Saturday, June 15, 2013

2 Weeks Into Survey and Already 300 People Have Filled it Out!

UPDATE: In the past week, more than 200 more people have filled out the survey! We've now gone past 500 completed surveys! There's still plenty of time to have your voice heard and take the survey before July 14th.

After only 2 weeks of the 35th Ave NE Business District Survey being officially out, 300 people have already taken a few minutes to fill it out and share their thoughts on the future of 35th Ave NE.  There is so much wonderful information that we're hearing from all of you!  Everyone's thoughts are wonderful and we'll process all the data and share it once we close the survey.  Please continue to share the survey with your friends, family, neighbors, and anyone else you know who uses the 35th Ave NE Business District.

If you haven't already, please TAKE THE SURVEY NOW!  Keep the hard copies coming into the local businesses too!  I just picked up a handful from HomeStreet Bank, Cafe Javasti, and Van Gogh Coffee House.

The survey will be up through July 14th.  

Saturday, June 1, 2013

Take Our 35th Ave NE Business District Survey!

Click here to take survey

Back in 2012, a community-driven "neighborhood planning" process began to initiate a discussion about the future of the 35th Ave NE business district.  This is intended to be a proactive approach so that our community's voice and values may be infused in the inevitable changes to 35th Ave NE.  The neighborhood planning began following the Vision Plan developed by the Wedgwood neighborhood back in 2010.  While the Wedgwood Vision Plan only applied to the Wedgwood neighborhood, north of NE 75th Street, it clearly identified that the 35th Ave NE business district was not meeting the needs for many of its users.  The neighborhood plan concept conceived was an ambitious plan for a volunteer committee of non-planning professionals, but we have been slowly but surely moving ahead.

The first step that we began was to initiate a series of Coffee Talks to discuss neighborhood planning topics. The first Coffee Talk was on the conditions necessary to support neighborhood businesses.  We heard from Theresa Barreras with the City's Office of Economic Development (OED) discuss the importance of data to characterize the background conditions.  With this in mind, we completed a business inventory of 35th Ave NE.  We realized that of the businsses along 35th Ave NE, between NE 87th Street and NE 68th Street, 71% of all businesses (store fronts) were service-based and 24% of all businesses were retail-based.

With this information in mind, we have developed a survey to better understand who is using the 35th Ave NE business district and how the business district is meeting their needs.  You can take the survey between June 1st and July 14th in 3 ways:

  1. Take the survey online by clicking HERE
  2. Download a hardcopy (PDF) or pick up a copy of the survey and return it to one of many local businesses with drop off locations, including HomeStreet Bank, Washington Federal, Cafe Javasti, Van Gogh Coffee House, and many more!
  3. Download a hardcopy (PDF) or pick up a copy of the survey and mail it back to
    35th Ave Committee, PO BOX 15770, Seattle, WA 98115
We'll also be interviewing 35th Ave NE Business District users over the 6 weeks we have the survey open so we can hear directly from those using the business district.  If you see us, please stop by and say, "Hi!"