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REDMOND
COMMUNITY | Spanish-immersion FRIDAY, OCTOBER 21, 2011 preschool opens new location [8]
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ROMNEY VISITS REDMOND
Overlake Village plan features housing, retail and central park
Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney, right, shakes hands with Carl Albrecht as he greets the crowd after a trade address at Microsoft in Redmond last Thursday. CHAD COLEMAN,
Group Health proposes to develop 28-acre piece of land into a mixed-use urban center SAMANTHA PAK spak@redmond-reporter.com
Redmond Reporter
Free trade key to U.S. success Republican presidential candidate promises to crack down on international trade ‘cheaters’ NAT LEVY nlevy@bellevuereporter.com
The United States must push for the most productive work force in the world and pursue more free trade to remain a top economic power, Republican presidential hopeful and Massachusetts Governor Mitt Romney told a crowd of Microsoft employees last Thursday. Romney promised to crack down on international trade “cheaters” like China
during his speech, which was held on Redmond’s Microsoft campus in front of 200 employee donors to the company’s political action committee. “As long as trade rules and regulations are fair, America can compete and win anywhere in the world,” he said. Romney’s speech was part of a tour through the Puget Sound area last Thursday, where he attended a fundraiser at the Grand Hyatt in downtown Seattle. Romney began his 20-minute speech
with a story about his failed attempt to recruit a young man named Steve Ballmer to his management consulting firm, only to have Ballmer turn him down to begin his Microsoft venture. Romney represented a tough stance on China, saying he would label the nation a “currency manipulator” for intentionally devaluing its money to push their prices down and hurt international competition. [ more ROMNEY page 3 ]
HOPE HUNGRY for the
Hopelink luncheon raises $1.16 million MATT PHELPS mphelps@kirklandreporter.com
M
any Eastside residents know Tom Colicchio from Bravo’s TV show “Top Chef.” Most don’t know how far his passion for ending hunger in the United States extends. Colicchio was scheduled to be the main speaker during Hopelink’s
SPORTS | The red-hot Bear Creek School boys’ soccer team shuts out La Conner, 2-0, tunes up for the playoffs [13]
Reaching Out Luncheon in attendance to help Hopelink. Monday at the Meydenbauer “But it has grown worse.” Center in Bellevue to raise The event raised $1.16 money for the Redmond million for Hopelink. The nonprofit that seeks to end organization raised more than hunger and homelessness on $1 million last year from the the Eastside. But not even an same event. Tom Colicchio emergency back surgery could Colicchio told a story of an prevent Colicchio from lend11-year-old girl that he met in ing his voice to the cause. New York whose family was “I have been active for years in the living off of chips, soda and ramen battle against hunger and I am not noodles, as it was all they could afford. alone,” said Colicchio in an audio mes[ more HOPELINK page 5 ] sage from New York, while urging those
Representatives from Group Health Cooperative (GHC) presented its mixed-use plans for the 28-acre piece of land the nonprofit owns in the Overlake neighborhood at Tuesday’s Redmond City Council business meeting at City Hall. During a public hearing on the Overlake Village Master Plan, GHC showed plans that would include a mix of business and residential buildings that could include up to 1,400 residential units and 1.4 million square feet in office and retail space at the site located at 2464 152nd Ave. N.E. in Redmond. The proposed site, which was previously the campus of Group Health Overlake Hospital before it closed in 2008, would also include a 180-room hotel/conference center as well as a 2.67-acre park. Mike Hubbard of Capstone Partners, the Seattle-based real estate development firm overseeing the project, said the proposed site will be in the center of a triangle of regional activity points comprised of the future light rail station to the northwest, the Microsoft Corp. campus to the west and the regional bus transit center to the south. “We wanted to have a vision for this site,” he said. He said a large part of that vision was creating an area where people could live and work, which means creating a place where people can gather such as a park. Hubbard and his team, working closely with city staff, began their site planning with the park as a centerpiece, rather than an afterthought. He explained that they did it this way because they wanted to make sure there was enough land and space for an adequate park instead of putting it on whatever leftover land they had after the other elements were designed. Hubbard said the proposed park would be a network of open space and trails and would be developed over time. Although Overlake will be an urban center, the planning team took Mother Nature into account throughout the process. This included working an 80-foot hill climb into the design as well as figuring out how to keep as many native trees in the area as possible. [ more OVERLAKE page 2 ]