Community Post

Sketch Cafe: Come Draw a New Promenade 23

Do you have an idea on how to make the corner of 23rd and Jackson better? You’ve been hearing that there might be some new apartments or changes to the Red Apple and you have some ideas? You think we need a street car and know where it should be parked? 

There’s going to be lots of “official” time to talk about this in the months ahead, but we think now is a great time for neighbors to generate some sketches and get some new ideas! It’s SKETCH CAFE!

Jackson Commons has invited architects and artists down to the front of the Red Apple. We’re inviting anyone in the community from five to ninety-five to stop by between 10 am and Noon tomorrow, Saturday, August 18, and tell us your ideas for a revitalized Promenade 23. 

You’ll have one minute to tell these folks with pens about your ideas, and they’ll have five minutes to draw it. We’ll be tweeting the results on the spot! @jacksoncommons

You want a water park instead of a grocery store? Well, ok! Have someone draw it! It’s that kind of experiment. Can’t make tomorow? Follow along at jacksoncommons.com or on our Facebook JacksonCommonsSeattle to find out when we’re having another one! We’re planning them all through the fall (and always looking for more people handy with a pen to draw some pictures!)

And just a reminder: If you’ve not reserved your spot for the Ethiopian feast on Sunday night with our friends at East African Imports, there’s still time! It’s going to be an awesome dinner + dj right at the Promenade 23! 

http://jacksoncommons.com/2012/07/30/east-african-feast/

21 thoughts on “Sketch Cafe: Come Draw a New Promenade 23

  1. Metro has destroyed the incentive for urban planning. They run all over everywhere as much as cars. They have a much higher carbon foot print per passenger mile than cars. They destroy roads. They eliminate incentives for urban planning, and town centers like ought to be possible in the Jackson Corridor.

    Let’s draw a picture without Metro in it. Street cars on a few sensibly placed routes is fine. People can walk, hobble, crawl or wheel chair for up to 15 blocks without any concern from me. That will get more people on the street.

  2. Regarding that corner, I am all for cleaning it up! I have just purchased a women’s gym/weight loss center, its a CURVES Franchise and will be moving it to that corner this month. We should be open by the beginning of September, we will be located right behind Chase Bank in Welch Plaza. I hope this small business will bring some positive change to the corner as I also live nearby!

  3. I’ll be joining Knox’s crew to do some sketches. I look forward to seeing you both tomorrow morning!

  4. Wish I could come and bring my pencils pens and flimsy but I have an all day event to go to. Plenty of time to take this forward from Saturday as a community charrette I and any other design professionals who want to collaborate on could do.
    Good beginning Knox!

  5. I’d much rather have a grocery store located near my house than a water fountain. Please and thank you. Pipe dreams versus functionality here.

  6. Oh wow!
    First off this thing needs at least 5 bars, one will be full of classic arcade games, one can be like ttiki bar but after the apocalypse and made out of rusty metal, and one will be a mexican with pictures of pancho via and a happy hour with free nachos while my band plays. Then we will need a gocart track, electric of course to cut down on noise and polition. Then we will have a little street like main street USA with hip boutiques selling vintage and upcyled stuff, some local producer owned food stores and a liquor and beer store that specializes in northwest products. We will need a roller coaster named “GRUMBO” written in flashing lights. We can even have a dunk tank where we dress Omari up like a cartoon mayor with a big purple top hat and a sash.

    We will defs need some guard towers that look real mean with razor wire and stuff with guards wearing black uniforms with MG 3s loaded with nothing buy 7.62nato tracers to keep those stinky anarchist from spraypainting the letter A on everything.

    The best part is the whole comples will sit ontop a massive subterainen Fred Meyer with ample underground parking

  7. That’s right, we don’t need those buses carrying all those people around the city. It would be much better if those 30 passengers on the bus all drove. It would be good for the elderly to walk and they need the exercise anyway. And 30 more cars (per bus, an metro has several thousand buses) would not even equal 1 buses carbon footprint.

  8. I welcome you, and hope your fees will be reasonable. The last Curves (in Leschi) was as expensive as the luxurious Denali Fitness on Madison. Denali has everything anyone could ever want in a gym and is lovely and hitech, but who can afford it? Curves, smaller scale and less high tech with many fewer amenities generally, should be priced appropriately. I hope yours is! Would love to go.

  9. There’s plenty of room for a grocery store AND other things that might actually improve the blighty appearance.

  10. I think this is a cool idea. Kudos to whoever arranged it. I hope you’ll post photos here and on the facebook site.

  11. Glad to hear there is another new business opening on Jackson.

    When you’re ready Lisa, drop me a note [email protected]. I’d be interested in getting you in our queue of interviews we’re doing with small business owners on Jackson and, of course, we’re excited to share any news you might have as you build your new business.

    There is also a group forming called the Judkins Park Partnership and they’re working on something that would probably be a great benefit to your new business, a parcourse around Judkins Park, for example that the bootcamp classes that are so popular could be using. Here’s the blurb on that from our Colman Neighborhood newsletter (which you are also now part of being in Welch Plaza).

    “The Judkins Park Partnership is applying to the Levy Opportunity Fund for $750k to improve the existing perimeter path to safely accommodate both cyclists and walkers/joggers. Accompanying the path would be a set of parcourses (outdoor exercise equipment) geared towards children, adults and seniors (possibly phase two of many phases). We are looking for area organizations (senior centers, day cares, boot camps) to partner with to make this happen. Any leads would be most welcome! [email protected]

    Welcome to Jackson Street!

  12. We can use anyone who can draw! I can certainly add you to our list of folks who want to help out on the sketch cafes and as we move into more formalized processes.

    But there’s no need to wait till our next sketch cafe (we’re excited by the results today and pumped up to do another one within the month and will be posting the results later today on our website); if you have a drawing, painting or collage of what a revitalized Jackson Street could be like, feel free to drop us an email at [email protected] or post it to our FB page.

  13. Yea minarets would really class the place up.

    There could be ground level retail.

    Like a mid east themed tavern, the kind of place Rumi would be proud to drink at. Inside it would be like a Bedouin tent with velvet beanbags and belly dancing waitresses. The barkeep could dress like T E Lawrence or Yassar Arafat.

    We’ll call it ” Allah’s Snackbar”

  14. Yea! Curves is coming. I’ve been staring into that empty space for months, wondering where are the yoga mats. Seems like a perfect space for it.

  15. I like the sketches – some people have really thought it out. I like the idea of a rail stop and making it like u-village a bit and opening up the back side of the property. Are the out of state owners interested in what the residents want AND making something profitable? Thanks again for doing this. Very interesting ideas.

  16. Here are more photos on the site.

    http://jacksoncommons.com/2012/08/19/sketch-cafe-generating-

    We’ll be hosting more Sketch Cafes all up and down Jackson (we hope) in the months ahead, because it’s not just the Promenade 23 we’re curious about, but the whole corridor as more infill development starts to happen.

    We’ll need to start working together to figure out what we want as a neighborhood when Department of Planning and Development comes next year to begin a new neighborhood plan.

  17. We need a better grocery store – A PPC or QFC or Trader Joes.
    We need restaurants that cater not only to families but to adults/singles etc. A choice of restaurants!
    We need variety to pull people into the community.