This street plan could be pretty woonerf-ul

New word for the week: woonerf.

Add it to your urban-planning dictionary. One is coming to Seattle.

In the Netherlands, where the concept originated, woonerf means "street for living." It's a street that blurs the boundaries between roadway, sidewalk and public plaza, a street that is a destination as well as a conduit.

Woonerfs (technically, woonerven) are streets where pedestrians, bicyclists — perhaps even loiterers and brownbaggers — come first.

Cars still are allowed, but woonerfs are designed to slow them to walking speed, to let motorists know that here, at least, they don't rule the road.

Last week The Blume Co., a Seattle developer, announced plans to build four new office buildings with ground-floor retail in South Lake Union, next to two buildings the company already has constructed.

As part of its $240 million "Yale Campus" development, the company said, it intends to transform a forlorn, dead-end block of Yale Avenue North, north of Mercer Street, into a woonerf.

The plan, according to Blume founder and Chairman Bruce Blume, is to use trees, planters, posts and a big swale — a landscaped storm-drainage ditch — to confine and slow vehicles, to force them to share. The street's paving will be distinctive, he says, and the sidewalk will flow into the street: there will be few, if any, curbs.

Blume owns the property on both sides of the street, which ends abruptly at a chain-link fence above the Mercer Street ramps leading to and from Interstate 5. Because it's a dead end, it will attract little vehicle traffic, says architect Kate Diamond of NBBJ, and that makes it ideal for a woonerf.

Perhaps, she said, benches, or tables from a sidewalk cafe, could be placed in part of the right-of-way at lunchtime, when one lane probably could handle the cars.

"Sometimes cars and people can share the same space," Diamond said, "if you can convince the cars to slow down and behave appropriately."

Seattle Transportation Department spokeswoman Mary Beth Turner says the city has no woonerfs now, although there are streets that have some of their characteristics.

The department must approve Blume's plans, and Turner says maintaining both vehicle access and pedestrian safety will be top priorities.

But the city recently adopted a policy proclaiming that streets aren't just for cars, she says, so Blume's Yale Avenue woonerf probably won't be the last.

— Eric Pryne

Schultz schmoozes,

raises expectations

It was a busy week for Howard Schultz.

Besides reassuming the role of chief executive at Starbucks, he spent a fair bit of time schmoozing.

Schultz dined with Rwandan President Paul Kagame on Wednesday night at Schultz's Seattle home, discussing the company's plans for a coffee-farmer support center in that country later this year.

The two see each other more often than you might think for people who live so far apart. A couple of months ago, Schultz was in Rwanda telling Kagame that Starbucks would open the support center.

Earlier in the year, Kagame spoke at the company's shareholders meeting in Seattle, saying how well it treats coffee farmers and how much he'd like to have a Starbucks shop in Rwanda.

In other hobnobbing, Schultz called Jim Cramer's cellphone Monday night to promise CNBC's loudmouth stock-picker that he won't stop until he's turned around Starbucks.

Cramer said during his Tuesday show that he believed Schultz. Never one to conceal his opinions, Cramer also called ousted Starbucks CEO Jim Donald an "inept but incredibly nice guy."

Putting the original CEO back in the driver's seat isn't always a successful move, Bloomberg News commentator David Wilson points out.

Schultz "is being treated as this year's answer to Apple's Steve Jobs or Charles Schwab's namesake. History suggests this may be a mistake," Wilson writes.

Apple shares have popped 33-fold since Jobs returned to the company 12 years ago. And Schwab climbed 175 percent in the 3-½ years since its founder stepped back in.

But Wilson writes that for now, it's better to compare Schultz with Dell's Michael Dell, Vonage Holdings' Jeffrey Citron and Yahoo's Jerry Yang, "who founded or co-founded their companies and took the CEO reins within the past 12 months. None of them is currently beating the market."

Even worse is the example of computer-maker Gateway, which fell 81 percent during Ted Waitt's second turn at the helm. He lasted three years, and Gateway eventually was acquired.

"Track records like these ought to give Starbucks investors pause. Assuming Schultz will perform as well as Jobs and Schwab have done is a leap of faith, judging by what's happened to the other returnees."

— Melissa Allison

rgrunbaum@seattletimes.com or 206-464-8541