News and Opinion on Neighborhoods, Schools and Local Governments of Redmond, WA.
Wednesday, October 25, 2023
Rumble in Redmond Robot Competition
The East Lake Sammamish Trail is ready to walk, roll, and bike
UPDATED: Esterra Park Opens in Overlake Neighborhood
REDMOND, WA - Recently, Esterra Park (2808 Calder Avenue NE), celebrated opening in Overlake Urban Center. This 2.67-acre park is the first major privately-owned public space (POPs) in Redmond and helps meet the needs of the growing neighborhood.
The park was created by leveraging developer incentives written in Redmond’s Zoning Code, with the goal to benefit the entire community. Together, the City, Capstone Partners, and JLL worked with care and intentionality to determine how the community would engage with the space.
From its layout to its accessibility features, as well as the selection of plants and reclaimed wood seating areas, the design elements were meticulously selected to be welcoming and accessible to the community. Notably, the inclusion of a wildflower native pollinator mix aligns with the City and partners’ shared commitment to supporting local ecosystems and providing a haven for the birds and bees.
The completed park, which was designed and approved by the Parks and Trails Commission in 2014, includes public art, a plaza, an accessible elevator, tree groves, a meadow, an amphitheater, and integrates a hill climb to the north of the park to easily access the nearby light rail station.
To learn more about the project, visit redmond.gov/1979.
Tuesday, October 24, 2023
UPDATED OPINION: Teacher Diversity at LW School District Deserves Study
Homeless Hotel Will House 35-65% Adults With Local Community Ties
Redmond Silver Cloud Homeless Hotel credit Kirkland Reporter |
King County is partnered with Redmond to provide emergency and permanent housing for up to 100 individuals experiencing, or at risk of chronic homelessness. Redmond's "Homeless Hotel" will open in early Winter 2024 after ramping down its temporary use for the refugee resettlement project.
Q: Who will be considered to live in the building?
A: The target population is adults whose income is at or below 30% of the area median and who are experiencing or at risk of chronic homelessness. 35-65% of units are prioritized for individuals with local community ties.
Q: Will the building have 24/7 staffing?
A: All Health Through Housing buildings have 24/7 on-site support staff and comprehensive, wraparound services, including: • Employment navigators • Behavioral health services available on-site • Connection to physical and behavioral health care • Assistance in enrolling in Apple Health and other public benefits
Q: Will The Salvation Army provide these services?
A: The Salvation Army will provide property management and 24/7 support staffing services in-house. The Salvation Army will also partner with King County’s Department of Community and Human Services and local service providers to provide the wraparound services.
Q: Will there be security?
A: The Redmond Homeless Hotel will have experienced, 24/7 on-site staff who are trained in trauma-informed care, crisis support, and de-escalation techniques. As an evidence-based model, permanent supportive housing does not feature security guard services, but it does call for clinically trained staff to be on-site and on-duty around the clock. Further, The Salvation Army will be responsible for developing a Safety and Security Plan as required by Redmond Zoning Code
Monday, October 23, 2023
UPDATED OPINON 10/26: Seattle Times Spotlights City Of Redmond Planners
Post and photo by Bob Yoder, 10/22/2023
Under construction, Redmond Square Apartments (aka The Grand) located in the heart of Redmond (Redmond Way and 166th Avenue NE); narrow sidewalks, limited bicycle infrastructure, pedestrian and street shadowing, flat facade. Legacy Partners ($3 billion) partnered with a Bejing-based company to build this monolith. They didn't partner with the community as are the Redmond Town Center owners.
"As Redmond has grown to 76,000 residents, a proper downtown has sprouted up around the city center’s handful of pre-World War II buildings. This kind of reinvention is happening around Puget Sound and across the country, a phenomenon called “retrofitting suburbia” in a 2008 book of the same name. Some argue multimodal Redmond is a national model for the trend.
Planners like the city of Redmond’s Jeff Churchill are tasked with a tricky job: figuring out how to revamp an outdated, car-dependent suburban template into a place that’s easier to get around on foot, bike or transit.
“The vision for this area becoming what it’s becoming has transcended multiple mayors and city council members,” Churchill said. “It’s been a very durable vision with a fair amount of buy-in.”
** “We’re going to put all our growth into downtown,” Churchill said. “That’s been the plan since the 1990s.”
Civic interest in Redmond’s future remains high. On a September weeknight, several dozen people — local residents, civil servants and elected officials — joined advocacy group Move Redmond to see highlights and lowlights of navigating downtown Redmond on foot.
The existing transit center, where express buses whisk residents to Microsoft’s Overlake campus or further along Highway 520 to Bellevue or Seattle, generally won praise. A curbless shared street between two apartment buildings, also known as a woonerf, elicited interest. A block lacking sidewalks near the new light-rail earned a “thumbs down.”
“Redmond is a suburb but downtown is trying to be a city,” Stevens said. “But it could be so much more.”
For example, Redmond touts itself as the bicycle capital of the Northwest, with its annual Derby Days races and its cycling velodrome at Marymoor Park, but on-street bike infrastructure is lacking.
“I’m comfortable riding in the street, but I want the kids I see riding on the sidewalk to feel comfortable being out on the street, especially because that’s something cool about Redmond: families are living downtown,” Stevens said.
These were the kinds of insights that Move Redmond Executive Director Kelli Refer hoped to hear. Folks are eager to see what’s next, provided downtown Redmond keeps sticking with the plan.
That kind of steady hand offers lessons for retrofitting suburbs everywhere.
“Redmond is setting itself up to be a national model,” Refer said."
Gregory Scruggs: gscruggs@seattletimes.com; Gregory Scruggs is the outdoors reporter at The Seattle Times.
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** What's coming next... (City of Redmond)
** Redmond 2050 is evaluating higher densities by allowing taller buildings (generally between 10 and 19 stories depending on the Overlake station area). This would accommodate 19,000 to 23,000 new housing based on the development alternative options selected. (Draft: Future Vision for Redmond: Urban Centers.)
Saturday, October 21, 2023
Redmond Middle School Teacher Diversity
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Thursday, October 12, 2023
Spectacular "Spectra at Marymoor" Apartments
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Wednesday, October 11, 2023
Bird's Eye View -A Poem by Redmond's Poet Laureate
The Redmond Historical Society invites the community to an exciting conversation with Redmond Poet Laureate, Laura Da’, on the topic of “Currents of Time and Place: Poetry that Engages with History and Image in Cascadia.”
Saturday, 10:30 AM, October 14, 2023. Doors open 10:00 AM.
Location: Old Redmond Schoolhouse, 16600 NE 80th St., Redmond, WA 98052.
Monday, October 9, 2023
Glimpse Of Redmond Councilmembers In Action
l-r Melissa Stuart, David Carson, Jeralee Anderson, President Jessica Forsythe, Varisha Khan, V.P. Vanessa Kritzer, Steve Fields (remote.) Staff have backs to the camera. |
Sunday, October 8, 2023
Halloween Run Through The Park
Zoey reluctantly wears her Halloween costume after a long run in the Redmond Dog Park. Here, she's lapping water from a bowl the city thoughtfully installed.
- Bob & Pam
Redmond Ospreys And Their Nests
Marymoor Park juvenile osprey / credit Reinke |
According to the Marymoor Park website, this tall osprey nest platform located near Parking Lot B was constructed in 2008, to replace a decommissioned cell tower. The new platform has been used by ospreys ever since.
A juvenile osprey is currently occupying the nest. (A juvenile can be identified by the white fringe around all of its brown wing feathers, which adults do not have.)
I discovered that there are two empty osprey nests only a half mile away and still inside the park. One nest structure is located in a tall lighting tower on the perimeter of baseball field #6 and the other is similarly located on the perimeter of baseball field #8. .
Empty osprey nests on Marymoor lighting tower |
During all of my visits to the platform, only the juvenile has been present and I have never seen it flying around or accompanied by adult ospreys. However, my visits have all been of fairly short duration, so I presume that the adults are still attending to the juvenile. Nonetheless, the fall migration season has already begun, so presumably the juvenile and its parents may have already departed.
-- John Reinke
Redmond, photojournalist
10/8/2023
Wednesday, October 4, 2023
CONNECTIONS of Kirkland, Behavioral Health Crisis Center Forum
"Connections Health Solutions" is King County's first of five immediate access multi-service behavioral health crisis response centers. It will be located in the 405 Kirkland Corporate Center behind Olive Garden Restaurant, two blocks from the Kirkland police. It's scheduled to open June/July of 2024.
Heather Genovese, V.P. Clinical Operations of Connections Health Solutions held this ZOOM forum on 9/26, to inform viewers of the facility. Donna Lurie, Board President of NAMI Eastside led Q&A. Notable items from their Tucson facility:
- 24/7 Urgent Care Mental Health Clinic open to all. Treats adults over 17 years of age.
- 15+ chairs for observation by psychiatric providers. No triage. Individuals are seen within 90 minutes.
- 65% stabilized within 24 hours. 65% have comorbid substance abuse.
- 16-bed unit for crisis stabilization; stabilization is usually within 24-hours.
- 16-bed unit for sub-acute crisis stabilization usually within 4 days.
- 60-70% of involuntarily committed individuals convert to voluntary commitment.
- accepts 100% of those coming through the door, regardless of insurance.
- 50-55% are brought in through the back door by police. No one turned away. Peer support specialists remove remove hand cuffs with care compassion and dignity.
- 90% receive outpatient care by a mental health provider within 7 days off discharge.
- 45-Day Transition Program: "warm hand-off to community care" - recovery, support, and coaching.
- For profit.
- EvergreenHealth isn't funding the Center.
Friday, September 29, 2023
King County Councilmember Sarah Perry, Out In Our Community
(Left): Earlier this month, we celebrated the stunning new crosswalk created by artist Jing Jing and sponsored by Pride Across the Bridge and the City of Redmond, Washington - Government; (Right) We joined the Indian American Community Services and their Senior Lunch program at the Beaver Lake Lodge in Sammamish!
Rumble in Redmond – Robot Combat Competition
Join us on Saturday, October 21st from 10:00 a.m. – 5:00 p.m. in Redmond for the Rumble in Redmond Robot Combat Competition! Builders from all over North America will bring their robots to an all-out clash where innovation and excitement collide. This event will serve as a qualifying event for the Robot Combat League National Championship in May 2024, allowing passionate builders to compete at the highest level of robot combat.
Competitors will unleash their custom-built remote-controlled armed with hammers, flippers, or blades, delivering stylish and crushing blows to their opponents. Builders invest days, weeks, or even months perfecting their designs for competitions.
FREE ADMISSION
This is an all-ages, immersive competitive experience. We invite all who are interested to attend!
press release, OneRedmond
Thursday, September 28, 2023
Redmond Recreation and Pool Programs
- Swim School
- Public Swim (Lap, Senior, Youth Swim & Adult Swim Lessons, Water Aerobics)
- Adult Lessons
- Masters
- Lifeguard Training
- Swim Team
- Pool Rental
Wednesday, September 27, 2023
"Redmond Space District"
More satellites are made in Redmond, Washington than anywhere else in the world.
This brand was developed to showcase the dramatic growth of Redmond’s Space Cluster. According to research by Alliance Velocity, Redmond companies produce almost half of the satellites in earth’s orbit, and are projected to manufacture more than 75% of the world’s satellites in the near future based on current and future FCC approved satellites.
Redmond has a long history in the space industry dating back to 1967 when Aerojet Rocketdyne, broke ground on their first site in Redmond. Today, Redmond is home to an innovative and entrepreneurial ecosystem alongside two of the largest satellite manufacturers in the world: SpaceX, and Amazon Project Kuiper.
Along with the two satellite manufacturing giants, Redmond’s robust and growing commercial space sector also includes Honeywell Aerospace, Kymeta, Microsoft’s Azure Orbital, RBC Signals, Spectralux, and Triumph providing a rich environment for small businesses like Xplore to locate in Redmond to grow and prosper.
Source: excerpts and edits from OneRedmond press release, 3/30/2023
OneRedmond is a public-private partnership for economic and community development. Supported by local private sector businesses in close partnership with the City of Redmond. OneRedmond strives to be the difference maker in connecting our local companies and educational community with resources to keep our local economy stable and growing. For more information go to www.OneRedmond.org
Tuesday, September 26, 2023
Senior Center "Camp WeGO" Smashing Success
Here we are with our Sports Participation Awards -- We were ALL winners!
UPDATED: Work Underway For Innovative "Anderson AMLI Project"
Location: AMLI: Redmond Way & Avondale Way. Adjacent McDonalds and Anderson Park; in the old Value Village mall.
The applicant proposes the construction of two adjacent buildings, referred to as the “West” building and the “East” building respectively. The project includes a "pouch porch" dog run with space for hop scotch, 4-square and living green walls. The applicant is proposing a woonerf on Avondale Way to safely connect the buildings.
Plantings and a green wall element were added along the ground level to enhance the pedestrian experience along the Redmond Central Connector. Two variations for the integration of planters and vertical green wall trellises are proposed to create visual interest along the concrete wall.
The west building is a mix of residential and retail uses and varies in height ranging from five to seven-stories. 11,070 sf of commercial retail uses located along Redmond Way. On levels two through seven, there are 249 residential units. 237 internal parking stalls are also provided at ground levels B1 and subterranean levels L1
The east building is six stories and is a multi-family apartment building. Residential amenity space is provided at the ground level. On levels two through six, there are 127 residential units. 205 internal parking stalls are also provided at ground levels B1 and subterranean levels L1.
A future elevated rail line is proposed south of the project as a part of the Sound Transit Downtown Redmond Link.
-- Design Review Board, April 2022
Three additional posts on this innovative AMLI project are HERE.
Prepared by Bob Yoder, 9/26/2023