White Center renewal is slow going but merchants remain optimistic

When Tom Bui scouted for a location for his printing business, he considered a sparkling new development on Martin Luther King Jr. Way. But the rent was a little higher than he would have liked, the parking was a little scantier than he wished for, and the competition a little more intense than he wanted.

So Bui took West Coast Services to White Center, where he has been for a year and a half. He is basically pleased with his business' location, but is pinning his hopes for the growth of his business on the continued revitalization of his neighborhood.

"We need to be working with Seattle and King County to make this a better place to be," said Bui, a board member of the Vietnamese Business Association. "But so far, things are going slow."

Better traffic signals are urgently needed at some key intersections, and crime prevention needs more attention, much more attention, said Bui and others.

So it goes in White Center, in unincorporated King County on the border of West Seattle. Progress in revitalizing the area, home to one of the most diverse but poorest populations in the region, has crept along until recently.

But one of the biggest efforts ever by the King County Housing Authority, a new elementary school and aid to small businesses in the area are promising to pick up the pace of progress in the community.

Daniel Watson, assistant director of the King County Housing Authority, said his agency has taken a different philosophical approach to its redevelopment work in White Center. Rather than simply looking at how to best provide public housing, they are looking at how to enhance the development and stability of White Center.

"We want to provide a stimulus for the whole community," Watson said. "We're trying to influence the economic development of White Center."

The agency's revitalization effort is called Greenbridge, with one of the largest elements of the project known as Park Lake. Funded by a $35 million federal grant, the project will replace 569 units of Park Lake's severely distressed public housing with 900 to1,100 new residences designed to attract people of different income levels.

About 300 units of the new Park Lake will be affordable housing for the poor, 200 to 400 units will be aimed at the working class and 200 to 400 will be for-sale homes. The housing will be targeted at a variety of residents, including seniors, the disabled, large families, low-to moderate income renters and first-time homebuyers.

They hope the mix of housing will bring in more dollars to the community because more diverse households mean more diverse incomes, Watson said.

"The idea is it's a holistic approach," he said. "We're trying to make sure it functions like a normal, healthy neighborhood.

"It's a challenging situation, but with the right kind of investments, it can turn around in a hurry."

The housing authority, in other efforts to stabilize the community, earlier bought two troubled apartment complexes close to Park Lake. In one, the authority recently made over the decaying, rat-infested property with more than $6 million in repairs. Now what had once been a police nightmare is now safe housing, rechristened Arbor Heights.

The agency also teamed up with a private developer to remake another troubled complex, Mallard Lake. That $6.2 million effort likewise resulted in remaking that property into safe housing called Coronado Springs.

A linchpin in the agency's revitalization is the new White Center Heights Elementary School, set to open in the fall at Park Lake. Spokeswoman Rhonda Rosenberg said the school will feature expanded hours and an array of community services.

In White Center's wildly diverse business district, a variety of Asian grocery stores and restaurants jostle up against Latino bakeries. A new agency, the White Center Community Development Association, helps nurture business growth with the help of professionals from King County and the state Employment Security Department.

Pablo Lambinicio, a longtime banker now with King County's Office of Economic Development, helps counsel business owners at the association, and he's enthusiastic about White Center's potential. Many buildings along the commercial strip have the same charm and potential that some popular Seattle shopping strips had before those neighborhoods exploded, he said.

"Some of the buildings were built in the early 1900s," he said. "There's an effort to designate some as historic. This is the way Greenwood and Fremont once looked."

But the basics still need to be attended to, local business people say.

Don Pham, the owner of the White Center Deli Huong Xua on 16th Avenue Southwest in the heart of the shopping district, closes his doors at 6 p.m.

After that, he doesn't feel safe on the streets, said Pham, who lives in Federal Way.

"I'd like to see more police at night," he said. "It's still unsafe here at night. There are a lot of people on the street who shouldn't be here."

Capt. Ken Wardstrom with the King County Sheriff's Office said that his department been placing a high emphasis on reducing crime in White Center and that it seems to be producing results. For some time, the violent crime rate was about double that of other parts of unincorporated King County, he said, but now statistics show it's in line with other areas. The burglary and auto-theft rates likewise are similar to other King County communities.

"We've put a lot of resources there," Wardstrom said. "We've not completely controlled the problem, but significantly reduced what's there. ... Things are changing most definitely for the better."

Crime-reduction efforts began last May, when the Sheriff's Office flooded the community with 50 uniformed officers on weekend evenings, he said.

They joined with Seattle police on those weekends to ensure that problems aren't simply chased from one jurisdiction to another.

King County officers continue to have crime-prevention emphasis in White Center, although they've cut back on the number of uniformed officers since crime has dropped, Wardstrom said.

Pham is pleased he moved his deli to White Center, after rising lease costs forced him to move from South Jackson Street in Seattle's International District.

"Business is good," said Pham, whose shop sells Vietnamese-style sandwiches on crispy French rolls. "We've been here for six years. After I found this area, I just liked it a lot better."

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