The Overlake area between Bellevue and Redmond is going to grow. Redmond wants it, Bellevue accepts it. Puget Sound Energy understands it, and it planning accordingly to provide the necessarily power that the area will require.

The question facing the company, and the surrounding community, is where PSE will put a needed electric substation.

First, though, a full disclosure on my part.

I live in the general area where all this will happen. I’m not adjacent to, nor will I see the substation, wherever it is placed. Still, my community club – Sherwood Forest – has a strong interest in all of this.

T community club has a history of being an active participant in what happens in and around its neighborhoods. Many Bellevue neighborhoods can say the same. It’s one of the things that makes Bellevue the good city it is to live in.

That said, Puget Sound Energy appears to be ready to make a strange choice on where it wants to build the electric substation. It has chosen a site on Northeast 24th Street, just east of 156th Avenue Northeast, where a complex of medical and dental office now are located.

PSE apparently likes the fact that the owner of the complex is willing to sell to the utility where other nearby property owners are not. Picking another site would mean that PSE would have to go through condemnation proceedings to get the land it needs.

The site on Northeast 24th would put the substation between a rehabilitation center and a single-family neighborhood. Not surprisingly, neither one wants the substation there.

PSE’s preferred choice actually isn’t this site on Northeast 24th. It would like to build the substation on land formerly occupied by Angelo’s Nursery on 156th Avenue Northeast. That land was bought some time ago by a Canadian firm that wants to build a hotel and senior citizen retirement complex on the property. The owners don’t want to sell. And despite signs that say the project is coming soon, nothing has happened there for months.

PSE also has looked at the site of Group Health’s former Eastside hospital and clinic, land along Bel-Red Road bordering Microsoft, and a site it already owns on 152nd Avenue Northeast.

Each site has its own problems.

The Group Health site has a buyer – maybe – who doesn’t want to sell. But that deal may have fallen through. However, Redmond won’t accept this option because it wants a higher use development on this property.

The Bel-Red/Microsoft site includes the requirement of a 100-foot buffet along Bel-Red Road to protect the Peachtree neighborhood from looking into Microsoft’s domain. That might be hard to maintain.

PSE’s property on 152nd Northeast could handle a temporary expansion, but it isn’t big enough to handle future needs and PSE would be back looking for another site within a couple of year.

So, what’s a utility to do?

PSE apparently likes the site on Northeast 24th because it would be cheaper to acquire. Given the fact that the substation – and its impacts – will be there for decades, that’s a lousy reason to pick a site. The cost, carried out over years, isn’t enough to make this the preferred site.

PSE is touting its “green” face, so cutting into a 100-foot buffer of trees shouldn’t be an option, either. The site it owns is too small for the future. Going there only delays the problem.

The answer would seem to be the former Angelo’s site – the one that PSE wanted in the first place. Yes, the current owner doesn’t want to sell. No, that won’t prevent Puget Sound Energy from acquiring the site.

No decision will make everyone happy. However, Puget Sound Energy should look at whom it serves – that’s the businesses and homeowners already here. There’s no reason to adversely impact the people it already serves.