Posted by John Woodbery on Nov 28, 2016

The meeting was called to order by President Scott Becker at 6:30 PM

 

Dave DeBoies led the club in the Pledge of Allegiance.  Our only guests for the meeting were our Student of the Month Varenna Knowles, her parents Phil and Sharon Knowles.

 

Announcements:

Joanne Primavera thanked all who helped with Thanksgiving food donations.  Terry Cole reminded the club of the Christmas shopping event for kids on December 17th.  The cost is paid for by the Foundation.  Amy Mutal announced that the Club Christmas party will be next Monday, December 5th at the DeLille Chateau Winery in Woodinville from 6-9 PM.

Student of the Month:

Varenna introduced her parents and told about her life, her interest in helping others, her involvement in the Cambridge International Program at Juanita High School where she is a senior.  In the program you can earn a separate diploma that could lead to some college credits.  The club tries to find solutions to international problems and learn things about life in the process.  She has been active in sports, cross country and lacrosse; coaching at youth camps has been re3warding.  She won two awards at conferences.  She has applied to 8 colleges and doesn't have a real preference as yet; May 1st is commitment day. Career interests at this stage are either business or law.  Her great uncle was our own Rotarian and humanitarian Jerry marsh.  Her  career choice will eventually be based on helping others, her greatest reward in life

 

Program:.

Our speaker tonight, Christa Chambers was introduced by Jason Overleese to explain how the old park Place Center is being developed.  The group behind the development is the Talon Group, a private capital investment firm, headed by Jim Neal and Bill Pollard. Talon as the key planning partner has partnered with  Ryan, the construction partner to do the project. Historically speaking she reported that Park Place opened in 1982, a year of several mentioned historical events. There are many changes to the old model where retailers had a rough time making it.  The center will be called KIRKLAND URBAN and will have Talon, Prudential and Ryan as development partners.  Based on comments from the audience the name "URBAN" may not be received well.  The developers' objectives are to leave growing space for businesses in the center. There will be 142,00 square feet of retail space with a large QFC at 50% of that allocated space.  There will be 30 retail establishments in all.  Residential units will be 10% as affordable housing and 90% at market rate, with the average unit of 800 square feet. Demolition is complete with 110,000 cubic yards of materials moved and 45,000 cubic yards of concrete to be poured.  There will be 1700 parking stall for which office, retail and other customers will have to pay for in one form or the other.  A time lapse video of the demolition was  spectacular to watch going away before our eyes. The view to the public has not been attractive due to the shortage of 8 foot fencing in the region.  The first offices will open in 2018 and retail space to open in the spring of 2019.

 

President Becker presented a gift card to Christa of 600 ponds of food to Northwest harvest in her name and of course one of our famous racing ducks.  Incidentally a quick scene of the duck race was shown in the video presented.

 

President Becker left us his thought for the night:  "Nearly all men stand admired in their daily events (not sure I got this exactly right) but if you really want to test his character, give him power.

 

John Woodbery

Scribe