KENMORE PROGRESS: City is on a building spree, but there’s still plenty of work to be done

Published 11:25 am Thursday, August 4, 2011

Former Kenmore Mayor Jack Crawford’s slogan and diamond-shaped signs read, “Courtesy is Contagious in Kenmore.”

The word “progress” could be added to that phrase, as well. In just more than a year, the city of about 20,400 residents has added a new City Hall, library, fire department and relocated its post office.

“The cornerstones are there, and then the rest of Kenmore I think is growing,” said Northshore Fire Department Chief Tom Weathers.

City Councilmember Glenn Rogers noted that he was referring to a famous saying when he spoke at last month’s grand-opening ceremony of the new 10,000-square-foot library: “With a library, fire department, City Hall and post office … you’ve got a city.”

King County Library System Board President Richard Eadie’s comments at the library event spoke volumes not only about that new building, but of Kenmore overall. When referring to the triple-wide trailer that housed the library since 1976, he said: “I hope we don’t forget the triple wide, it served for so long and so well. It’s an inspirational reminder for where we’ve been in Kenmore and where we are now.”

POSITIVES AND NEGATIVES

“Now” for Mayor David Baker and City Manager Fred Stouder is a good place to be.

“To see the fire station built, the library open and then City Hall open, it’s pretty exciting,” said Baker, who traveled to Washington, D.C., and Denver, Colo., with Stouder to meet with national and regional United States Postal Service representatives to help keep the local branch alive.

“I’ve had residents say they haven’t seen so much change in 40 or 50 years as they’ve seen in the last couple of years — and they say it’s all positive. As an elected official, that makes me feel good, because we work hard and we do try, and it makes me feel like we’re accomplishing something.”

Baker noted that the post office was within one day of closing due to facilities cuts, but Kenmore’s main men kept things rolling and saw the organization through to its April 26, 2010, relocation into the old city-hall location in Kenmore Village on Northeast 181st Street. The mayor added that the post office is not only important to the community, but it was the only profitable one in the region when they were in negotiations to land the 20-year contract.

There was a three- to six-month period, Stouder said, when he spent more time on the post-office issue than anything else on his plate. Overall, the new library (now located where the post office once stood) and city of Kenmore officials (who moved out of their old city hall so the post office could take over that building) helped the post office relocate at no cost by making tenant improvements and early moving arrangements.

Stouder was pleased to note that on a recent day, he frequented the post office and was greeted with a line of 8-10 people in front of him.

“It’s busy,” he said. “It’s business, as well as a convenience for our community.”

However, longtime Kenmore resident Hugh Wiese, 80, is concerned about the lack of progress in the proposed downtown area in Kenmore Village, an incomplete State Route 522 project and a “grossly overspent” new City Hall.

“It’s nice to have the library, a new fire station, but there are other major projects,” Wiese said on a recent afternoon from his home with a stunning view of Lake Washington in the Uplake neighborhood on 58th Avenue Northeast. “The downtown plan seems to be in limbo and nobody’s made any suggestions when this project will ever shape up. There are still a few tenants around, but overall, the project has gone nowhere,” he said.

Wiese added that he enjoys his neighborhood and has always supported his hometown, but he feels that cities like Bothell, Woodinville and Shoreline are strides ahead of Kenmore on the progress front.

TOUGH ECONOMIC TIMES

Baker seems prepared for the question, shakes his head, folds his arms gently and digs right in after being asked about the downtown plan’s status.

“If you just look around, homes are not selling, condos are not selling, people are not spending money, so businesses are not doing well,” he said. “It’s kind of hard to get development moving forward in an economy like this. We do see things happening, we are on track and that will be developed.”

Wiese described the Kenmore Village area, which is bordered by Northeast 181st Street and 68th Avenue Northeast, as a “ghost town.” On one side, there’s the post office, Espresso Works, Kenmore Fitness and Great Play; a former shopping-center space and several other spots are vacant. On the north side is a former park-and-ride. Slightly west of Kenmore Village is Kenmore Plaza, an independently owned area that houses a host of businesses that are separate from the downtown plan.

Baker said that developer Urban Partners’ initial plan of 100,000 square feet of retail, 300 condominiums and more may not come to fruition because of a struggling economy.

“We do see retail over there, we do see perhaps some residences, we’d love to see some senior housing,” said Baker. The mayor and other city officials are scheduled to meet with Urban Partners in about a month or so for an update on the plan.

Urban Partners is leasing the area from the city, and every year the development doesn’t move forward, they owe the city $50,000. The developer is also responsible for leasing and maintenance of the buildings and has to share 50 percent of the rent with the city; they will purchase Kenmore Village from the city at market value whenever they start work, Baker said.

As for 522, it took two years to finish two-thirds of the project, which featured adding new sidewalks, medians, street lighting, landscaping and a new pedestrian underpass at 73rd Avenue Northeast to provide a safe route for Burke-Gilman Trail users. If funding is available, the city hopes to finish the final one-third of the project (60th Avenue Northeast to 65th Avenue Northeast) in the next one to one-and-a-half years, including adding a traffic light at 61st Avenue Northeast at Northeast 181st Street — in Wiese’s neighborhood.

“There’s $23 million (worth) of work left. We all know there’s no money, we all know it’s going to take some time,” Baker said of the 522 project. “The Federal Legislation has asked us to break this out into smaller projects, which we’ve done (three to four $1 million-$2 million projects and a $9 million project).”

And then there’s the long-delayed LakePointe project, a proposal for a mixed-use development on approximately 45 acres on Lake Washington where the Sammamish River enters the lake. Baker said, once again, the economy has laid up that project for the time being.

‘NICE SETTING, NICE PEOPLE’

Aside from some delays in city projects, people are upbeat when they think of Kenmore, which incorporated in 1998 — 97 years after it was founded. It appears that “Courtesy is Contagious in Kenmore” still rings true with residents and city workers.

On one recent afternoon, lemonade-selling entrepreneurs Amber Rodriguez and Hanni Feldheger, both headed to Inglemoor High in the fall from Kenmore Junior High, took a break from their fun, busy day to talk Kenmore.

“I think Kenmore is a nice setting, it has lots of nice people,” said Feldheger as the girls waved to drivers from Rodriguez’s home across the street from the new library at Northeast 181st Street and 65th Avenue Northeast.

Added Rodriguez, who was hoping to make some lemonade money to put toward her driver’s-education class: “I’ve known Kenmore with it being old, and I liked it that way, but I think it’s cool that we’re having a lot of progress. I think it’s pretty cool with the new library.”

Fire Chief Weathers will be retiring at the end of the year to move with his family near Bellingham and said that he’ll miss the area when he leaves.

“This has been a great community to be part of and I definitely have some sadness. I’ve made some great friends and really have seen a lot of fantastic things happen here,” he said, adding that a new KeyBank will soon be opening on Northeast Bothell Way near the Kenmore Lanes-anchored shopping center, which is also undergoing revitalization. Weathers also said that Bastyr University is an integral part of the community as a pioneer in the study of natural health.

While checking out the shiny new Kenmore Library last month, Jennifer Miller, leader of Girl Scout troop 42355, was in awe of the building and array of books and smiles that surrounded her.

The library’s central location near the post office, City Hall and many local businesses is just right — Kenmore residents deserve a place to call their own, Miller said.

“Kenmore people are so used to driving into Bothell to get a lot of our stuff done, but now we’re really becoming self-contained and it’s great because a lot of these small businesses really deserve our money,” she said. “So, we’re trying to catch up and this is a big step. I think it’s really important for us to act locally. With all the new things coming up and all of the city progression, trying to keep up with all of our small businesses is really important.”

For more information, visit www.kenmorewa.gov.