By MARK HIGGINS
SEATTLE POST-INTELLIGENCER REPORTER

David Loring and his business partner Gene Sens are betting $1 million that Renton, a blue-collar city known for its airliners and big-rig trucks, is ready for a European bakery, wine bar and public piazza.

Loring, a smooth-talking lawyer, and Sens, a local restaurateur, are converting a former auto showroom into a bakery and bistro in a downtown area some retailers abandoned years ago.

Loring says despite an occasional panic attack, he and Sens are certain Renton's renaissance is just around the corner.

"We are trying to change people's minds about the way things are in Renton," says Sens. "We want to have an active main street that is alive and that will be a hub."

Renton is a diamond in the rough, says former Gov. Mike Lowry, who moved there with his wife, Mary, in 1973. But if people think the city is backward or a backwater, they're wrong, he says.

"It's true Renton always has been a blue-collar city. But if there is a negative attitude about that, people have really gotten it wrong and are not familiar with the spirit that is here," Lowry says.

The strong loyal streak Renton residents feel took root 100 years ago when the city's sawmills, coal mines and brick factory produced the materials that built the region.

Renton's manufacturing base attracted hard-working, often poor immigrants from Belgium, China, Wales and Italy.

Some stayed, and today some of the downtown buildings are still owned by the Italian families who bought them three and four generations ago.

Continued:

• The challenges facing an 'older city'
• Dinner train put city on track toward revival
• Billionaire's vision would top off renaissance
• Breathing new life into downtown hasn't been easy