OTHELLO - The corner of South Othello Street and Martin Luther King Jr. Way South lay desolate amidst light rail construction dust as neighbors and developers gathered at the New Holly Campus Gathering Hall west of the intersection to discuss the metamorphosis of the barren and relatively vacant site around Othello Station into a model transit oriented community of the future. Billed by its neighborhood organizers as "an historic event," the Sept. 27 meeting provided a unique opportunity for developers to show case their plans and for neighbors to give input.
Bursting with questions and concerns, neighbors gathered around posters and display models, eager to talk with developers who appeared anxious to please. When a neighbor asked Mike Hlastala of Othello Partners whether he knew the neighborhood had city approved design guidelines, the developer replied, "When we began this project, the first thing I did was download the Othello Neighborhood Design Guidelines and hand them to the architects."
Typical of expressed sentiments, was a comment by long time resident, Eunice Beleford. She said that, on the one hand, she is concerned about the influx of traffic but she is also excited about the prospect of being able to walk to stores. Beleford, who has been active in neighborhood groups, said that attending this event had a high priority for her. "I want a nice, safe place to live, one that is multi-cultural, where people can work and live in the neighborhood, and where prices are competitive for residents."
Heather Villiard said she and her family had only recently moved to the neighborhood but have quickly become involved. Her husband is on the board of directors for the new Seward Park Town Homes located near the corner of Rainier Avenue South and South Othello Street, less than a 10-minute walk from Othello Station. Villiard said her family had specifically chosen Othello because they wanted to live in an urban environment with lots of pedestrian traffic and a sense of community. She believes that the coming of light rail and a well-designed mixed use development will make that a reality.
PACKED HOUSE
As excited chatter continued, the room filled up, exceeding the expectations of the organizers. More chairs had to be brought out to seat everyone. Resident, Katie Pencke welcomed the assembly, explaining that the event resulted from the coordinated effort of the Rainier Othello Safety Association, the Othello Neighborhood Association and the Holly Park Neighborhood Council. She thanked David Yaeworth of Seattle City Councilmember Sally Clark's office for accepting the neighborhood's invitation to facilitate the meeting. She further acknowledged Seattle's Department of Neighborhoods, South East Effective Development, and others for assistance and advise. However, she stressed that the meeting, dubbed Othello Town Center Information Night, was a completely grass roots effort conceived, planned and implemented by the neighbors.
Invited to speak first, was Nora Liu from Seattle Department of Finance. Liu congratulated Othello neighbors on their efforts since 1995 that led to this point. She said the initial groundwork was laid with the completion of the MLK at Holly Street Neighborhood Plan for the urban village now called Othello.
She said Othello is one of the few Seattle neighborhoods thus far to have its own design guidelines. For emphasis, Liu read from the neighborhood plan vision statement which pledges to "build a healthy, safe and sustainable community." Liu said that over the years the city had changed its "auto oriented zoning codes" to enable Othello to develop a neighborhood identity to make it a place with walkable, pedestrian friendly streets. "This will happen by means of a courtship between the developers and the community," Liu said.
As developers began describing their plans, it was as though the wide expanses of empty, broken concrete on all four corners of Martin Luther King Jr. Way South and South Othello street were empty canvases being painted with graphs, charts and drawings. By the end of the hour, it was possible to imagine the Othello Town Center as it supposedly will take shape within the next several years.
Union Gospel Mission Director, Hugh Pfiffner and his assistant, Stacy Cleveland illustrated with drawings their dreams of a future facelift for their establishment near the northwest corner.
The sidewalk by the bus stop along South Othello Street is now lined with a formidable 12-foot chain link fence that surrounds a gaping parking lot sparsely populated with staff automobiles and a few old yellow buses. According to Pfiffner and Cleveland, what the future holds in store for that site is a five-story mixed-use building with commercial space set back a few feet from the sidewalk to allow room for green space, plantings and trees.
The upstairs residential part of the building will house single women and women with children. Along the street below will be 20,000 feet of commercial space. Union Gospel youth services will continue to occupy their current building in the back with parking tucked between the two buildings.
A FEW STUBBORN INTERESTS
Soft-spoken Ed Rose of Seattle Housing Authority (SHA) painted in the rest of the northwest and southwest corners where the Holly Park Safeway flanked by acres of parking lot, Seafirst Bank, and an innocuous row of multiethnic business establishments now sits. Rose said SHA has spent the last five years acquiring the property. Pointing to a small red spot near the northeast corner of his chart, Rose indicated that not quite all the necessary property had been acquired.
According to SHA's plan, the three-and-a-half acres will contain six stories of mixed-use development with stores along the street and 180 housing units above. As with all projects featured that evening, parking will be internalized and invisible from the street. Rose said SHA has been negotiating with Safeway headquarters for five years in a vain effort to persuade it to build a bigger store in keeping with the new transit oriented pattern of development. Safeway had agreed instead to sell their store, but the management put a stipulation on the sale requiring that any future grocery store would have to be even smaller than their current facility.
This elicited grumbles from the audience.
"How is this transit oriented development?" remarked one woman to another sitting next to her. "I'll still have to get in my car and go to Renton for groceries?"
The other woman frowned. "With so many new people moving in, we've got to have a bigger store!"
Farther beyond King Plaza, the neighborhood's most colorful and busy ethnic shopping area, lies another 5-acre plot SHA owns called Holly Court. Rose said it would contain 400-500 housing units. Some of those will be market rate apartments, condos, and town homes. Others will be workforce housing slated for families earning 60 percent to 100 percent of mediam income.
Finally, Rose moved on to the northwest corner, an equally large wasteland masked with an advertising screen-fence lauding homes for sale. Peering over the fence is a variable array of bulldozers, backhoes, concrete and rebar behind which rise the gables of attractive new homes built to echo the craftsman bungalow-style architecture of the original neighborhood. Rose said this construction storage area would soon contain a "live-work" development of 200-250 housing units. In about one month requests for proposals will be put out to developers.
NEIGHBORHOOD FOCAL POINT
Last up was Hlastala, the only private, for-profit developer. His company has purchased most of both east corners across Martin Luther King Jr. Way South. On the south corner lies another three-and-a half-acre expanse of empty parking lot with a large, white taco bus along side a hastily constructed strip mall that features small grocery stores and a few other motley business establishments. On the north side is a similar parcel with another big parking lot, empty except on Sunday mornings. There sits a windowless concrete block building, which, until recently, served as an evangelical church recalling its former incarnations as a roller-skating rink and a bowling alley.
Hlastala painted in a different world for this property. There will stand two six-story mixed-use buildings with a combined total of 700 residential units above and 20,000 square feet of retail space. Amenities will include meeting rooms, coffee shops, out door restaurants, gardens, park plazas, wider sidewalks, canopies, trees, not to mention views of Othello Park and Mount Rainier. Hlastala declared that his development would be "a focal point of the neighborhood."
During the feedback session, suggestions were mostly concrete and specific. Julia Walton insisted that parking needs to be "unbundled," that is, sold or rented separately from housing. Echoing parking concerns, another neighbor reminded the city of its promise to award stickers to residents so they will have priority to park in front of their own homes.
Patricia Paschal warned that a thorough market study needs to be done to assure that commercial space will be occupied by successful businesses.
Holly Court resident, Howard Fuller, asked that sufficient notice be given when his house will be torn down. Vague confusion was uttered by one senior citizen, Stew Weiss, unable to fathom optimistic projections about a future of multi-family housing in Othello. "Such buildings have always been substandard and crime infested around here," he said. "Why will this be different?"
Othello writer Mona Lee may be reached via editor@sdistrictjournal.com.[[In-content Ad]]
