By DEBERA CARLTON HARRELL
SEATTLE POST-INTELLIGENCER REPORTER

The area's affordable housing and numerous apartments has drawn an economically and ethnically diverse group of people. The neighborhood, which has a median income of $30,700, is relatively crime-free thanks in part to a new community police station.

But Crossroads is still trying to shake a troubled image formed by car thefts, gang activity and drug busts.

"In the mid-1970s, Crossroads was a drawing point for a lot of kids who had no place to go," recalls Nan Campbell, former Bellevue mayor and City Council member. Campbell was named citizen of the year last spring partly for her activism on behalf of the Crossroads community.

"There were problems, but things have turned around quite a bit," said Campbell, who supported past development of a 35-acre Crossroads Park behind the shopping center and family-oriented Crossroads Community Center to create healthier gathering spots for youth.

"In the old days, the city hardly knew it was there, but many of us won't let the city forget that Crossroads is there and has needs," Campbell said. "It's a wonderful community, with a tremendous amount of diversity, where all the various parts of Bellevue blend together and get along. Nowadays, you come to Crossroads because it's interesting; it has tremendous drawing power from all over."

The Crossroads community is considered by Bellevue city planners as the area south of Bel-Red Road and north of Main Street and between 148th Avenue Northeast on the west and east to 164th Avenue Northeast. With a park and numerous churches, the neighborhood is dominated by huge apartment complexes and the 40-acre shopping center at the area's main intersection -- Northeast Eighth Street and 156th Avenue Northeast. Microsoft's headquarters are about a mile north, in Redmond.

According to the 1990 census, the white population in Crossroads is 80 percent. About 75 percent of the area's housing units are multi-family.

The non-white population of K-12 children in Crossroads area schools has grown: It ranged from 30-35 percent in 1990 compared with 42-50 percent in 1995. The fastest-growing non-white group is Hispanic, according to the City of Bellevue data. (See the Numbers page for more demographic information.)

The census also shows that almost one in five people living in Crossroads is foreign-born, compared with one in seven in Bellevue overall. In about 5 percent of those Crossroads households, no one in the household over the age of 14 understood English -- almost double the Bellevue city average.

Bellevue School District reports that Eastern Europeans, primarily from Romania and Russia, represent 18 percent of English-as-a-second-language students in the Crossroads area, up from 12 percent six years ago.

Doug Deyo, a Bellevue officer stationed in the new community police unit at Crossroads, said while the area still has more violent crimes than other parts of Bellevue, its overall crime rate is low compared with other urban areas.

"People think of Crossroads as the slum area of Bellevue because years ago it was run down compared to what it is now," Deyo said. "But in the last six years, business has built it up and made it a place people want to come to rather than a place you want to leave. People rank it high in terms of personal safety now; that old reputation has been hard to shuck, but it doesn't fit anymore."

Continued:

• Mall has been cornerstone of diverse community's renaissance
• New owner ushered in new era for mall
• Community reaches out and works together