By MARK HIGGINS
SEATTLE POST-INTELLIGENCER REPORTER

Planners hope to dress up neighborhood

The neighborhood planning group is talking about dressing up Rainier Beach. One challenge is to get more residents and businesses involved, which is hard given the many cultures and languages. Even so, almost 200 people did attend the group's February kickoff.

As the planning begins to take shape, several important neighborhood changes are coming to fruition:

• Acquisition of Stock Market Foods in Rainier Beach by QFC. The powerhouse grocery store chain has been mum about its plans for the store, but a written statement says it will remodel the store this year "to incorporate additional quality products and services."

• A 600-seat performing arts center at Rainier Beach High School, expected to be built by next summer. It will give the school and the neighborhood a long-awaited place for music, dance, theater and special events.

• Renovation of the 22-year-old Rainier Beach Community Center. The heavily used "heart of the neighborhood" already has a new roof and in coming weeks will get a new entrance, paint, flooring, pool filter, ventilation and heating system and front desk.

• Forty-three townhouses are under construction at 9111 50th Ave. S., site of the old Villa Plaza that burned in 1991. The two-, three- and four-bedroom townhouses will rent to low-income families. Residents will be required to help manage and maintain the complex, which will have its own meeting space for community functions.

• A light-rail transit station, tentatively planned for the intersection of South Henderson Street and Rainier Avenue South or Martin Luther King Jr. Way. And there is interest in building a promenade extending from the rail station to Lake Washington.

"I have this vision that this could be the heart of Rainier Beach," says Bob Elder, co-chairman of the group. "We want to project a safe community. It's a community that does not have to live behind fences. To have that fence taken away and to create a public space would be a very positive statement."

One idea would be to add benches, landscaping and a flag pavilion with 60 or 70 banners representing the nationalities of students attending South Shore.

Another idea is to open up Mappes Creek, which flows from unincorporated King County through Kubota Gardens down to Rainier Avenue before spilling into Lake Washington. The final stretch of water is in culverts.

Elder says it would be amazing if, in 20 years, the creek was restored and fingerling salmon, planted by schoolchildren, could return to spawn as adults in Rainier Beach.

Just to the south is Taylor Creek. It flows through Dead Horse Canyon, a 25-acre naturalized park owned by the city. The creek is considered one of the best in all of Seattle for its potential to be restored into a premier salmon spawning stream, says Paul West, the city's urban forester.

Continued:

• Off the beaten path, rejuvenation takes shape
• Residents unhapppy with focus on negative
• Community has a little bit of everything
• Diverse population makes for a unique feel