Growth along Aurora not seen as a good thing

By ROB TAYLOR
SEATTLE POST-INTELLIGENCER REPORTER

The community planning committee fears small homes will be overshadowed by the tall stores and apartments growing along Aurora Avenue.

Just above North 115th Street, Home Depot built one of its huge hardware and lumber warehouse stores about five years ago.

Since then, warehouse retailers have sprouted like mushrooms after a rain. Eagle Hardware, Car Toys, PetsMart, Office Depot and a huge Albertsons have replaced smaller shops. And next door to Home Depot, the aging Rest Inn motel is to be razed for the first six-story apartment building on Aurora north of the Aurora Bridge.

The community group wants building heights tapered down and of trees or walls between such structures and single-family homes.

The group's plan also calls for retaining the Halcyon and Bella Bee mobile home parks, which were built atop an old city dump.

The idea of a high-density community along Aurora has been rejected even by the Aurora Merchants Association, with merchants boycotting the planning process.

Executive director Faye Garneau says they will be glad to critique plans once they are done.

The merchants' prime interest, she says, is to ensure that traffic flow along Aurora does not slow down.