Public Meeting TONIGHT
Posted by the Kenmore Crow | Filed under Politics | No Comments Yet!
Via Mr. James Lupori’s Kenmore Undressed blog comes word of an important meeting tonight.
Kenmore to Lease the Village for $1 Per Year? Are You Kidding?
…the City of Kenmore and Urban Partners LLC are considering a “ground lease agreement” which will essentially turn Urban Partners LLC into the tenant (with some interesting rights) of the Kenmore Village which will place UP in the position of being the landlord and steward of 9 acres of the City’s property? Furthermore, this agreement will require Urban Partners LLC to pay a grand total of $1 per year for the lease which will expire in December 2016. There are other compensation factors in the lease; however, I still find this odd.
Mr. Lupori follows up with more information in Why Amend the "Development Agreement" with Urban Partners LLC?.
Over on KBIN, Dennis Hill weighs in with another view:
It would appear that the City is unloading active management of this property on the Developer. Considering the condition of the property and the City’s demonstrated inability to manage the property profitably, the next best option is to distance itself from liability. They appear to be doing that. Sounds like a win for the community. Not sure what the Developer gets out of it, but could it be worse than what we have now?
Whatever is really going on here, if you care about how your city dollars are being spent and how your city assets are being managed, it would behoove you to come to the public meeting at the Northshore Room at the Northshore Utility District tonight at 7:00 PM tonight.
On a side note, I thought we had fully moved into the new city hall? Why are we still having public meetings at NUD?
Tags: city council, development, Kenmore Village, public meeting, Urban Partners
Corner Comics and the Loss of Small Business in Kenmore
Posted by John Reiher | Filed under Business | 14 Comments
A brief note from the Kenmore Crow: The following is a guest post from John Reiher, who pens the local blog Living Sustainably. The views expressed below are John’s. Thanks for participating, John!
Kenmore is losing small, mom and pop businesses one by one thanks to a city council that either doesn’t care or isn’t willing to help keep these small businesses here in Kenmore, or even to assist them in any way with relocation.
Case in point: Corner Comics
http://www.cornercomics.com/
6575 NE 181st
Kenmore, WA 98028
(425) 486-XMEN (9636)
Corner Comics is moving to a new location thanks to the imminent shuffle of public buildings that will eventually relocate the Kenmore library to their current building. Corner Comics’ last business day at their Kenmore location is coming up quick: Saturday, August 29th, 2009. They are moving to Kirkland, into a rental space they can afford.
I talked to the owner, Paige Gifford, while she was closing up shop. I asked her if it was her choice to move out of the current location. “No,” she replied, “we were told to move by the end of August.”
I then asked her if the City of Kenmore offered her any assistance. “Not one bit,” she said, sounding a little angry. “They never offered any relocation money or any other kinds of assistance.”
She pointed out that the available rental space in the current Kenmore Village is priced far too high, around $40 per square foot. This is nearly double the $20 per square foot that she had been paying at the store’s current location. “None of the local businesses can afford that kind of rent, nobody makes that much money,” she explained.
In Gifford’s opinion, the City Council only wants big box stores and major franchises. She believes that there is no room in the council’s plans for local small businesses.
And she’s not too far off. Ostrom’s went so far as to buy their current location so that they have some control over it. The construction of Kenmore Village by the Lake is stalled indefinitely because the developer, Urban Partners, has been unable to find an anchor store and keeps begging for more time in their search.
Of course it now turns out that even many citizens’ favorite store, Trader Joe’s, was seemingly never invited or courted by local government in any way. It took the initiative of local citizens to get the franchise’s attention, as well as City Council member Laurie Sperry.
She recently sent an email out to subscribers to her blog, KenmoreBlog.net, on August 21st, asking readers if they wanted a Trader Joe’s in Kenmore. If you did, please click a link and voice your opinion. (I do have to note that she misspelled “Trader Joe’s” as “Trader Joes.” One would think she’d get that right.)
Of course I clicked the link and voiced my opinion. But I also think that we need a PCC or a better grocery store in our neighborhood than Safeway or Grocery Outlet.
It would be even better if we had our own Farmers Market. I dearly love the Yakima Fruit Market in Bothell for its variety and types of fresh vegetables. It would be great if we had something like that right here in Kenmore. A grocery store that dealt in locally grown or raised food.
One way we could encourage and support local small businesses such as Corner Comics or a fruit market rather than chasing them away would be to create a business incubator here in Kenmore. It would be a way to encourage and nurture new local businesses in Kenmore, founded by its citizens for its citizens. That’s something our City Council could do, if they could see past Adam Smith’s Invisible Hand of the Market.
Sometimes the Invisible Hand works and sometimes it gives you the invisible finger.
[August 28 update from the Kenmore Crow]
Mayor David Baker responds to some of John’s criticisms in a comment below, which I will duplicate here in the post in order to provide better visibility.
Mayor Baker’s response:
In order to provide accurate information in response to the matter raised by Mr. Reiher. Corner Comics rents on a month by month basis from King County Library System, NOT the City of Kenmore. The library wants to demolish the building in November and is asking all tenants to vacate that are on a month by month basis. If Corner Comics wants relocation expenses then they should contact the King County Library System
The City is not responsible for property owned by the King County Library system. It is not the City of Kenmore’s, responsibility pay for relocation expenses for another governmental agencies action. The only time the City could legally consider relocation expenses is when the city is acquiring the property under state and federal regulations.
The current Kenmore Village rental rates are NOT $40.00 square foot, but range between $5.00 to $17.00 per square foot with several in the $10.00 to 11.00 per square foot range.
The Kenmore City Council, years ago, decided that big box stores did not fit in Kenmore’s long range plans and preferred small local businesses. That is written in to the Cities Comprehensive Plan, Downtown Plan and elsewhere.
The last point is that Ostrom’s Drug and Gift store did NOT buy their current location, they are leasing.
Tags: central-kenmore, city council, Corner Comics, fruit market, Kenmore Village, Laurie Sperry, small business, Trader Joe's, Urban Partners
Kenmore Public Buildings Play Musical Chairs
Posted by the Kenmore Crow | Filed under Construction | 4 Comments
Part of the whole master plan for Kenmore in the coming years involves moving the Kenmore branch of the King County Library from the trailer home it currently resides in on 73rd Ave into the building currently occupied by the Post Office on 181st. Under this plan, the Post Office would naturally have to move somewhere. The current concept is for the Post Office to move into the existing City Hall building once city government moves into the fancy new City Hall building on 68th St.
That’s quite a few different public organizations that all have to coordinate and work together to make everything work out as planned, and there has been some (justifiable) doubt as to whether everything will indeed come together in the end.
Here’s an update on the latest status of the Post Office’s part of this scheme, courtesy of KBIN:
The City and The USPS are now negotiating the fine print and details of an initial five year lease/rental agreement for space, 1985 sq. ft., in the current City Hall.
The agreement also acknowledges that at some point the Post Office could move into a space to be developed and owned by Urban Partners. The proposed lease terms, initiated by the Post Office, while still in review form, is now back in the hands of the Facility Division of the USPS Western States Office in Denver. The initial five year terms are potentially followed by five year increments up to 2041. We are anticipating final agreement by the end of October, if not sooner.
The main thing I’d personally like to see out of a new Kenmore Post Office would be the addition of an Automated Postal Center, so we can actually mail packages any time of day rather than only during business hours.
Tags: city hall, Construction, KCLS, library, Urban Partners, USPS
