The City of Seattle's Office of Planning and Community Development (OPCD) and Seattle Department of Transportation are hosting the Graham Block Party with community partners on Sept. 27 to celebrate the people who live, work, and gather around the planned Graham Street Station.
The block party will run from 11 a.m. to 3 p.m. at the corner of Martin Luther King Jr. Way and South Eddy Street. The event will feature free food as well as line dancing from the SouthEast Seattle Senior Center, performances by a group from Co Lam Temple, and activities with Double Dutch Divas, among others.
The event organizers will share station-area planning updates and highlight community priorities that many neighbors have actively developed since Sound Transit announced the addition of Graham Street light rail station along Martin Luther King Jr. Way South, just south of South Graham Street. Station construction is scheduled to begin in 2028, and station services are expected to open in 2031.
Neighbors near the future station created a document, Graham Street: A Community Driven Neighborhood Vision (or Graham Neighborhood Vision), released by Puget Sound Sage in 2019 after the community heard about the proposed addition. It involved hundreds of community members and was propelled by the Graham Street Community Action Team, a group of organizations, religious establishments, and organizers who live and work in the neighborhood.
The document was developed as a collective vision grounded in anti-displacement principles to guide the work of jurisdictions and community service efforts, as the area changes in response to the Graham Street Station. At the beginning of the document is a section titled "Who We Are and Why We Did This." In their comments, the community wrote:
"We imagine a community where we aren't leaving it up to other people, whether the City or for-profit developers, to plan our future. We imagine owning land, overturning the dirt, constructing things, and building community power for local governance."
Station-area planning efforts are underway through OPCD. The City says their work will refer to the Graham Neighborhood Vision document as it considers community growth and development, public safety, and connections with different modes of travel to and from the station. Complementing the planning is OPCD's Equitable Development Initiative (EDI), a source of funding that invests in programs and projects that support equitable development in historically marginalized communities. OPCD is launching EDI's 10-year strategic planning processes and will offer updates at the upcoming block party.
Co Lam Temple, which some refer to as Co Lam Pagoda, is across the street from the Department of Social and Health Services (DSHS) near the intersection of Martin Luther King Jr. Way South and South Graham Street, and has been a neighborhood fixture for decades. Hieu Tran said people speed along South Graham Street between South Beacon Avenue and Martin Luther King Jr. Way South. He hopes for some traffic calming or a crosswalk between the DSHS building and the pagoda.
About 500 people attend or visit the temple each week. On Lunar New Year, the temple hosts thousands of people from the community, and they celebrate with food, ceremonies, and a fireworks display. He said the pagoda has been broken into, and their donation box has been raided.
Tran said he's observed changes since the light rail system was built.
"The Vietnamese helped to build the Martin Luther King Jr. Way South corridor businesses, and now those businesses are mostly closed. Many Rainier Valley residents have moved out [of the area] because they can't afford the housing or to lease space for business," said Tran. "We will want to have the Graham Street light rail station here, but we worry that there will be more dislocated residents and businesses."
The Filipino Community of Seattle (FCS) has been in the Rainier Valley since 1965. Their community center offers programming for seniors, support for small businesses, cultural programs, and activities for youth. More than 1,200 people use the organization's community center each week. Behind the community center are 94 units of senior housing for independent living. The organization is working on another building with 54 units of workforce family housing.
Agnes Navarro, FCS executive director, said the Graham Street Station is a benefit to their community because the stop will help people attend programs. "Getting to and from our place is going to be a lot easier," Navarro said, adding that though they'll have 56 workforce housing units on site, they can't offer a parking space for each unit.
FCS community relations specialist Velma Veloria has observed the seniors who walk from their community center to Graham Street. She said the sidewalk is narrow, and the seniors can lose their balance when the cars drive by at high speeds. She also referred to details like "the [grade] of the tracks not matching the street surface," which is difficult for elders who use walkers to cross the street at South Orcas Street and Martin Luther King Jr. Way South.
Navarro and Veloria both brought up concerns about public safety at the station as they worried that predators may take advantage of seniors.
The two named some of the places where people who use the FCS building like to go to eat — Wicked Chopstix, Canton Noodle House, Tony's Bakery, Rainier Restaurant (or Rainier BBQ), Ding Feng Seafood Restaurant, Happy Lemon, and Soufend Cafe are some favorites. They also pointed out the importance of the laundromat next to Canton Noodle House.
Mandy and Julio Barrera have grown up in southeast Seattle and Skyway. Since 2021, they've owned the Soufend Cafe & Eatery, serving Vietnamese coffee and food, which reflects Mandy's Vietnamese background. (Julio is Guatemalan American.) The shop is on the northwest side of Martin Luther King Jr. Way South and South Graham Street. They also just opened Snooze, a new matcha cafe with a claw machine corner in the University District, so the two split time between the two shops.
Julio said they've seen lots of changes in the community. Julio liked that students at Aki Kurose Middle School can ride the light rail to get to school, but he was concerned about traffic safety.
"Especially since Aki Kurose Middle School is right there. Kids walk by all the time. Even cars sometimes get hit [by light rail trains]. The fire station is just up the block too, so the fire truck is always passing by. As long as they think about that and build it safe, I'm for it."
"I'm excited for [Graham Street station], but I'm also a little worried for it," said Julio. "I like change, but there sometimes can be drawbacks. When you live in the South End, you just always adapt to whatever is coming."
The White Center Night Market on Sept. 26 and Sept. 27 will be hosted by the Cambodian American Community Council of Washington (CACCWA). It'll feature food and music as it celebrates 50 years since the large wave of Southeast Asians came to Washington State.
King County wants to identify investments that'll reduce bus travel times, improve service and connections, and encourage ridership on the 106. If you ride the route or would like to, you can fill out this survey.
The CID Block Party, on Sept. 27, 1–9 p.m., creates a different use for the parking spaces under the I-5 corridor in the CID: It will offer an opportunity for up-and-coming entrepreneurs and music artists to present their work. Check out the many vendors, the musical lineup, and the food.
Yuko Kodama is the News editor for the South Seattle Emerald. She is passionate about the critical role community media plays in our information landscape and loves stories that connect us to each other and our humanity. Her weekly "South End Life" column spotlights the stories of neighbors and community members that weave through the South End.
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