The author, Kaid Benfield, is full of praise for “possibly the best example of transit-oriented urbanism, natural public space, and green stormwater infrastructure I have ever seen,” and what he’s praising focuses on the daylighting of Thornton Creek at Thornton Place.
He’s not only talking about the swale, seen above (it’s officially called the Thornton Creek Water Quality Channel) but the entire project.
Much of the credit for this accomplishment belongs to a new development called Thornton Place, comprising 109 condos, 278 apartments (20 percent priced below market), a 14-screen cinema, 50,000 square feel of retail, and a very appealing plaza that gives the block a great urban public space in counterpoint to the natural one.
Maple Leaf boasts plenty of opportunities for children to release their inner artist. In addition to Early Masters, which is geared toward children ages 7-12, the younger set also gets its chance to experiment with art at Seattle Creative Kids Preschool, for children ages 3-5.
If you’re interested in learning more, owner and teacher Sheila Cloney invites you to the next open house, from 10 a.m. to noon Monday, June 13. She writes:
Seattle Creative Kids Preschool strives to instill a lifelong love of learning into all its students. We focus on the Physical, Intellectual and Social/Emotional growth of children between the ages of 3-PreK. Children are presented with experiences that allow them to discover and explore art, science, language, music, dramatic play and the natural environment. Seattle Creative Kids Preschool uses Emergent Curriculum and Reggio Emilia as a basis for Learning Through Play. We offer a gentle, enriching and nurturing setting for your child.
Attendees will get the chance to view the space, meet preschool staff, and learn more about both Seattle Creative Kids’ school-year program and its upcoming summer camp program, which runs from July 6 to Aug. 11, from 9 a.m. to 1 p.m. Monday through Friday. The school is located at 9221 12th Ave. N.E.
For nearly a year, the space at 9634 Roosevelt Way N.E. has been vacant since Revolution Cycles closed its doors last August. But a new business plans to move in soon.
Glassique is an architectural glass design studio that now is located at10509 Aurora Ave. N. According to the Glassique Facebook page, the city of Seattle has purchased that property, and owner Richard Heath already have big plans for the new Maple Leaf location:
My new studio will feature a 400 ft. Art Glass of my work and other artists. If you have a piece you are proud of and would like to sell it, let me know.
The business is closed today, but we’ll try to get more information for you about when Glassique plans to open and whether the new location will be a retail location. The Aurora store is by appointment only.
The mural on Roosevelt Way Northeast and Northeast 86th Street, showing plans for the new Maple Leaf Reservoir Park but destroyed in a car crash last fall, is coming back.
Seattle Parks hasn’t yet updated this site with the results of that meeting, but it has posted playground possibilities from the kids at Olympic View Elementary School.
An alert neighbor called Seattle police shortly before noon Thursday to say he just saw two men walk out of his neighbor’s home in the 12500 lock of 25th Avenue Northeast with a pillowcase full of presumably pilfered items.
Police report the caller “yelled at the men to stop, but they took off running and got into a car, which left eastbound on Northeast 127th Street. Fortunately, the neighbor was able to remember the description of the car and the license plate number.
A North Precinct officer spotted the suspect car traveling south on Interstate 5. After a sufficient number of patrol cars were present, the suspect car was stopped at NE 45th Street and 5th Avenue NE. There were two adult males inside the car. While waiting for the witness to come by to identify the suspects, officers observed a stuffed pillowcase in the backseat of the car and a pair of leather gloves in the front passenger seat.
The men were booked into the King County Jail for investigation of burglary, police said.
Incidentally, although Maple Leaf has been relatively quiet on the burglary front recently, that’s not true of our neighbors at Green Lake, where there’s been a rash of business burglaries. Here’s the story from our partner My Green Lake.
Since we last wrote about neighborhood home burglaries in mid-May, there have been only two additional cases reported, according to Seattle police.
On Thursday, May 26, burglars smashed a back door window of a home in the 1500 block of Northeast 91st Street, police report. Stolen was cash, a guitar, a camera and jewelry.
Burglars possibly crawled through a sliding window of a home in the 8500 block of Fourth Avenue Northeast between May 13 and May 14 and took a laptop computer .
Though burglaries are down, numerous cars were stolen or broken into, as shown on the city’s crime map.
This post is from our partner, Wedgwood View, about the well-known Christmas tree lot on 35th Avenue Northeast. The Wedgwood Community Council is working on making the lot a public space. “Given the location of this site and the value of the Hunter Tree Farm to NE Seattle more generally, we are hopeful that we can cast a broad net to make sure that all of the NE Seattle community is welcomed and included in this project.”
The Hunter Tree Farm, long a fixture in central Wedgwood, is slated to be developed into a community gathering place, according to the Wedgwood Community Council.
The primary goal of this gathering place project is to improve the ability of the site to accommodate greater public gatherings while allowing the Hunter Family to maintain their thriving Christmas tree business.
The first meeting on the project is set for June 11 at Messiah Lutheran Church, 7050 35th Ave. N.E. The agenda is below. More information can be found on the community council website.
10AM – 12PM: Project Introduction and Community Brainstorming
12PM – 4PM: Concept Designs Development
4PM – 5PM: Concept Design Open House Note: If you can’t make it for the whole day, the greatest need for public involvement is from 10AM – 12PM and 4PM-5PM. If you can only come for part of the day, try to make these times.
Child’s-eye view of how the Maple Leaf Playground might look, from an earlier get-together with kids.
Some folks wanted to wander, some wanted edible plants. Some wanted birdhouses, some rocks to climb.
About 30 people attended Wednesday night’s meeting on the Maple Leaf Playground and Family Terrace. About a third of them were the meeting’s target audience, i.e., kids.
They were asked questions such as:
What do you think of when you imagine ADVENTURE PLAY?
What do you like best about TRADITIONAL PLAY AREAS?
How might we best reflect the essence of the Maple Leaf community in the design?
There’s a video of segments of the meeting here. Ideas from the meeting will be posted online at this Seattle parks site. You can also fill in a survey on the playground that’s due June 8.
The proposed design of the Family Terrace will be presented July 13 from 6-8 p.m. at the Northgate Community Center gymnasium, 504 N.E. 95th St.
The playground is part of the Maple Leaf Reservoir Park, currently slated to open in 2012. The budget for the playground is $450,000, but the Maple Leaf community is trying to raise an additional $175,000, in part by applying for a city neighborhood matching grant, to build an adventure play area and children’s garden. If interested in volunteering, contact Scott Bishop, sbishop at live.com.
The Thornton Creek Watershed Oversight Council is warning area residents to stay out of Thornton Creek due to the spread of the invasive New Zealand Mud Snail.
The above video from KING-5 News reports that the snail, which earlier took over Olympia’s Capitol Lake, was found Wednesday in Thornton Creek, near its entry into Lake Washington.
The accompanying article by Gary Chittim, forwarded to us by Cheryl Klinker with the Thornton Creek Watershed Oversight Council, says:
The fast-growing snails can smother out native snails and other creatures in water bodies and upset the ecological balance. They grew so rapidly in Capitol Lake that efforts to kill them seemed to work at first, but only time found they stormed back in huge numbers.
State and local agencies are working on a plan to try to control them in Thornton Creek. For now, they are asking the public to help reduce the spread by staying out of the creek.
The big news in Maple Leaf, on the first day of June, is that … it rained more before noon than in all of Memorial Day weekend. Even if you include Friday.
Also, the temperature has not yet reached 60 degrees. Here on the first day of June.
Earlier today KOMO-TV, in an emailed forecast, pointed out “it has been 271 days since Seattle has officially been above 75 degrees.”
Update June 2: KIRO has a story on ownership of the new club. Also, the club has a Facebook page.
Since Maple Leaf Life intern Katie Melton first reported on plans to turn the Seven Seas restaurant into a strip club, other news organizations have picked up the story.
Since our report at the start of the Memorial Day weekend, KIRO and KOMO television stations and The Stranger newspaper have all featured the business at 8914 Lake City Way N.E. (The Seattle Times linked to Katie’s story.)
KOMO’s report, Plans for new strip club irks Maple Leaf-Wedgwood residents, talks with Lee Grogg, director of Ryther Child Center: “We frankly have concerns about the traffic it brings into the neighborhood. (We are) close enough by, that I think that’s a real concern.”
After fielding bus questions at last month’s general meeting of the Maple Leaf Community Council, King County Councilman Bob Ferguson emailed to say changes are coming to bus stops on 15th Avenue Northeast.
I was pleased that we had two King County Metro representatives in attendance at the meeting to take public comment regarding Metro bus route changes in the Maple Leaf neighborhood. As a result of this public comment, I recently received this email from Metro, which I would like to share with you.
His forwarded email quotes Metro as saying: “After reviewing all the comments we received from the public, we have made a few changes to the plan.”
But it doesn’t look like the changes involve adding more stops, just moving them.
Northbound 15th Ave NE between NE 80th St and NE 90th St - After more review of the bus stop spacing plan for this area, Metro would like to close the gap between the stops at NE 88th St and NE 95th St. We are proposing to do this by relocating the stops at NE 82nd St and NE 88th St to NE 85th St and NE 90th St, respectively. Route 373 would stop at NE 90th St. The stops are planned to be relocated on May 14.
Southbound 15th Ave NE at NE 107th St - This stop was closed in early 2010. The bus stop did not comply with traffic standards in its old location, however, we are currently evaluating the site to determine if a suitable location exists that meets standards and will reopen the stop if one is found. The northbound bus stop at NE 106th St will remain closed.
Metro repeats its rationale for axing stops: “The removal of closely spaced bus stops along the corridor will improve schedule reliability, reduce fuel consumption and emissions, and reduce Metro’s operating cost.”
More information can be found at Metro’s site here.
Douglas writes on the Maple Leaf Life Facebook page:
Today I found a loveable but stray Lhasa-Apso/Schitzu blond mix on 20th Ave NE between 89th and 90th Streets. She was clean, friendly and happy to see me but had no tags (nor appeared to be registered). I took her to Maple Leaf Pet Corner on Lake City Way where she is currently waiting to be reunited with her family.
Later he stopped and took a photo of her, and added: “Maple Leaf Pet Corner 206-522-8335.”
The Meadowbrook Farmers Market, at 2728 N.E. 100th St. the closest farmers market to Maple Leaf, is not returning this summer.
The market, which opened in 2009, was always smaller than many of Seattle’s farmers markets.
The market, in an email Tuesday, said:
Dear neighbors,
We are sad to report that the Meadowbrook Farmers Market will not open for the 2011 market season. Our decision is based on a combination of factors, including the poor economy and Spring weather conditions.
We would like to thank all of our faithful neighborhood shoppers, fabulous vendors, talented musicians, local business donors and our site host, the Seattle Waldorf School, for making our first two years a success.
We feel the Meadowbrook Farmers Market was a wonderful celebration of neighborhood and local, sustainable living and this weekly gathering of our community will be missed by us all. We will continue to look ahead towards the 2012 season in hopes for an improved economy and a favorable growing season.
Sue McGann, of Meadowbrook, runs Marra Farm in South Park.
Our sister site Wedgwood View has a post today about Meadowbrook resident Sue McGann, who runs the “giving garden” Marra Farm in South Park. The 4.5-acre urban community farm grows fresh produce for the community’s Providence Regina House Food Bank and provides educational outreach and economic opportunity to families in the neighborhood.
McGann got her start at Marra Farm as a volunteer after she heard about Lettuce Link, a program that works directly with the farm to provide food to local food banks.
“When I started here, the food bank fed 133 families. Now, there are 500 families using it,” McGann said. “Last year we grew 22,000 pounds of fresh food for the food bank.”
Read more about McGann and Marra Farm on the post by our intern, Katie Melton. This is one of her last big projects with Next Door Media before her internship ends June 8, but we hope you’ll still get to see her name from time to time!
