Community Meeting Update

An entry I drafted but didn't post last April:

At a group discussion held back in January at the Mustard Seed about the future of our neighborhood center, the subject of "Third Place" came up. The City talks about neighborhood "identifiers," "focal points" and signage, but we find ourselves talking about a sense of the place. What we want in a neighborhood.

The city can give us synthetic turf for our neighborhood park, they can give us a whiz-bang new development with rowhousing on our main street but the sense of community we'll have to create for ourselves.

I sensed some frustration at the Community Club meeting tonight. We've had four monthly meetings this year and one special hugely-attended meeting specifically about the Red Apple closure. It looks like, in this economic climate, the store will be closed for quite some time. On the other hand, there is so much opportunity to bring the community together--just look at all that asphalt.

On the way to more third places, during that two, or three, or four year period when plans get made, permits are arranged, bids are accepted, designs are drawn up...meetings and more meetings are held...let's focus on what we can do to bring the community together and use that time to strengthen our ties to one another.

The City Parks Department held a meeting last week to:
"Join us as we share sportsfield improvements plans for Newport Hills Community Park as part of the voter approved Parks levy."

Seems innocuous, but the important words here are Community Park. Not a neighborhood park but a community park. A definition is in order here: a community park serves the needs of the community at large; in this case, the eastside soccer community. By any definition, this is a neighborhood park. It's tiny--just big enough for a grassy field and a cramped little playground.

What is missing in this invitation are the words "synthetic turf." Because that is all that got talked about at the ensuing meeting.

The thing is that the City, with 1.8 million dollars in their pocket to spend on Newport Hills park improvements, chose to spend it on the installation of synthetic turf. This was presented as a "done deal" because the City has no other options for siting a community soccer field in existing neighborhoods. Guess why not. People don't want them in their neighborhood.

Now at Surrey Downs and Eastgate neighborhoods, when this levy was approved, expansions at Surrey Downs include open lawns, picnic spots and a skateboarding area. A "development zone" has been reserved to allow for a community center. The process takes about 18 months, according to "Bellevue: It's Your City June 2009". Over at Eastgate, an off-leash dog area, picnic facilities and trails will be on offer in addition to the possibility of lighted sportsfields and an indoor recreation building. The City purchased properties from the Boeing Co and the BSD, which is interesting because we were told at the meeting that The City isn't in the business of land acquisition.

Understandably, the meeting was heated. After all, Newport Hills is practically dying on the vine and all the City can offer for their 1.8 mil is some astroturf and a guarantee of late bedtimes for the neighborhood kids who can't get to sleep because of the year-round usage of the park til 10:30 at night, fully lit and noisy.

Apparently you can't walk your dog on the stuff, eat on it, put stakes in it for fairs, etc., and, according to recent studies, it's not good for your kids' health:

Politics is alive and well in Newport Hills

The first Monday of every month Drinking Liberally holds a get-together at Newport Hills' third place, The Mustard Seed. Last Monday we were introduced to Darcy Burner's successor as the nominee challenger to David Reichert on the eastside. Suzan del Bene spoke and took a lot of questions. It was packed.

I came across this while looking for images of Third Places: who knew that icon of iconoclasm, The Seattle Stranger, would have ever ventured to our shores? I just love their investigative tones as a way of combating incipient suburbaphobia. This is from last summer's race between Darcy Burner and Dave Reichert:

We are someplace called Newport Hills, which is about a 20-minute drive east from Seattle, sitting in what the SECB (not sure what this refers to) guesses you would call a blue-collar strip-mall bar. It’s called the Mustard Seed and the back looks like this:

Remember: he's 20 whole minutes east of Seattle



While the front looks like this:

We’re still waiting for Burner to arrive, so the SECB checked out the spread, which is not promising:

Memo to the Burner campaign: American flags are great and all, but they’re even better with food on them



The SECB spotted Blaire Butterworth, doing his second tour as a top Burner campaign consultant:


Note to SECB: Next time you cover politics in our neighborhood let me know and I'll buy you a beer or three!

Third Places II: Calling Ron Sher

These days, looking at the empty spot in the center of our neighborhod, I find myself thinking often about one of my "local heroes": the developer Ron Sher. His idealistic vision of community nurtured the development of Crossroads Mall in Bellevue and Lake Forest Towne Centre in Seattle. His current project is in the middle of Bremerton--a windowless hulk that once housed the JC Penney's.


At Crossroads and Lake Forest, events are programmed in to the spaces which combine city services, a stage and other amenities with retail shops and restaurants. At Crossroads, where there was originally a "main street" he added a stage, seating, a giant chessboard. A farmer's market has taken root in the parking lot, and a library, a mini-City Hall and lots of other places for people to sit and mingle have all joined the lively mix. One visitor labeled it "a mall with soul."

The Seattle Times ran a feature article by Eric Pryne last October on Sher's work and I've borrowed from it here:

"'This kind of stuff is what I'm passionate about. 'I love place-making. My whole thing is to be able to create these places that catalyze a community.'"

When he repeated Crossroads' success at Lake Forest Park Town Centre, fans said it had become the city's living room, its heart.

In Lake Forest Park, for instance, there's a "commons" with a stage where musicians perform on weekend nights. Couples and toddlers dance. Families fill big tables, eating food from one of the eateries on the periphery.


Knitting clubs, book groups and gamers hold regular meetings at the shopping center. The county library system and Shoreline Community College have branches there. Most days, an author reads at Third Place Books, an anchor tenant.

Like at Crossroads, there's a giant chess board painted on the commons floor, with king-sized pieces.

"I love the message it sends to people," he says. "It says, 'You can come here, you're welcome here — and you don't have to buy anything.' "

Now this is the amazing thing:

Sher comes from a family of developers. He's a principal in a company that controls shopping centers, hotels and office buildings in Washington, California and New Jersey. He once co-owned the largest retail-leasing brokerage in the country.

But Sher doesn't fit the developer stereotype. He's been intrigued for decades by the notion that shopping centers could be places for social interaction as well as commercial transaction.

He got the idea from sociologist Ray Oldenburg, who has written that Americans lack but desperately need "third places" — informal, socially inclusive settings away from home and work where they can relax, connect, build community and foster democracy.







From an article which originally appeared in The Seattle Times
Oct 19, 2008 by Eric Pryne

Time for a Shout-Out

Newport Hills Community Club has just started a blog of their own.

It looks fantastic, and will be a great place for our community to bat ideas around in. Cheers to Grace and everybody else who had a hand in it.
Julie has already said some wonderful things about this blog:

Are you sad to see the Red Apple gone? So is Robin.
Robin, an
urban planner/designer resident of the neighborhood, has created a fascinating blog to share
her concerns about the now vacant Red Apple store.
The blog is a
wonderful place to share ideas of what you would like to see in the space.
Please check out Robin’s work, as she has been studying “third places” and
checking out other neighborhood friendly shops. What makes a shopping
center successful and more people friendly? Robin can tell you, along with
beautiful snap shots and great commentary. Go find out what a “third
place” is and why we need one in Newport Hills.

Thanks Julie!

Putting Parking in its Place

Parking spaces usually diminish public spaces -- but it doesn't have to be that way.
according to Ethan Kent , and The Project for Public Spaces.

The real shortage, Kent has found, was of places for people to go, not spaces to park.

"The realization that creating a place where people want to come and spend time is more important than parking unfortunately eludes many municipalities. ...parking is taking over our communities. So how can we put parking in its place and draw people back to public spaces?"

These are pictures of Bothell's Country Village, a minimall with a different sort of "floorplan." It makes room for cars, but the cars are secondary to the buildings and the life that goes on around them.

Third Places: Learning from the Neighbors

Caffe Lento, a wonderful addition to Lake Hills Shopping Center, has found room for itself between the vacuum repair clinic and the drycleaners. They wisely picked a sunny spot. Welcome! Wish you were here!

In many ways our neighbors to the north, Lake Hills Shopping Center on 156th in Bellevue (not to be confused with our nearer neighbors to the north, Lake Heights) is under the same pressures as the Newport Hills Shopping Center:

Same age
Competition with Crossroads, Factoria nearby
Failed supermarket

According to the sign posted at Lake Hills, the proposed land use plan for the neighborhood center includes:
90 residential units
44,800 square feet of office space
69,200 square feet of retail space
10,000 square feet library and additional underground parking provided for the commercial and residential uses

This sounds like a great mixed use development ideally suited to the neighborhood. It's sustainable, and provides a "third place" in the form of a library. In other words, people can choose to live near where they work, and have a "third place" which provides space separate from living and working spaces. In future entries I hope to offer more examples of mixed use and third spaces.

In Newport Hills, we're already ahead of the game in a couple of ways: there is already existing density in the form of apartments, condos and townhomes in the center that can support a center like that on offer at Lake Hills. The more density the easier it is to draw on a local customer base--people don't have to drive so far to shop.

Another distinct difference is the appearance of solidity that NH projects through its solid brick structures. All the different storefronts are unified with the use of this brick in the facade and planters.