Change is coming quickly

Originally published Saturday, November 1, 1997

By MARK HIGGINS
SEATTLE POST-INTELLIGENCER REPORTER

A cold, slashing rain drums at the windows of Helen Coleman's soul food restaurant, making her kitchen all the cozier.

It's nearly noon and her stove is stacked with pots and pans of simmering ham hocks, tender greens, meatloaf, salmon croquettes and a mountain of just-mashed potatoes.

For more than 20 years, Coleman has been true to her grandmother's recipes. Her place, Ms. Helen's Soul Food Restaurant, serves up the kind of home-style Southern cooking you can find only in Seattle's Central Area.

Despite a loyal following, Coleman says she's making it "on a wing and a prayer."

"I had to borrow money to start my business, and I'm having a hard time," she says, flying between her kitchen and her dining room.

It's not that business is bad, it's just that the Central Area is changing so fast. Coleman already has lost her free customer parking to a proposed office building, and she frets over what might happen should she lose her lease.

Her fears are shared by other small businesses and homeowners who have waited out the hard times and finally are seeing the type of economic development the community has long hungered for.

As the area bounces back after years of neglect, crime and poverty, residents say they don't want to be overwhelmed or displaced by corporate chains and megasized housing projects.

Millions of dollars worth of new construction already is under way or is being planned as the Central Area's long-awaited renaissance becomes reality.

The neighborhood's homes and lots already are getting picked over by real estate agents, developers and home buyers looking for bargains.

"I am not anti-progress. I'm in favor of new things," says the Rev. Samuel B. McKinney of Mount Zion Baptist Church. "But I don't want to see people victimized by greed."

As a leader of Seattle's black community, McKinney has urged his congregation for years to stay in the Central Area, recognizing that its proximity to Lake Washington's floating bridges and downtown make it an ideal location.

"Don't sell your property. Don't give it up cheaply," McKinney still preaches.

McKinney's colleague, Pastor Ellis H. Casson at First AME Church, delivers a similar sermon: "The Central Area, which they threw away as the ghetto for black folks, is changing back. The white folks who fled to the suburbs are now realizing this is the place to come because of the new development that is taking place. And now everyone is trying to get in here."

"The housing that is going up for sale for the most part is being purchased by white folks," Casson says.

The black flight to Eastside suburbs and southeast King County has tipped the ethnic balance in the Central Area. From 1970 to 1990, the number of blacks living in the core of the Central Area plummeted from 61 percent to 46 percent, according to the U.S. Census.

Continued:

• Hard work is renewing neighborhood with long history
• Once blighted area's economy now booming
• Residents hope to keep old flavor amid new growth