Real Foods is closing
its cafe on Thursday. Its adjacent specialty grocery store will
shut down early next year.
The closures will add another empty store front to the Harbor Square development
on Winslow Way. The Harbor Square space formerly occupied by
Cafe Trios, which shut down during the summer of 2009, remains
empty.
Real Foods’ owners are planning to open a new restaurant and
retail business in the Island Gateway development taking shape a
block to the west, at the Winslow Way-Highway 305 intersection.
Ten designs for a new nonprofit art museum were unveiled on
Monday.
“This museum is going to be an icon on Bainbridge Island,” said
John Baker, president of Bainbridge Art Museum’s board, during a
gathering of supporters at Bainbridge Performing Arts.
Set to open in the fall of 2011 as part of the Island Gateway
development on Winslow Way, the museum will specialize in the works
of living Bainbridge and Kitsap County artists.
“It will show art from our time, our place,” Baker said.
A construction manager at the Island Gateway development says
concrete powder was deliberately dumped into one of the site’s
stormwater drains.
According to police reports, the manager found the drain, which
sits about 50 feet north of Winslow Way, clogged with hardened
concrete on Tuesday morning. The concrete was caught in a drain
“sock” where it hardened into a large block, police said. The drain
flows directly into Eagle Harbor.
The manager said no concrete powder was being stored at the work
site at the time of the dumping.
The manager told police that the incident could have been
“damaging” to his company. Had state environmental regulators seen
the concrete, the company likely would have been fined, he
said.
Developer Bill Carruthers
reviews a map of the Island Gateway site. Photo: Tristan
Baurick
The city is hosting a forum tonight about the Island Gateway development
taking shape at the Highway 305-Winslow Way intersection.
Despite a fair amount of opposition to the 60,000-square-foot
project, city leaders say the meeting is not aimed at deciding
whether or not to halt Gateway’s progress, which now includes a
partially-done Kids Discovery Museum and a large pit that will
eventually be underground parking.
Rather, the meeting is aimed at informing Gateway’s critics how
and why the city let it go forward.
City leaders admit they could have done a better job explaining
its processes and getting information out more quickly.
Islanders opposed to the project have made several public
information requests, created a website and
filed a lawsuit.
Some critics aren’t happy with the goals of tonight’s forum,
calling it a “farce” and a “slap in the face.”
For more about the issues surrounding Gateway, check out the
story I wrote for Monday’s paper.
Tonight’s forum runs from 7 to 9 p.m. at City Hall.
The city gave final approval for the Island Gatway development
late last week.
The largest Bainbridge development in years, Island Gateway is
now set to break ground at the Winslow Way-Highway 305 intersection
in late summer or early fall.
Planning Director Kathy Cook approved the development on Friday
after it earned the support of the city Planning Commission and
Design Review Board.
