Park helps center maintain good relationship with community, city

General Article
August 1, 2002

By CLAY EALS

Edson Park may be a great facility for Fred Hutchinson faculty, staff and visitors, but it represents much more than that to Guy Ott.

To the center's vice president for Facilities and Operations, it's a significant gesture toward neighborhood harmony and another step in a long history of cooperation with the city.

"We enjoy a good relationship with the community and the city, and projects like Edson Park keep us from having an image of the big, bad developer running roughshod over the neighborhood," he said.

The value of Edson Park becomes apparent when it's compared with what was on the triangular parcel before, Ott said.

When the first phase of the center's Day Campus, consisting of the Weintraub and Hutchinson buildings, was opened in 1993, the site was planted with a grove of birch trees and encased in a tall, dark, wrought-iron fence along Fairview Avenue North.

'Unfriendly' appearance

Ott said the fence was installed partly because of concerns for security and safety due to the Day Campus' proximity to Interstate 5.

Unfortunately, however, the fence, combined with the rapid growth and density of the grove of birches, produced an "unfriendly, uninviting" appearance along Fairview. Ott said.

Circumstances changed over the intervening nine years, however.

Gentrification of the area prompted by improved safety in the neighborhood, and the center's acquisition of high-tech video cameras to increase security, Ott said, eliminating the perceived need for the fence.

With the parcel redeveloped as Edson Park, the center has a private/public facility that can be used by Fred Hutchinson and the neighborhood alike.

Noting that the good relationship with the city allows the center to better serve its faculty and staff on other fronts, Ott points out two examples:

The busy and difficult intersection of Yale Avenue North and Aloha Street cries out for stop signs and crosswalks, Ott said.

But he said the city cannot allow such features under federal guidelines that say an intersection must have sufficient a traffic volume and accident history to "warrant" them.

In addition, he said, authorities say that crosswalks ironically worsen safety because they give pedestrians a false sense of security and tend to make them more careless when crossing an intersection.

To calm or slow traffic at the intersection, Ott and others in his department came up with a creative alternative - installation of a traffic circle with a tall tree and flowers planted in the middle, circled by different-colored and -textured brick paving.

The intention is that the different appearance at the intersection will give motorists and pedestrians a perception that it is a special intersection and to proceed with caution.

Ott hopes to get city approval for this plan in the coming months.

The new, narrow, two-lane driveway from Fairview into the Day Campus has caused problems for motorists leaving the campus and wanting to turn right (north) on Fairview whenever a car in front is waiting to turn left (south).

Response to faculty

In response to concerns expressed by faculty, Ott plans to widen the entrance to provide enough room for a separate, right-turn lane.

The city originally required a standard, 30-feet-wide entrance but has agreed with the center to widen it, he said.

"We work hard to maintain good relationships with the neighborhood and the city as a whole," he said.

"The city really wants to cooperate with us, and all our dealings have been positive. They like how we have developed our campus, and they go out of their way to accommodate us whenever they can. And in turn, we try to be the best neighbors we can."

Anyone with questions about campus street improvements and other facility matters can contact Ott at 206-667-5127 or gott@fhcrc.org.

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