In the months since news broke that a fish processing center could replace acres of forested land on the former Weyerhaeuser property, the community’s initial outrage has grown to organized protest, reaching hundreds.

With a 10-person organizing committee, a $50,000 fundraising campaign and a website more advanced than your average blogger’s, the Save Weyerhaeuser Campus group has no intentions of giving up.

“We’re very concerned about the environmental and health aspects of the specific projects, the fish freezer or fish processing plant, and we made those points to the city,” said Michael Brown, a member of the Save Weyerhaeuser Campus group. “But also we’re working on our shared vision of what we would like to see happen to the property.”

As interested parties, the group would like to see the unique natural features and open space preserved while the character of the campus is maintained.

Timber giant Weyerhaeuser Company sold its 425 acres to Industrial Realty Group, LLC for $70.5 million in February after announcing their plans to move to Seattle in August 2014.

While many in the Federal Way community were dismayed, others looked at the move as an opportunity to attract businesses that would pay living wage, middle-class jobs in the city.

So, it was a shock when a notice of master land use for a Preferred Freezer and Orca Bay Seafoods warehousing, distribution and processing center went public in August. The 314,424 square-foot proposed facility would sit in the middle of 19 acres of forested land on the property. While the project would bring 300 new jobs, 200 already-established jobs would be pulled from Renton.

Letters poured in and residents filled Federal Way City Council meetings to voice concern.

City officials took months to review the project’s application before providing, on Oct. 7, their technical review comments, which the developer needs to address before the city issues a SEPA threshold determination and land-use application decision – a step of many before the project becomes a reality.

In the city’s letter were 61 items.

“The letter was far more onerous than any letter we’ve received for a project of this size,” said Tom Messmer, the vice president of special projects at Industrial Realty Group.

Messmer has also been at the council meetings. He knows what people think. He knows what people say.

“I can almost tell you which citizen asked the question,” he said, referring to the 61 questions and comments in the letter. “It’s a lot of stuff to go through.”

Which is why the development company has asked for a few deadline extensions. Some of the items require extensive studies, he said.

The city’s response seemed to take into consideration the concerns the community raised, Brown said.

“You never quite know how your testimony is being received because there’s no give and take at the City Council meeting,” he added. “So we’re pleased our concerns were represented.”

Messmer believes through addressing the concerns, which touch on noise, air quality and environmental hazards, his company is doing right by Federal Way.

“This one building adds $55 million to the tax roll, the property tax roll in Federal Way,” Messmer said of the fish processing center. “I don’t think you can find a building built in the last 20 years in Federal Way that added $55 million to the tax roll. I mean, this one building itself adds $400,000 to the schools budget. You can’t find any one building in Federal Way built in the last 20 years that adds this much property tax in the city of Federal Way and we’re working awfully hard to make that happen.

“The buyer we chose was the guy with the jobs and the taxes.”

And it’s one project on a remaining 425 acres of land.

In the time residents have rallied around the fish processing center, Messmer and his company have also been rallying for buyers and tenants.

A company called KG Investment Properties was initially interested in plopping down a 721,000-square-foot warehouse and office building near the Weyerhaeuser Technology Center but, “for whatever reason, dropped out.”

According to the Save Weyerhaeuser Campus group, the mayor said KG Investment Properties learned of the city’s plans to extend South 324th Street to an Interstate 5 overpass, which would have impacted their project.

“There were seven to eight people who put in offers in February or March and six of them who weren’t KG came right back with offers when KG dropped out, so we’re working through who we want to work with now that’s not KG,” Messmer said, noting they hope to secure a buyer before the holidays.

According to the city’s Community Development Director Brian Davis, the city has received two applications for that piece of property – both of them seek to divide the property in the area near the tech center.

“We sent them a preliminary review of the applications and indicated additional information is needed in order to process them,” Davis said.

In October, Industrial Realty Group also introduced The Greenline – a new marketing effort meant to entice future tenants of the former Weyerhaeuser corporate headquarters building. Although he’s holding out for one tenant for the entire building, Messmer said the building’s parking lot is designed to allow for individual companies on different floors.

Other than that, Messmer hopes to get the 10,000-square-foot building, which used to be a security and back up services for Weyerhaeuser, on the market as well.

“There’s nothing going on with the meadow, there’s nothing that we’re talking to anybody about that’s within that whole 60 acres at the headquarters complex,” Messmer said. “We’re not talking to anybody about buying land along North Lake, that whole 40 acres along there. We’re in no discussion on that. People are worried about a lot of stuff they don’t need to be worried about because we’re not talking to anybody about selling that land.”

Brown said the former corporate headquarters and its land was recognized by the Cultural Landscape Foundation as an endangered landscape, which “helps us make the argument that the corporate headquarters and its surrounding landscaping are unique and valuable and worth preserving.”

The Save Weyerhaeuser Campus group is also working to try to preserve the conservancy area on the west side of North Lake. Brown said the northwest side is a catchment area for the lake, and “minimizing development there will be important.”

Several agencies, including the Audubon Society, support the group’s mission of preservation of the land. In fact, former Weyerhaeuser CEO George H. Weyerhaeuser wrote a letter to the city in opposition to the developer’s plans.

“I was surprised and concerned when I recently learned about proposals to build a fish-processing factory and warehouses on the former Weyerhaeuser Company campus,” he wrote. “In developing the property for Weyerhaeuser’s world headquarters in the late 1960s, I never imagined it would be used for industrial development or large warehouses.”

Instead, Weyerhaeuser’s vision was to create a campus that took advantage of the site’s forests, meadows and wildlife.

In the letter, he asked the city to consider the 1994 agreement the company entered into when the land was annexed. The agreement, according to Weyerhaeuser, asked the owners to “preserve the low-density, open-space character of this campus and to protect the unique features for the community.”

“It’s really a task of working with the city and the owners to try to find a way to have development occur that satisfies the owner’s financial needs but also preserves the character of the campus to the greatest extent possible,” Brown said.

Until that compromise is reached, the group is sure to inspect each application, response and decision one document at a time.

To find out more about the Save Weyerhaeuser Campus group, visit saveweyerhaeusercampus.org.