There was a little bit of everything in the news this year in Kirkland. From a bear that was captured in the Totem Lake neighborhood, tolls being placed on I-405 and the ongoing dispute over transit on the Cross Kirkland Corridor, to the beginning of two major redevelopments, there was something big every week in the pages of the Reporter. The following is a list of the most read stories on kirklandreporter.com for 2015.
Parkplace renamed Kirkland Urban
Earlier this year Talon Private Capital renamed their planned mixed-use property at Kirkland Parkplace “Kirkland Urban.” Redevelopment is planned for some time this year, and they recently finished their last meeting with the design review board concerning their conceptual design.
Principal Owner Jim Neal said that they settled on the new name after submitting a new master plan to the city last October once they realized it needed to have a separate brand to represent.
Phase 1 of the redevelopment will include the demolition of 505 Parkplace Center where Todd’s Crab Cracker is located and the building across from the QFC, where an underground parking lot will be installed. Businesses will be moving out by Dec. 1, and some have already either closed or made the move to a new location. Three new buildings will then be constructed, two office and one residential featuring 190 apartment units. Each business will have its own storefront and, excluding the restaurants, the spaces range from 800-10,000 square feet. The underground parking lot will have 1,650 stalls, which Neal and Investment Director Bill Leedom said allows for more open space on the property than included in the original master plan.
Washington Department of Fish and Wildlife captured what is believed to be the first bear in at least 30 years in Kirkland after he was found in October up a tree in the Totem Lake neighborhood.
The male black bear was later released by the Fish and Wildlife in Fall City, according to Sgt. Kim Chandler, who tracked the bear on a map when it was first reported near the Microsoft Campus in Redmond a month prior to his capture.
Despite the dozen reports made by residents, not one of them described the bear as being aggressive, who Chandler said mostly rummaged through people’s garbage or tipped over bird feeders for the food.
Then on Oct. 15 near midnight Kirkland Police found the bear 12-15 feet up a maple tree near the Fred Meyer. Arriving with another officer from Fish and Wildlife, Chandler and others were able to retrieve the bear after administering a tranquilizer.
The bear had no eartags to indicate prior captures. As to why the bear was roaming through Kirkland, Chandler said most likely the bear was “opportunistic,” taking advantage of the lack of competition for food.
“One of the reasons they come here is all the other spots are already taken,” he said. “Bears are very territorial.”
KPD Spokesperson Mike Murray said it’s the first bear captured in Kirkland in at least 30 years.
After years of empty storefronts, the Totem Lake Malls was purchased by Centercal Properties during the spring, with the intention of redeveloping the 40-year-old center to give it a village-style feel. As with Kirkland Parkplace, they also renamed their redevelopment to the Village at Totem Lake, with construction expected to begin this year.
In all, the new mall is expected to include one million square feet of space.
The master plan anticipates Metro Transit will add a bus stop along 120th Avenue Northeast, the location of a joint effort between the city and CenterCal as part of a redesign in order to make it more friendly to pedestrians that could include more sidewalks and walkways. In all, the new mall is expected to include one million square feet of space.
The news also came with the termination of leases for business there, including some like Denny’s Pet World that were among the first to open at the mall. Whole Foods Market has announced they intend to open a store there.
In February, five Juanita High School football players were charged with second degree rape after a hazing incident in the boys’ locker room in October 2014. The incident shocked the local community and has resulted so far with at least four of the five defendants pleading guilty to lesser charges.
The five players, all freshman C-Team players on the JHS football team at the time of the incident, were accused by the King County Prosecutor’s Office of having planned to sodomize the student as part of hazing ritual known as “jubie,” according to court documents.
Kirkland police shot and killed a 35-year-old man a with a history of violent crime in October after he physically resisted arrest and tried to take one of the officer’s handguns following several failed carjacking attempts.
Robert Burgess, Jr. was a convicted felon for kidnapping, possession of a firearm and assault. Police were initially called to the 11800 block of 115th Ave NE after Burgess walked up to a woman who was sitting in her car and tried to give her his 3-year-old son.
The woman instead called 911 and followed Burgess as he walked away with the child. When police arrived to the scene they attempted to confront Burgess, who handed his son to one of the officers and then fled.
It was then one of the officers reported seeing him with a gun in his hand. Shortly afterward another 911 call reported a suspect with a gun, matching Burgess’ physical description, had attempted to carjack a delivery van near the 11500 block of NE 118th St.
Officers contacted Burgess, who was still armed, just after the carjacking attempt and a physical fight ensued when the officers tried to apprehend him. During the struggle, Burgess was able to gain control of an officer’s handgun and raised it at the officers, at which point one of the officers fired a shot, killing Burgess.
Tolls placed on two lanes of Interstate 405
Citing a need to meet state and federal requirements, the Washington State Transportation Commission (WSTC) voted to place tolls on Interstate 405’s HOV (high-occupancy vehicle) lanes. WSTC also set the toll minimum at 75 cents and the maximum at $10. The toll affects existing carpool lane on I-405 from State Route 522 to Interstate 5, along with two lanes between Northeast 6th Street in Bellevue and SR 522 in Bothell, a total of 17 miles.
The commission justified the toll saying that I-405’s HOV lane is not meeting state and federal requirements for vehicles to be traveling at 45 miles per hour 90 percent of the time. Instead, vehicles are driving at that speed only 60 percent of the time, despite adding nine transit centers, 5,000 new park and ride parking stalls and 1,700 vanpools since 2002.
Among the more controversial aspects of the tolling were the exemptions for carpools with three or more people, rather than two, during peak hours between 5-9 a.m. and 3-7 p.m.
During the summer, the developer of the Potala Village project in the Lakeview neighborhood found himself being investigated by the federal government for allegedly misappropriating millions of dollars from overseas investors.
Lobsang Dargey is currently being sued in federal court by the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) for allegedly raising more than $125 million through sales of securities to at least 250 investors for Path America and the Potala Place development in Everett. The SEC complaint alleges that Dargey and Path America used the EB-5 system to raise money from Chinese investors by encouraging them to invest in Potala Place and Potala Tower, but then misappropriated $17.6 million, $14.7 million involving Potala Shoreline LLC and Potala Village Kirkland LLC, which are not eligible for the EB-5 visa program.
Dargey allegedly promised his backers that their investments would make them eligible for U.S. residency but didn’t disclose those investments would not qualify under the EB-5 program if they weren’t used for those dedicated projects, according to the complaint.
Details are provided in the complaint and hundreds of pages of supporting documents. Among other things, they show that each investor who bought a $500,000 partnership interest in either of the two Path America projects also was charged a $45,000 administrative fee. The investment capital was wired to an escrow account in the United States while the administrative fee was wired to an account in Hong Kong.
The SEC complaint and request froze Dargey’s financial assets and brought new uncertainty over the fate of the Potala Village project.
During the November election, Kirkland voters overwhelmingly rejected Proposition No. 1, which would have a metropolitan park district (MPD) to fund the Aquatic and Recreation Center (ARC).
Nearly 65 percent voted “no.”
The proposed MPD was pitched to the community by the city as a flexible and viable way for funding the ARC, as many of the costs are still unknown.
City, residents, clash over CKC
Kirkland city officials announced their intention to lobby Sound Transit to include a project for bus rapid transit on Cross Kirkland Corridor (CKC) in their ballot measure planned for November 2016. The City Council approved a $250,000 conceptual design plan for a BRT they hope to present to Sound Transit in order to convince them to place it on the ballot.
An open meeting between the city and residents packed the inside of the Kirkland Performance Center in November, where city officials defended their vision for the CKC, which they believe will address several related but not directly connected issues, one of which is traffic congestion. In a 2014 Citizen Survey, which the city does every two years, they found that citizens rated traffic very low in terms of how the city was performing, while simultaneously rating it as moderately important. City officials also stated during the public meeting that building more streets or widening existing roads would be far too costly, and most residents have already expressed their opposition to those plans. Additionally, she said even if they did, drivers from Interstate 405 stuck in bad traffic would turn off into Kirkland and clog up those extra lanes.
The city’s preferred project would create a two-lane BRT system from Totem Lake to downtown Bellevue, with around 6-8 stations in Kirkland, where electric buses to stop every six and a half minutes. Another potential project would install a light rail system on the corridor, an idea which has drawn the support of some residents who believe it would take up less space and be more efficient than BRT. One resident during the question and answer segment referenced the Amsterdam Metro, which uses a combination of rapid transit and light rail.
Complicating the discussion has been Sound Transit’s easement on the CKC, despite the fact that the city owns the part of the corridor within their jursidiction.
One of the possible projects to be included in Sound Transit’s ballot 2016 measure is BRT on I-405, an idea that has received support from residents, as well as the Houghton Community council. However, city officials stated it might not serve Kirkland’s needs as well.
Kirkland schools closed in May when teachers and faculty in the Lake Washington School District (LWSD) participated in a walk-out in protest of the state legislature over basic education spending. The walkout was repeated throughout the state, where other teachers unions have also walked out or voted in favor of a walkout in response to the state legislature’s failure to comply with the Supreme Court’s McCleary decision, in which Justice Debra Stephens ruled that the legislature had failed to fulfill its paramount duty under the constitution to “make ample provision for the education of all children residing within its borders…”
