Don Winters called the meeting to order. About 35 people were in attendance, including City Councilmembers Doreen Marchione, and Dave Asher. Melinda O'Rourke baked excellent brownies for the meeting.
Kirkland Deputy Parks Director Michael Cogle was our first guest. Michael gave us a PowerPoint demo of work that will be done in the near future to improve the parks in the Moss Bay Neighborhood and all of the city. A general outline of the work is online here. Specific projects for our neighborhood will include inspection of the pilings and redecking of aging Marina Park docks. Plastic decking material that allows light to pass will be used. Also, Brink Park will see some improvements. The work is funded by the 2012 Parks Levy. Officer Brynn Johnson gave us a Kirkland Police update. Moss Bay has seen a decline in arrests in the downtown area since the number of bars has decreased. Brynn told us that the police are excited to be moving into their new headquarters, located in the new Public Safety Building behind Fred Meyer. The new space will be much larger, more centrally located, and have a larger jail. Lisa McConnell of Eastside Trail Advocates briefed us on the legal battle over the Cross Kirkland Corridor. Ballard Terminal Railroad sued to stop Kirkland from removing the rails on the corridor. A federal judge dismissed the case on jurisdictional grounds, but the Surface Transportation Board, a federal agency, will hear the case and still could decide to allow Ballard to reactivate the rail line. A decision is expected in 3-9 months. Lisa encouraged us to provide input for the corridor master plan. More info on that here. Rick Chesmore, architect for Stuart McLeod's Lake Street Place (Hector's), reported on the project. The latest plan is to construct a 13,958 sq. ft. addition to the existing Kirkland Waterfront Market building. The project includes a 965 sq. ft. ground floor addition to the Milagro restaurant and 12,993 sq. ft. of new office space. This project (Phase I) is a part of a larger development to be constructed in two phases. Phase I is one of three buildings that were approved with conditions by the Design Review Board on January 24, 2013. The decision to approve the project was based on a central courtyard design approach and compliance with the applicable design guidelines. The DRB’s decision was subsequently appealed by several neighbors. The Hearing Examiner conducted an appeal hearing on April 4, 2013 and later affirmed the DRB’s decision. Rick told us that there has been a lot of interest in spaces, both in phase I and the entire project. Don Winters reported on several projects in the works. Touchstone Development is still planning to go forward with the Park Place redevelopment. They have some leasing interest and hope to start Building A at the southeast corner of the project by the end of the year. CamWest's plans to build 17 units on the Kirkland Professional Center property at 401 State St. appears to be off, at least for now. Contamination was found on the site and there was no agreement on the cleanup. Comments are closed.
|