Month: May 2019

Citizen led efforts to save Cougar Mountain’s DeLeo Wall from clear cutting

Written by Randy Corman 1 Comment

Photo: My wife Cathy on the DeLeo wall trail on Cougar Mountain.

A year ago a company requested permission from the Washington Department of Natural Resources to clear-cut harvest all the timber on 37 acres of steep property between Cougar Mountain State Park and May Creek, in the City of Newcastle, just feet from the Renton City Limits.  The land is too steep for significant development, so the owners  have turned to logging as a way to make an income from the land. Neither Newcastle nor Renton has a “timber harvest” zone, but State forestry permits currently supersede city zoning.

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Nature, historic homesteads, and new development peacefully coexist in May Valley thanks to May Creek Basin Action Plan

Written by Randy Corman 2 Comments

Seven years into my Renton Council service, after years of witnessing heart-wrenching flooding in the May Creek Basin,  we finally had a plan to fix it.  Cities of Renton and Newcastle had teamed with King County, along with residents, property owners, and environmental experts, to develop the May Creek Basin Action Plan.  Along with colleagues and scientists, I had trudged knee-deep in mud as we examined areas hardest hit by flooding and landslides.  Our site surveys were followed by hours of meetings, and teamwork with maps, zoning plans, and development standards.  I had special interest in the May Creek Basin plan, as I also served as Renton’s representative on WRIA 8 salmon recovery committee, and we were getting close to publishing our draft plan for saving Chinook Salmon in the Lake Washington, Cedar River, and Lake Samamish watersheds (which includes May Creek. )

We all knew there would be more development in the beautiful May Valley.  The area is characterized by lovely historic homesteads offering healthy country living conditions just minutes from employment centers in Renton, Bellevue, and Issaquah. These homesteads were interspersed and surrounded with undeveloped land that potentially offered new picture-perfect home sites, so long as the flooding, landslides and sustainability could be brought under control.

May Creek in Renton.  (Photo courtesy City of Renton.)

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Sunset Neighborhood Park completion, including playgrounds and water feature, coming soon!

Written by Randy Corman 2 Comments

Click here for a full-size PDF   of the Sunset Neighborhood Park  Masterplan Revised Phase II-2018

Many residents have asked me for more details regarding the plan for the Sunset Neighborhood Park, which is off to an excellent start but is not complete yet. Phase 1 included an entry plaza by the library with seating and overhead pergola, restroom facilities, wide walkways,  a large lawn area, and rain gardens.

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Renton Highlands Revitalization still moving forward even with setback at Hi-Lands Shopping Center

Written by Randy Corman 1 Comment

Photo courtesy of www.sunsetrenton.com

Renton residents got a first hand account of my reaction when I learned the builder had pulled out of the Hi-Lands Shopping Center renovation right after making the long-time tenants move out.  I got the news in a public meeting, and reporter Haley Ausbun did an excellent job of recording my candid reaction in an article in the Renton Reporter. “The loss of the Solera Project came as a shock to Corman at the March 18 Committee of the Whole meeting.” …“This shopping center has been ground zero of the Highland redevelopments for probably 20 years at least,” Corman said.”  …”Corman also said he was disappointed, and doesn’t understand what led the eviction to happen so early.”…“We’re trying to do a revitalization, not end up with a shuttered shopping center,” Corman said at the meeting. “It’s been such a long road to get here.”

In summary, I share the community’s disappointment in the way the Hi-Lands Shopping Center business timing was handled.  I’m also working with our city’s economic development department to help ensure the planned renovation project gets going again soon, and that we don’t miss any opportunities to find homes for the businesses that were displaced.

With that said, I want to assure the Community that Renton Highlands Revitalization, also known as “Sunset Area Transformation” is proceeding at a brisk pace.  A beautiful, sustainable, inclusive, and thriving Renton Highlands, including new market-rate and affordable housing, improved transit, and an all-new “parkway-style” Sunset Boulevard, is just a few short years away.  In city-building time scales, it’s just around the corner.

The 11-acre Highlands Shopping Center is a part of the overall plan, but only a small part, as the entire improvement area covers 269 public and private acres.  Decades ago, during a bleak period when businesses were pulling out of the highlands,  I encouraged  the council to put $1,500,000 in a fund to jump-start Highlands Revitalization .  We’ve targeted this money for infrastructure, property acquisition, and planning,  including creation of the award winning Highlands Revitalization Plan that is summarized well in this “CityLab” news article here.    In author Kaid Benfield’s words, “If you’re looking for exemplary revitalization with new, first-class green infrastructure, community facilities and mixed-income housing, take a look at what’s happening in the Sunset district of Renton, Washington, a city of about 90,000 people south of Seattle.”

It took countless meetings with residents, businesses, and dozens of governmental and charitable stakeholders, to arrive at the highly collaborative and successful plan we are working to today.  We had some notable rough spots in the early days of creating the plan, and through it all I personally worked hard to help keep residents and property owners on board through every step.  We also suffered a small setback when one of our first demonstration projects, Harrington Square Apartments, suffered a dramatic fire while being roofed during construction,  before the building’s fire walls and fire-fighting features were completed.  Thankfully no one was hurt, and our dedicated firefighters aided by  recently enlarged water lines and reservoirs were able to readily contain it.

In recent years we have re-worked the plan to make it an even more collaborative and co-owned  product of 28 stakeholders/partners, maximizing our opportunity for County, State, Federal, and private grants.  Because the Sunset Transformation Plan is so comprehensive, including new housing and transit, it has been successful in pulling in many millions of dollars in outside assistance.  Most recently, King County pledged $5,000,000 towards this plan and hundreds of thousands of extra hours of bus service to Renton in support of the important new housing that is going into the area.  We’ve also been able to acquire grants to allow us to simultaneously complete phases 2 and 3 of the park near the library, which will bring new playgrounds, water features,  shelters, tables and seating to the park, completing it.

Within the private development community, this plan is well known, and we expect to see an increasing number of private retail and housing projects on the Sunset corridor in the next decade.  This will help us meet growth management targets, while keeping the high-density housing on appropriate corridors where it does not increase traffic in single-family neighborhoods.

I’m excited about this plan and I hope you are too.  I’ve worked on it 20 years, and as Mayor I plan to see it through to completion.  As always, please feel free to comment with your thoughts below.

For a virtual year-book of Highland Revitalization Discussions and related blogs, search “Highlands” in my search bar or simply click here

 

The history of the Landing, our modern regional shopping destination

Written by Randy Corman 1 Comment

Photo courtesy of Gary Palmer

We first envisioned the Landing in 2000, in Jesse Tanner’s second mayoral term.  I was council president that year, and had been working for years with Jesse, the Council, and our Economic Development Director Sue Carlson to increase Renton’s retail sector. Decades earlier Renton had lost major retail anchors to Tukwila’s new Southcenter Mall, including Penny’s and Sears. We knew that bolstering Renton’s retail offerings would increase city sales tax revenues and provide residents with additional fun and convenient places to shop and dine.  Boeing had recently let us know they were to begin putting 3-5 acre tracts of surplussed industrial property up for sale as the company modernized its design and inventory management systems.

We saw an opportunity for a new shopping and entertainment center instead of warehouses and storage yards.   We could foresee the possibility of a sixty acre mixed-use center, as long as the property was not sold in individual pieces. We developed the working title “Southport Landing,” adopting the Southport name from an adjacent development in its early planning stages on the waterfront at the site of the former Shuffleton power plant. Jesse, Sue and I (as council president) interviewed several potential project developers to establish viability of our vision and learn what they would need from us to be successful.  In the next several years this project took shape in many ways, including hammering out a critical agreement with Boeing.  If the aerospace company consolidated the land into one large parcel while they pulled back from it, instead of selling it off a few acres at a time, the city of Renton would contribute roads and public infrastructure to the final project.  The City would use some of the tax revenues generated by the new project to pay for this infrastructure.  Renton would get a say in the purchase and sale agreement, including approving the buyer and the proposed project.

We selected Harvest Partners, who employed renowned architects and brought us concepts we approved.  The name got shortened simply to “The Landing”, since “Southport” was an independent (closely coordinated) project on the lake.  Then we battled environmental lawsuits funded largely by Westfield, owner of Southcenter Mall as they seemed determined to prevent us from building the Landing.  Making things more complicated, Westfield has significant leverage over many national retail chains since Westfield owns malls throughout the world, so we found we were generally going to need independent local companies and non-Westfield-dependant retailers to populate our new center.  Construction finally commenced in 2007. 

City officials and citizens standing near the center roundabout in the entertainment area of the Landing.

Then the great recession hit and we had some setbacks, like losing the Starbucks store. Harvest Partners had nearly completed construction, and they earnestly pushed forward with leasing, confident the economy would come back.

Within weeks of opening, it was clear we had hit a home run.  Renton residents flocked to the new stores and entertainment, instantly filling local restaurants like the Rock and Papaya, and quickly making the Target and LA Fitness some of those chains most successful stores in the nation.  The fact that we had to seek local chains and retailers ended up being one of our greatest strengths, as residents found the Landing to be a lovely and unique shopping environment, with wonderful new offerings, providing a fresh change from standard malls across the country.

Daily activities at the Landing can be found here.

To see pages of articles and photos from my blog during the creation and opening of the Landing, click here.

 

 

 

 

I’m running for Mayor!

Written by Randy Corman 2 Comments

My family and I are very excited to announce that I am officially running for the the office of Mayor of Renton!

This position is an open seat, as Mayor Law has announced his retirement at the end of this year. As the senior Councilmember, I will bring over 25 years of experience as a Renton Councilmember to this role, including five years as Renton Council President and another five years as Council President Pro-Tem. I have chaired every council committee, and have substituted for the Mayor on many occasions. I have worked with four Renton mayors in my decades on City Council.

I also bring 33 years of management and engineering experience from my career at the Boeing Company from 1984-2017. Early retirement from Boeing has afforded me the opportunity to serve Renton residents in this new role.

Over the years I have been instrumental in bringing us the Landing, downtown Piazza, Farmers Market, Southport, 405/167 improvements, street and sidewalk improvements, the Henry Moses Aquatic Center, the Neighborhood Program, modern fire and police stations, the off-leash dog park, expanded municipal arts (including the new rooftop dragon!), and many other new parks and libraries. I’ve represented Renton in many regional forums including the I-405 Executive Committee, Metro Regional Transit Committee, and Salmon Habitat Recovery. I’m currently collaborating with the Mayor and council colleagues on downtown and highlands revitalization projects, creating a Benson Hill Community Center, building a more inclusive city, adding new police officers, building a new police training center, and working to reduce traffic congestion, while minimizing costs to homeowners by expanding Renton’s retail base.

As Mayor I will bring the same enthusiasm, open-mindedness, collaboration, and desire to hear from the whole community that I am known for on City Council. I promise a smooth and collaborative transition of leadership, followed by building on our successes toward an even brighter future for all of us.