Progress for Morgan Junction Park expansion, festival preview, and what else Morgan Community Association discussed this quarter

By Tracy Record
West Seattle Blog editor

The biggest news from last night’s online quarterly meeting of the Morgan Community Association was a progress report on the Morgan Junction Park expansion site.

While this long-empty site awaits first a cleanup of contaminated soil from its dry-cleaning past and then funding for its much-delayed development, local skateboarders turned it into an unofficial skatepark for a while last year, until Seattle Parks‘ crackdown ended that. More recently, supporters of skating on the site proposed ways to revise the years-old Parks design for the site’s future. They weren’t at last night’s MoCA meeting, but the Parks manager who is point person for the site’s future, Kelly Goold, was.

“Things are moving,” Goold said. The grading permit for removing the contaminated soil was issued earlier this month, and now he’s negotiating a price with a “pre-approved” contractor, Clearcreek/Holt Services. The job will in essence “dig a big hole,” taking away the contaminated soil and replacing it with clean fill. This work is expected to start in July/August, when the ground-water table will be at its lowest, and will last about two months.

What happens after that isn’t settled yet – though, while Parks is committed to fully developing the site by 2026, Goold said they might be able to get construction going in “late 2024” (by which time the city will have owned the site for a decade). Post-cleanup, it will be open to some kind of activation in the meantime. So they’ll have a community conversation to talk about that as well as possible changes to the design (which is now 4+ years old), such as incorporating a “skate dot.” Should that conversation be a traditional community meeting, or an on-site tabling event, or both? No conclusion was reached.

Attendees also pointed out that the existing Morgan Junction Park needs lawn help. For concerns like that, Goold suggested reporting it to Parks – the more reports the better – via email (pks_info@seattle.gov) and/or Find It Fix It.

Other topics during last night’s meeting facilitated by MoCA president Deb Barker included festival plans, a major redevelopment project, an update from police, and a new board member:

MORGAN JUNCTION COMMUNITY FESTIVAL: MoCA board member Michael Brunner previewed the plans for this, Sunday, June 18th, 1-4 pm at the park. This will be bigger than last year but not yet back to pre-pandemic magnitude. Three entertainers are booked: Mikey the Rad Scientist, West Seattle teen band The Potholes, and longtime festival fave Gary Benson. (The other longtime festival fave, Bubbleman, has retired from performing.) Some community organizations will be there too, with information and activities for festivalgoers.

REDEVELOPMENT AT 41ST/GRAHAM: It’s been a year since our last update on the plan for 34 “stacked townhomes” on three upzoned lots at 41st/Graham. Patrick Cobb from design/build firm StoryBuilt came to MoCA’s meeting to say they’re hoping to break ground by the end of this summer; the project has its master-use permit and is awaiting the building permit. As noted last year, the project is named Callie (Cobb explained that his company is “pet-friendly” and usually names its projects after somebody’s pet). In response to questions, a few other points: The project will have a condominium association. It will not have on-site affordable housing; the firm will instead pay the fee that the HALA policy Mandatory Housing Affordability allows developers to offer instead.

POLICE UPDATE: Night-shift (third watch) Lt. Nathan Shopay said things are relatively quiet in Morgan Junction compared to elsewhere. Citywide, he said, the trends are the same as were mentioned during last week’s Southwest Precinct Crime Prevention Council meeting – auto theft is “through the roof,” most other categories are trending down.

NEW BOARD MEMBER: As mentioned at previous meetings, MoCA has been seeking a new vice president since Phil Tavel (now running for City Council) stepped down. Now, the job is filled – Conrad Cipoletti was appointed last night to serve at least until formal elections are held at MoCA’s next quarterly meeting in July. Cipoletti described himself as “very active in community service,” including several local volunteer organizations, and said he’s particularly interested in activating Right now, Cipoletti, president Barker, treasurer Brunner, and secretary Alex Hagenah will be running unopposed, but anyone else interested is welcome to step forward – mocacnc@gmail.com.

The Morgan Community Association meets third Wednesdays in January, April, July, and October, 7 pm online.

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