With almost $40,000 in the city budget to work on planning for what many consider the gateway to West Seattle, the Triangle area, leaders of the nearby Fairmount Community Association continue to work to make sure key players get a firsthand look at the area as it stands now. Four weeks after showing city planner Robert Scully around the area, Fairmount reps (from left in top photo) Nancy Driver, Joan Jeffrey and Sharonn Meeks hosted City Councilmember Tom Rasmussen this morning. He’s been involved in many of the discussions to date, but acknowledged during the half-hour tour that you get a different perspective while walking around. One corridor pointed out, the street that many walk from the homes around Providence Mount St. Vincent to the east, all the way down to the West Seattle Family YMCA (WSB sponsor) in the background of the photo:

Go all the way down 37th to Fauntleroy, and you’ll meet Seung, who recently opened 37th Shoe Repair:

Rasmussen took interest in the recent commercial developments opening in the area, which also includes Cycle U in a former Huling building on the Triangle’s west edge, and the SW Alaska storefront where Alki Kayak Tours is about to open Mountain to Sound Outfitters:

Fairmount’s concern is to make sure there’s an open public process involved with drawing up a vision for The Triangle before too much more piecemeal development happens; they’d like to see an independent urban designer involved, while the city currently is only funding staff time. Rasmussen also advised reaching out to as many local businesses as possible – from the large, like Alki Lumber, to the small, like the new shoe-repair shop, and observed so many spots along the Triangle’s streets that could be brightened with a little landscaping here, a little removal of broken pavement there. We’ll keep tracking the process.