General Manager Robert Morrow welcomes customers to the new Panera Bread restaurant at the Landing. Mr. Morrow comes to us from the Gig Harbor Panara Bread location, and he reports that he is very impressed by Renton.

Renton’s new Panera Bread restaurant celebrated it’s opening with a “bread breaking” ceremony today –instead of the traditional ribbon cutting.

The inviting and aromatic bread-sandwich-pastry-beverage business has hosted large crowds of diners from the first hours of it’s opening last Friday morning. And don’t be discouraged by the line when you go there to eat… general Manager Robert Morrow assures me his staff work to see that orders are taken within five minutes. They use a pager system that allows you to place your order and then sit down at your favorite table in their sunny dining room– the pager alerts you when your order is ready for pickup at the counter.

Cathy and I had a great lunch at this restaurant yesterday, and more great snacks there today during the opening celebration. We will be going back often. The business is a great addition to Renton and the Landing.

Susan Bressler from The Renton Patch was on-hand to cover the festivities, and has further details HERE in her latest article. I was particularly excited to hear about the arrangement the restaurant has made to donate it’s excess bread to local feeding programs… Susan will be covering this further in a future article.

Here are a few more photos from today:

Talented, friendly staff and so many bread choices!…

My wife Cathy and friends having fun today at Panera Bread

At last night’s Committee of the Whole meeting we went over several major topics, including garbage and recycling, a federal grant for additional fire department staffing, the Strander Boulevard Extension from Renton to Tukwila, and Economic Development updates and emerging issues.

I’m really proud of our city staff, and I want to communicate about several of these items in the near future; better still, Jenny Manning from the Renton Patch will make it easier. She was at the meeting, and she has already covered the discussion on the Landing in great detail. Among the questions answered last night, and reported in the Renton Patch, were “when will Dicks and Panera Bread open.”

Click here to read the Renton Patch article about updates at the Landing . Then keep checking back for updates here and in Renton Patch for other economic development updates, such as activities in downtown, as well as stories on some of the other topics mentioned above.

Mayor Law is asking King County Executive Dow Constantine to help us raise the priority of protecting Renton’s bridges when creating habitat for fish on the Cedar River. The Mayor’s letter is attached below, and it adds emphasis and additional details to a request previously transmitted by our Public Works Director in a letter I covered in this journal entry (which includes pictures). Mayor Law points out again that expensive maintenance and extremely high economic risk are being created by logjams formed of washed-out woody debris that has been intentionally chained together with logging chains by King County. In addition, removal of rock armoring in some areas upstream on the river is leading to excessive wash-outs, putting far more full-size trees in the water than we would otherwise see. The resulting logjams cause risks to the bridges which connect our city, and to the bridges which connect our local airplane manufacturer with the airport.

Snow is expected to continue falling through the evening and then freeze into ice tonight. King 5 has up to the minute snow updates available here.

Meanwhile, like thousands of others, my family and I have been having fun in it. Here is a picture from tonight; my oldest son Andy and me with our Newfoundland Dolly.

Renton’s newest optometry, Eyes on the Landing , celebrated it’s grand opening yesterday with a ribbon cutting, live music by one of the two singers in “Bomshel”, and a great party that went on for hours. The store has actually been open for business since the day after Thanksgiving, so yesterday’s events were partly to officially recognize the opening, and partly to simply celebrate the successful first months of the fun, new business.

Co-owners Donna Jones (center)and Dr. Evie Lawson (in yellow) and I officially cut the ribbon on “Eyes on the Landing”

Dr. Lawson’s Sister Kristy, who is half of the band “Bomshel”, with one of her newest fans.

Customer Rebecca smiles in her new specs from Eyes on the Landing

Dr. Lawson’s sister Kristy commemorates the occasion with a toast

My daughter Susie cringes as she pop’s a balloon to win a prize coupon– prizes included free frames or lenses, and other discounts on glasses.

My friend Scott helps his family try on some of the business’s colorful frames

My daughter Katie with her husband Brandon. Brandon’s glasses are from the new store.
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Jenny Manning, from the Renton Patch, interviews Dr. Lawson about the new business.

Meagan Christie serving snacks. Meagan helped her mother Debbie cater the event.

In addition to prescription frames and lenses, the store carries great sunglasses. Here, Cathy is trying some on (while I take our picture in the mirror.)

My son Andy enjoying the great snacks

Renton Councilwomman Marcie Palmer joined in the activities.

Suzette Cook, Mayor of Kent and honorary chair of last night’s event (center), with RTC student speakers Annmarie Champness (left) and Anastasia Corman (right).

Four hundred community members completely filled Renton Technical College’s Campus Center last night to enjoy an “Evening in the Caribbean,” a fun-filled fundraiser for RTC’s scholarship foundation. The Foundation had to actually cut off ticket sales last week, as they were bumping into the Fire-Marshall’s capacity of the main building… a nice demonstration of the community support for the college.

This was a particularly special event for Cathy and me, as our daughter-in-law Anastasia was one of the two student speakers at the event. Both Anastasia and fellow-student-speaker Annmarie Champness shared captivating stories about the strong positive effect RTC has had on their lives.

The event was emceed by RTC’s trustee Kirby Unti, who has been a strong advocate for the college during his more than thirty years in Renton. College President Steve Hanson and Foundation President Terry Higashiyama also participated in the evening program.

Public officials were present representing Renton, Kent and Newcastle, along with State Legislator (and devoted education advocate) Marcie Maxwell. Many RTC trustees and former trustees (such as my council colleague Rich Zwicker) were also enjoying the evening. The Boeing Company was the Premier Event sponsor.

The evening was a great fund-raising success. In addition to proceeds from ticket sales and the silent auction, donors pledged many thousands of dollars to help fund student scholarships and support the foundation.

Dozens of volunteers helped put the event together, gather donations for the auction, sponsor tables, etc and I can’t name them without running the risk of leaving someone important out. But I do want to give a shout-out to RTC foundation chair Terry Higashiyama. Terry does an expert, super-energetic job of heading our City of Renton Community Services Department (covering all parks, trails, community classes, and community support services), and she still finds time to volunteer all over town including leading the RTC Foundation– which involved directly overseeing this fund-raising event this year. She makes amazing contributions to our community– it’s no wonder she was named one of Renton’s 2010 Outstanding Citizens.

I wish to express my gratitude to the members of the RTC foundation who dedicate so much time to helping students reach their potential, and to all of the volunteers who made this years fundraiser so fun and successful. My family had a wonderful time.

Here are some more photos from the event:

Left to Right, Master of Ceremonies Kirby Unti, speaker Anastasia Corman, Kenny Corman (my son and Anastasia’s husband), and RTC College President Steve Hanson.

RTC Student Annmarie Champness shares her touching story about RTC

Cathy and me

Click here to see more photos from the event

Your comments are still arriving on the Quendall Terminals proposal, and I expect to keep seeing new comments up until the deadline of 5:00 PM on February 9th. Port Quendall is a proposed large mixed-use project that would occupy the shore of Lake Washington, between the Seahawks Headquarters and the Conner Homes neighborhood.

The most effective comments are those that focus on the accuracy and thoroughness of the draft environmental impact statement (EIS), including comments related to whether the project meets the zoning, the comprehensive plan, and the Shoreline Management criteria. (Note that with this and other projects, if the developer meets all the zoning and shorelines criteria and satisfies the requirements of the EIS, then the project will generally be approved as a matter of law)

The Renton Reporter recently ran a story on this proposal with links to the details, including the official documents and where you can submit your letters and email comments. Here is the link to the Renton Reporter story.

The Reporter also links to two blogs maintained by citizens with additional information resources and opinions. These blogs are http://quendallaction.blogspot.com/ and http://www.quendall.info/.

The majority of the comments so far are related to concerns about the bulk and density of the project, including the corresponding traffic issues. In addition, the city of Mercer Island made official comment asking that Renton take positive steps to ensure that lights at Port Quendall are aimed down and not out toward the water, and that glare is minimized. All of these comments are valuable, and I would encourage anyone with concerns, ideas, or support for this project to voice it in a letter or an email prior to February 9th.

I am neutral about this project. I remember discussing the site’s COR (Commercial/Office/Residential) zoning very extensively ten years ago when Paul Allen’s Vulcan Company was considering a 60-acre urban village at this location; Paul Allen’s project would have been built on the Seahawks property, the Conner property, and the Port Quendall Property. We briefly placed a moratorium on the COR zone at that time (ten years ago) to ensure we had a transportation concept that would work.

In general, Paul Allen’s proposal seemed fairly well supported by the community at the time– however, I think it was not quite as dense as the Port Quendall proposal (it had more buildings but it covered three times the area). Paul Allen’s proposal also offered a very desirable publicly-owned lakefront trail, as well as movie theater, and restaurants that gained it support from many in the area. I believe Port Quendall should provide some public access to the waterfront, but it won’t be the same long public trail (over three property sites) we would have enjoyed with the Paul Allen proposal, and the Landing now offers restaurants and movies in the area.

While I am neutral about this specific proposal, I will add that I would like to see this site cleaned up and at least partially open to the public at some point. The property is a polluted super-fund site, and a construction plan will help the owners get financing to clean the place up. And gaining additional public access to waterfront is highly desirable (at this point, this is something I want to study more about the current proposal). And of course the region needs a return of construction to reverse unemployment and help boost the economy. Lastly, since our property taxes are limited to one-percent growth, we need either new sales tax or new property tax each year to keep up with increases in the cost of salary and health benefits for our workforce.

Keep your comments coming in. And remember the deadline is 5:00 PM February 9.

Comments can be submitted to Venessa Dolbee at:

vdolbee@rentonwa.gov
(you must include your full name and mailing address with your comments)

or get them to her before 5PM on Februuary 9th at:
Vanessa Dolbee, Senior Planner, Planning Division, 6th Floor
Renton City Hall, 1055 South Grady Way, Renton, WA 98057