiefly downtown's standalone visitor-parking requirement, which is out of step with new state law and should be removed. The sign code update, by contrast, is finished.

An Electricity Squeeze on Growth

We closed the meeting with what may be the most consequential long-term issue the committee discussed: whether Bellevue will have enough power to serve the growth its own plans call for. A newly published city study, requested last year by Councilmember Jared Nieuwenhuis, found three substations slated for upgrades that have not started and are projected to exceed capacity within 10 to 15 years. The long-planned Vernell substation near 116th and SR 520, on the books since the 1990 comprehensive plan, still lacks land rights or a permit application, and feeder-line limits are already biting: some Spring District projects have reportedly been told they cannot open until 2029.

Combined with state and federal gaps in generation and transmission and surging data-center demand, the risk is real. The Chamber has begun outreach to City Council urging them to act on the study's recommendations and is in active conversations with Puget Sound Energy.