CASA Latina finds a new home

Two years after CASA Latina abandoned plans for a day-labor complex in Seattle's Rainier Valley, the Central Area has told the nonprofit social-services agency that our home is your home.

The Latino immigrant-services agency is planning a $3.5 million complex at 17th Avenue South and South Jackson Street to serve as a center for its day-labor services, English-language training and administrative offices.

On Monday, the Seattle City Council unanimously voted to spend $250,000 to help the organization resettle on the property two blocks west of the old Wonder Bread bakery. The purchase, from a private owner, is expected to close March 17.

"Our vision has been to create a building that is a beacon to new immigrants," said Hilary Stern, executive director for CASA Latina.

She wants to move CASA's offices into an existing building on the property and build a new hall next door to serve as a new day-labor center. CASA Latina runs a women's leadership center in Burien, a clinic in the Central Area, an administrative office in Belltown and a day-labor site on Western Avenue off Highway 99. The organization serves 12,000 workers each year.

That Western Avenue site also is frequented by day laborers who are not associated with CASA Latina but hang out around the site waiting for people to hire them for landscaping and construction work. Belltown neighbors complain about drinking, urinating and littering outside that center.

An abandoned Chubby & Tubby garden center on Rainier Avenue South had been vacant for two years when CASA Latina offered to buy it for $1.4 million. Business groups said moving a day-labor center there didn't fit with their neighborhood's economic vision, which is pinned to Sound Transit's new light-rail line. In May 2005, CASA Latina said redeveloping the site cost too much and they began looking for a new location.

When the group's leaders spotted the Central Area property in July 2006, they moved fast to get in good with the neighborhood. They met with the mayor's staff to find out which community leaders to woo and presented plans that would have businesses pick up workers inside the property instead of on nearby streets.

"We went out to tell our story first before our story started getting told for us," Stern said.

Letters of support came from the local community councils and the Central Area Development Association, which plans to begin construction this spring on a development across the street with apartments, offices and shops.

"Their organization really represented well with what our vision is -- of continuing to be a welcome community even through gentrification," said Alex Zankich, past president of the Squire Park Community Council. He said he hasn't heard any opposition yet, even after the council sent letters to 3,000 neighbors.

Other social-service agencies in the neighborhood have worked well with the community, picking up litter and hosting summer barbecues, Zankich said, including homeless-

shelter-referral service Operation Nightwatch and a sex-

offender release program.

The only neighbor that has raised concerns with the City Council is the Kawabe Memorial House, a home for Asian-American seniors. CASA Latina's leaders plan to meet with Kawabe's board soon.

CASA Latina plans to move its offices into the existing building by the end of 2007, but construction of the day-labor center won't be completed by then.

CASA Latina could be caught short if the new day-labor center isn't ready before the Alaskan Way Viaduct is torn down. The agency's Western Avenue day-labor center is in the shadow of the viaduct.

Stern said CASA Latina has not yet figured out an interim home for the day-labor center but isn't worried about it.

Sharon Pian Chan: 206-464-2958

or schan@seattletimes.com