After decades of working to ensure Sound Transit would build a long-promised light rail station at Graham Street, South End residents learned earlier this year their work had paid off: Sound Transit agreed to construct a station, with a projected completion date in 2031. Next stop: a neighborhood block party.
Seattle's Office of Planning and Community Development (OPCD) and Sound Transit will co-host the second Graham Block Party on Oct. 3, 11 a.m. to 3 p.m., at the corner of Martin Luther King Jr. Way and South Eddy Street. The event will allow community members to engage officials from the City and Sound Transit about community priorities. A 2016 document called “Graham Street: A Community Driven Neighborhood Vision” laid out concerns from community members about a light rail station, including keeping residents and businesses in the neighborhood, accessing effective transportation, and having a well-supported, multicultural, multigenerational community.
"Across the city, there's an inevitable risk of displacement when there's a change in a neighborhood. In this neighborhood, the risk of displacement is high," said Jessica Ramirez, who's on the OPCD station area planning team. "In a way, having a party is part of an anti-displacement strategy because we're engaging the community to participate in a process that's often less accessible or tangible for people to participate in, so they can share their vision for the community with us."
Slayman Appadolo, of the Cham Refugees Community organization, says some residents have worked for years to ensure the neighborhood would get light rail. "We keep fighting for Graham Street Station," Appadolo said.
He says the station had been studied and discarded from Sound Transit's plans twice over the course of nearly three decades. Appadolo was a member of the Southend Transit Justice Coalition, which advocated to keep Graham Street station this past spring when the Sound Transit Board considered options to close a projected $34.5 billion gap in funding. In late May, the Graham Street light rail station was returned to a list of projects to keep in Sound Transit's ST3 project.
Sound Transit will conduct environmental and preliminary design work for a center platform station south of Graham Street. Sound Transit public information officer Henry Bendon wrote in an email that it's "planning substantial community engagement for Graham Street Station during the spring of next year." Construction is expected to begin in 2028, and service to the station is projected to start in 2031.
"We're looking to gather feedback from the community around their vision for the station area," said Aja Hazelhoff, engagement lead at Seattle's OPCD. The Seattle Department of Transportation will gather feedback on community connectivity and access to the future station at the Graham Block Party. The community can also engage in activities around land use and urban design.
The free event will include food from local businesses like Q Bakery, Onda Origins, and Eyman's Pizza. Dance and drill teams will perform, and a light rail bounce castle will be on hand. DJ Prez will bring the beats. Mayor Katie Wilson and King County Executive Girmay Zahilay plan to give remarks.
David Tran, co-owner of Lam's Seafood Asian Market, says Lam's expects to open its store in the old Island Pacific Seafood Market space this fall as soon as it receives a mechanical permit from the City. At the party, Lam's will sponsor face painting and a balloon artist. It will also offer snacks. "We're excited to meet organizations, businesses, and residents in the neighborhood, so they can see what we're about, and we can understand what their [grocery shopping] needs are."
Tran says he's not looking forward to an estimated three-year construction period, but the light rail "will make Graham Street more accessible to people, [including] to people from the Eastside, and to the north and south." Tran also hopes the station will draw potential employees to work at the store. He noted that most of Lam's employees are from the South End.
Nithjarlar "New" Syluangkhot is co-owner of Vientiane Grocery, South Graham Street, and Martin Luther King Jr. Way S. Her parents, Nith and Viengkeo Syluangkhot took over the business in 2011 from the former owners. The grocery store sells Lao and Thai products. Shelves are lined with dry goods, like dried fish, herbs, and Thai chili paste. It sells traditional Lao clothing and baskets for cooking sticky rice. Vientiane Grocery also features Lao and Thai food, like papaya salad, jaew (a sauce to eat with sticky rice), and vegetables. The house-made Lao fresh sausage seasoned with lemongrass and lime leaves, a recipe from Nithjarlar's grandmother, is her favorite product.
The light rail station at Graham Street should bring more customers, "and the parking lot will become more popular. There will probably be parking issues," Syluangkhot said, as she glanced out the window at the crowded parking lot.
Truong Le arranged boxes of food on a large table in his shop. Customers can pick up a hot meal or a grab-and-go box at Tony's Bakery. They can also order decorated cakes, including wedding cakes and flower arrangements for weddings or funerals. "I serve the community through happiness and sadness," said Le. He owns Tony's Bakery and Saigon Garden, two separate shops in Empire Way Shopping Center. Le arrived in Seattle in 1989, and he had a rigorous work schedule: 6 a.m. to noon at Seattle Central College, then a job making desserts until 5 p.m., then he bused tables at Saigon Dynasty into the evening. He still works seven days a week. "They tell you to be really good at one thing in Vietnam, but here, you have to do many things well to survive," he said.
He saw benefits to the proposed Graham Street station. "People don't have to use their cars to go downtown, and that's better for the environment, but I hope that security and safety are addressed," said Le. "When someone was breaking my door while my employee was here, they called the police, and they didn't come. The store was broken into, and they wouldn't come. It wasn't that way before."
Slayman Appadolo and Sahrudine Apdalhaliem sat at a table at Cham Refugees Community's gathering space, where Seattle's Cham community hosts workshops on Cham cultural identity and language, as well as gathers for religious services. The two watched the progress on the construction site in the adjacent lot for the $13.5 million Cham Community Center. "It makes sense [for Sound Transit] to align their investment with other community dollars," Appadolo said. He referred to their project, and a separate affordable housing effort that's in the early planning stages, the $155 million renovation of Aki Kurose Middle School and the $46 million affordable housing and commercial space project for the Filipino Community of Seattle.
Among public funding, Sound Transit secured $25 million in federal grants, and the City has committed up to $30 million for Graham Street Station.
Got an idea for a South End story you'd like to see us cover? Let me know: Yuko.Kodama@SeattleEmerald.org.
We're building a newsroom rooted in community, not corporate backing. Help us raise funds to hire our first-ever full-time reporter and grow our capacity to cover the South End. Donate today.