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Garden Plaza on Park Avenue has fallen into ruin
I’ve written several posts about the derelict office buildings on Park Avenue, including how they got to this condition, what is currently being done about them, and what the future may hold for them.
To help residents and businesses better understand this issue, “For a Better Renton” has asked me to host one or more conversation walking tours around the outside of these buildings (staying in the public space outside the fence, so no personal protective equipment is required). Since I used to work in these buildings, and I also served on City Council from 1994-2021, I bring some unique experience to this discussion.
I want to keep the walk to a manageable group size to support a conversation, so we’re asking people to RSVP to 4aBetterRenton@gmail.com and let us know if you would like to participate. We’ll add additional times if we get more interest than we can reasonably accommodate in this first session.
The walk will begin at Park Avenue and North 6th Street, at 2:00 this coming Sunday, September 7, and last for about one hour. There’s not any parking on these block of Park Ave or North 6th, and nearby lots are private or blocked off, so if you are driving I recommend you look for parking a couple blocks west, on Pelly, Wells or Williams.
The following Saturday there will be a second walk around the neighborhood impacted by the Renton High School eminent-domain expansion, another subject I’ve written extensively about. That walk will be hosted by Sarah Becker.
Renton School District is demolishing homes and businesses obtained by threat of eminent domain
Below is the official announcement for both walks by “For a Better Renton,” which includes additional details:
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For A Better Renton (www.4aBetterRenton.com) is hosting its first two “Field Trips” on September 7th and 13th. The purpose of these field trips is to give Renton residents a clear first-hand understanding of some of the issues facing our city, our neighbors, and the direct impact on our taxes, health, future, ability to draw new businesses and residents to our city, growth, and pride in where we live and work.
PARK AVENUE DERELICT OFFICE BUILDING
We’ve asked Randy Corman, who served on Renton City Council for 28 years, 1994-2021 (with six years as Renton Council President) to lead the field trip and discussion at the derelict Park Avenue Building. Randy was also with Boeing, as a mechanical engineer and manager, for 33 years, and worked in the building we will ‘touring’.
Date: September 7th
Time: 2:00 p.m. – 3:00 p.m.
Meeting location: Park Ave & 6th (directly across the street from Mighty Mugs Coffee Stand)
We will commence walking the entire block, around the external of the building. We will start at the old main entrance and then work our way along Park first, then to 5th and then around the backside of the building. We will be joined by a business owner who has been directly impacted by the activities at this derelict building since it’s abandonment by the owner and property manager, ION Renton and AAA Management. We will share information on what the Mayor and City Council has/has not done regarding addressing this building, the current state, the potential future state, and Department of Ecology reports.
Please RSVP at 4aBetterRenton@gmail.com. We look forward to seeing you there.
RENTON HIGH SCHOOL EXPANSION/EMINENT DOMAIN
Date: September 13th
Time: 10:30 – 11:30 (with the potential to extend to 12 noon)
Meeting location: Ikea Performing Arts Center parking lot – right next to Renton High School.
We will commence the field trip by walking clockwise down 2nd , take a right at Tobin, and continue on Logan. We will likely turn left on Logan and walk to the corner of Logan and Airport, then backtrack down Logan to 2nd.
We have asked Sarah to lead this field trip. She has spent a significant amount of time speaking at both City Council meetings and Renton School Board meetings. She was an active leader on helping secure over 500 signatures on a petition, along with 20+ businesses, and 3 associations – and the petition was presented to the school board and City Council and Mayor. She continues to stay abreast of all actions by the school board and city (the city owns Tobin Street).
We will also be joined by John Houston who has vivid memories of the trauma caused by the Renton School Board who used eminent domain to get his families property under the pretense of building a school – which they never did – and instead sold his families property to a developer. John, along with the support of Senator Hasegawa, got SB 5142 unanimously passed this year and signed into law by Governor Ferguson – though it does not help John and his family, it will help others whose property is taken under eminent domain. (Unfortunately it does not impact the 20+ homes (owners and renters) and 8+ businesses who are being displaced by the Renton School Board – again!) Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it.
We will be joined by at least one, if not several, homeowners who are being displaced under this most recent ’eminent domain’ tactic by the Renton School Board.
Please rsvp at 4aBetterRenton@gmail.com
And a few other gentle reminders: RSVP’ing is important as we will have handouts/information for you to take home. And John will have a few of his recently published books on hand for sale. Please dress accordingly as we will be hosting these field trips regardless of weather. And wear comfortable shoes!
There is an old parking lot(?) on the corner of 6th & Garden, which is all grassy now. It’s fenced except at the northeast corner there is an entrance. We can easily park there since it’s right across the street/6th from where we meet. https://www.google.com/maps/@47.4927241,-122.1999512,195m/data=!3m1!1e3!5m1!1e1?authuser=0&entry=ttu&g_ep=EgoyMDI1MDkwMi4wIKXMDSoASAFQAw%3D%3D
4BR is now basically giving cover to defund the police candidates to look like they care while they weasel their way into a majority.
I don’t think “For a Better Renton” has made any candidate endorsements, at least not to date. I know they have conducted candidate interviews, and I believe these will all be made available in their entirety (un-edited), so all candidates can speak for themselves.
Many of “For a Better Renton’s” specific concerns can be found here.. Someone running on a platform of defunding the police would need to have a realistic, actionable plan for how they were going to reduce crime in order to get support by members of this organization. It can’t be just that they will reduce police, spend the money on grants to nonprofits instead, and then just watch as (magically) all criminals decide to go straight.
So… you’ve caught onto KKV and Dutten eh? If KKV, Carmen, Dutton, and Westgaaaaard all make it, we’ll be Seattle in two months.
One of the comments I’ve heard the most from members of “For a Better Renton” is that they would like for Renton Council to discuss their concerns, honestly, in open public meetings; this would enable all residents of Renton to make informed decisions about where all the current officials stand on these issues, and voters could compare that to the positions of the candidates.
Unfortunately, Council many council meetings have been reduced to as little as 15 minutes, with little interaction among councilmembers, and council rarely responds to any audience comment anymore. This leaves too many residents guessing about who would actually work to resolve the derelict buildings on Park Avenue, or object to eminent domain takings of a neighborhood, or take a position on any other issues of concern to the organization.
I personally feel that our Council could solve many of these issues, but they need to start by talking about them. And the first step in solving any problem is admitting that there is a problem.
Trouble is that we have a bunch of flakes promising things that they can’t deliver. Heck, even Carmen is pretending to be on the bandwagon-of-caring.
I’m not sure where this is coming from – I invite you to attend any of our For A Better Renton meetings, held on the 1st and 3rd Thursday of every month. You can then hear directly from all of us, on the current and emerging issues we’re watching, as well as our thoughts on candidates running for City Council. As Randy mentioned, we have not endorsed a candidate to date and we have given all candidates equal opportunity to have a conversation with us. In the next few days we will be posting the first of 6 Conversations with Candidates (CwC) on our website. And we are in the process of making a few edits to our website in addition to posting the CwC’s. In the interim: The Association is currently comprised of more than a dozen multi-generational thoughtful (5 generations to be exact), committed Renton Residents who reside in 7 different neighborhoods. We are Democrats, Independents, and Republicans. We’ve served on City Council, are Board Members, attended the Civic Academy, sat on Crime & Safety panels with the Renton Police Department, been or are currently officers of our neighborhood associations, and attended the Renton Police Academy. Some of us have met with every City Council member and the Mayor. We speak regularly at the City Council on issues facing Renton. And collectively we’v attended more than 2000 City Council meetings. And, in these ways, we have tried to be the change we want and deserve. (www.4abetterrenton.com)
At the talk on the block with mayor P he said “they” have given the owner 3 choices 1. Demolish 2. Add a fence that cannot be scaled. 3. Add 24×7 security. Owner has requested the temporary permit for the fence. They supposedly have 2 weeks to comply. Only time will tell……
How did the tour go?
We had a good tour today, with good attendance and valuable discussion. We spent about an hour and fifteen minutes walking around the perimeter of the site and discussing the impacts of the current situation, how the buildings got this way, what the future for the site may hold, and how to prevent it from happening to other buildings in the future.
As always happens when I walk around this building, we found four easy ways through the fence in our walk today. One area where the fencing was cut and anyone could walk through, one area where the fence was knocked down, an area near the garage with a gap big enough to walk through, and a high area of fence that would be easy to slide under.
This is nothing like “secure fencing” that the public was promised back in January.
Here are a couple photos showing two of the fence failures seen in our tour:
I enjoyed the field trip of the Park Ave site. It was very informative. I’m a long time Renton area resident, I remember when they were built, I loved driving by them and seeing my car in the reflection of the building. It is such a waste to see them as they are now, I believe in reusing and recycling but there is no hope for these building, they are totally trashed. They are a public eyesore, not only do the owners of the property need to do something about it and pay fines, I think the city council should be paying a fine for letting it get this bad.
1000% they should pay the fines. They have allowed this cancer to festor on this property. I truly believe they want it to get where the owners cannot afford to keep it and then they will buy it for a loss. Land Grab!