Originally published Saturday, November 1, 1997

By DON CARTER
SEATTLE POST-INTELLIGENCER REPORTER

At 23rd and Jackson sit a new Starbucks coffee shop and Hollywood Video, powerful symbols of just how dramatically the Central Area has changed over the past few years.

And that's only the beginning. The district is headed for its most sweeping revitalization ever.

Restless forces are now at play in the Central Area, long Seattle's traditional black neighborhood but now a neighborhood in flux.

Whites are moving back -- young professionals, gay couples with financial means to renovate, and families looking for bigger, affordable homes with early century charm.

They're buying up homes and fueling a redevelopment effort that is replacing vacant lots with trendy retail outlets.

And as they gentrify, some longtime residents of the Central Area fear, the latest wave of immigrants may erase the neighborhood's sense of community.

The Central Area has long been a place of newcomers.

In the 1940s, the district was a melting pot of immigrant whites and Asians. The older, inexpensive homes drew them, as did the low-income complex now known as Yesler Terrace.

Allen Sheltren was 11 in 1945, growing up near 23rd and Jackson.

The Sheltren clan lived near Sami Cordova and Louie Furillo in a heavily Italian neighborhood on 25th Avenue South. Some called it Garlic Gulch. The Jews were to the north, in Kosher Canyon.

Sheltren's father made keys, and was known around the neighborhood as Ray the Key Man. One of the city's oldest neighborhoods pulsated with small shops and corner mom-and-pop groceries.

Frank Olive cut your hair, Su Hing washed the laundry, and F.J. McNamara cleaned your teeth. The morning started at the Shamrock Cafe and ended at the Shamrock Tavern.

"Things changed very dramatically," said Sheltren, who now lives near Southcenter. "The ethnic movement was the biggest thing."

Toward the end of World War II, a new wave of immigrants began to put its stamp on the area. Thousands of blacks, drawn to Seattle by defense plant jobs, were eager to pay $10,000 for a handsome, three-bedroom Cape Cod in one of the few places they were welcome. There was a 71 percent increase in the black population in Seattle between 1950 and 1960.

The Sheltrens, the Furillos and the others moved on. With white flight, the Central Area became poorer, more segregated and isolated.

Attempts to revive the area through federal urban renewal programs in the 1960s failed miserably. Buildings were torn down willy-nilly and never replaced. Businesses fell like dominos. By 1965 there was nothing left at 23rd and Jackson except the Star Tavern, the Porter Pappy Barbershop, and the St. Vincent de Paul Salvage Bureau.

Racism, politics and violence kept the area from rebounding.

Police helicopters hovered over the Central Area night after night. Squadrons of police cars were on the ready at the fire station at 23rd and Yesler.

Harry Varon, the son of a Turkish-born fruit and vegetable vendor, ran a kosher butcher shop on Yesler Way. He remembers racial tension and violence:

"I had my windows broken out during the King riots (in 1968). Then the shop was razed during urban renewal."

"It was a big news in the media. We got the reputation of being an area of crime, and that image stuck," said Jack Richlen, who sold groceries at the corner of 23rd and Union for more than 50 years. Richlen's Market stuck it out long after Safeway left.

The '70s and '80s were not kind to the Central Area. The district was fraught with drugs, gangs and prostitutes. Everywhere, houses were in disrepair. Unemployment and crime soared. Middle-class African American families pulled out.

The most recent demographics available date from 1990 -- too old to capture recent changes in the area. But ask anyone: African Americans are still leaving the Central Area, most heading south to Renton and Kent.

The difference is, those on the move aren't fleeing crime. They're cashing out or looking for more affordable housing.

Rents have skyrocketed in recent years -- up 7 percent a year compared with 3 percent citywide. Since 1993, average home sale prices have doubled -- from around $90,000 to $180,000.

"Ask any Realtor what's the hottest area in the city, and they'll tell you it's the Central Area," said Kevin Patterson, who sells for Paul Bascombe, a longtime broker in the area.

As the district diversifies, the African American community worries about its future.

The Rev. Samuel B. McKinney has long counseled members of his congregation to hold on and not sell their property. His message: This has been your home for many years. Don't abandon it.

Michael Ross, a former state lawmaker who now does volunteer work with the Central Area Motivation Program, ignored that message -- but later came to understand its meaning.

"I got priced out in 1990 and moved to Federal Way," said Ross, who is black. "But it was weird down there, disorienting."

Ross said he missed the sense of community in the Central Area and recently moved back to the district, where he is living with his sister while trying to find a house.

Others say they're not bothered by the growing diversity or rising costs.

Mary Donely, an African American who has owned a home in the district since 1959, doesn't mind that her property taxes have tripled.

"It's becoming a more pleasant place to live," she said. "The environment is better now."

There are a number of reasons for the white surge in the Central Area. Location is one lure. Close to downtown, it has become a magnet for the congestion-weary.

But above all, it's still possible to buy a decent home in the Central Area for $150,000.

The district, said Landmark Group Realtor Mark Anton, is awash in speculators. Anton recalled a man who bought a small, three-bedroom home in the spring of 1995 for $100,000, put $15,000 into it and sold it a few months later for $180,000.

"Yeah, there's a lot of older (African American) folks selling their homes, but at least they're getting fair value now. And that wasn't the case when it was considered a black district," Anton said.

Jessica Weathersby, a white, 24-year-old waitress, moved a year ago to the Central Area. She's renting a two-bedroom Victorian just a few doors down from where Ray the Key Man Sheltren raised his brood a half-century ago. Today that home is owned by a pair of Microsoft engineers.

"I got tired of the traffic from Federal Way," Weathersby said, lounging on her porch. "It's a good spot here. Everyone says hi. Everyone is real relaxed."

Framed by a montage of photographs of venerable black jazz artists and singers who once had Jackson Street hopping in more than two dozen nightclubs, Mac McClure sipped an iced coffee at the new Starbucks and talked about his reasons for leaving Green Lake a few years ago.

"I was looking for a more unified and diverse city experience," said the 41-year-old fiction writer. "I didn't want anymore of that yuppie Green Lake-Fremont atmosphere. This is a neighborhood instead of an enclave."

Without question, the Central Area is getting more attention from the city. The police presence is strong and crime has declined.

Meanwhile, more than $70 million in large-scale new development is under way or coming to the area in the next few years, said George Staggers, chief executive of the Central Area Development Association, a non-profit group started in 1994 by then-Mayor Norm Rice.

To make the area more attractive, it must become self-sufficient, said Walt Hubbard, who runs MidTown Commons, another non-profit organization formed to grapple with redevelopment in the area of 23rd and Union.

The paucity of basic amenities is startling, Hubbard said. Most neighborhoods have a movie theater, pet store, a travel agency, a copy center and small cafes.

"Right now, none of those exist here."

A mix of non-profit, private commercial developers and city planners has concocted dozens of building projects financed through grants, loans, and city and federal dollars.

"We should have been doing this a long time ago, but at last it's being done. We're rebuilding the area," said Jack Richlen, the grocer.

The Central Area Development Association is set to build a 58-unit condominium project valued at $5.5 million at 23rd and Main. Three dilapidated Victorian homes at 23rd and Yesler have also been secured and will be renovated as condos.

The association is also building a 22,000-square-foot commercial building for a major retailer at 23rd and Jackson.

More retail activity is planned for 23rd and Union. Likewise, more midsize residential and retail outlets are on the drawing board for 23rd and Jackson.

MidTown Commons is planning a 15,000-square-foot family-practice clinic and a block-long complex of professional offices on Union between 21st and 22nd avenues.

Well-lit pedestrian walkways, and beautification efforts are well under way, including the 3/4-mile Central Park Trail, a landscaped pathway at the lower end of Jackson that will link existing parks, schools, the library and shops in the heart of the Central Area.

Three years in the making, the master plan focuses the community revitalization into four target areas, each to become an urban village.

For the East Madison business district (from 16th to 24th avenues as well as at 23rd and Union) there are plans to install public art and streetscapes and to transform Colman School into an African American Heritage Museum.

For the 12th Avenue corridor, plans are to build attractive three- to five-story buildings for specialty shops, boutiques, bookstores and cafes.

At 23rd and Jackson, street improvements and more retail outlets are on tap to ensure it remains the area's retail focal point.

Staggers acknowledged that changes in his community may not be universally welcome, but said the face lift will be good for all.

"We're going to have a community with more diversity, more home ownership, more density and more retail," he said.

In fact, Staggers suggested the renaissance of Seattle's traditional black neighborhood will be just that -- a renaissance.

"I think you will see more blacks moving back from Kent and Federal Way and Renton," he said. "I mean, their roots are still here."

But will it still be their neighborhood?

Pausing on his way to the Central Area Senior Center, Oliver Lester, a 79-year-old retired steel mill worker, said he sees the white incursion and feels some resentment.

"You know, no one ever paid any attention to us here until the whites started (coming) back," said Lester, who is black.

"Yeah, the neighborhood is getting better," he added, "but I'm not sure we're getting any better, especially when the children who grew up in these homes can't afford to own them."