Public Benefit
Starting now and launching in 2023, our free programs will feature the following:
1. Walking Tour: After extensive research, we will finalize and submit our application to the National Register of Historic Places for The Ave. This body of knowledge will be presented as a self-guided walking tour merging the physical and virtual worlds with a façade placard at each contributing building featuring a QR code to access archival images, stories, and audio.
2. Green Street Plan: We are hosting three stakeholder workshops and a public open house to develop a 10% design plan for NE 42nd Street to implement prioritized community strategies into a City-designated ‘Green Street’ with pedestrian priority. This project received partial funding the Seattle Matching Fund.
3. Vital Business App: We are developing a free mobile app where ethical customers can shop locally and support small businesses who are vital to our community as rated on key criteria including cultural, historical, and equity contributions.
Current Projects
Historic Walking Tour
In the spring of 2020, we hosted our first historic walking tour of The Ave to share highlights from all the research we conducted. Now with the pandemic in check, we are developing a self-guided tour.
Green Street on 42nd
Designated a 'Green Street' by the City, our community is collaborating on the design of two blocks of NE 42nd Street in the heart of our urban center to make it more pedestrian-friendly, accessible, and green.
Vital Business App
We are finalizing a mobile app encouraging ethical shoppers to buy locally from small businesses who do right by a range of criteria: community, culture, legacy, environment, equity, and scale.
Past Projects
For almost a decade, the U District Advocates has been volunteering to make our community a great place to live, work, study, visit, and own a business or property.
Below are a selection of the many projects that we have helped realize with our all-volunteer nonprofit organization:
U District Parklet
In 2014 we crowdfunded and matched a grant to design and build one of the first parklets in Seattle. This public park still welcomes everyone today, in front of Bulldog News. Directions
Mobility Plan
From a series of interactive meetings in 2018 we engaged our community to develop a vision plan to guide improvements around the U District light rail station.
Parks Plan Update
We helped organize a comprehensive review of the U District Parks Plan to identify strategies to create more open space in our neighborhood, where we have a deficit of 5 acres.
Small Business Vulnerability
We conducted a vulnerability study of 134 businesses on The Ave in 2017 with Steinbrueck Urban Strategies. The extensive in-person survey revealed the precarious position of our small business owners, before the impacts of the high-rise rezone took effect.
Safe Crossing Over I-5
There are no viable alternatives for walking and biking this bridge, so the goal is to make crossing Interstate 5 on NE 45th Street safe for pedestrians and bicyclists, especially as the last mile to/from the new U District light rail station, which was promised to voters in the 2015 Move Seattle Levy.
Outdoors On The Ave
During the pandemic, the safest place to eat and congregate was outdoors, so we temporarily closed one lane to traffic to make room for people to walk, dine, & enjoy the warm weather together. We brought it back this year for one glorious day in October.