The Kirkland City Council met on July 21, 2026, starting with a study session at 5:30 p.m. and the regular meeting at 7:30 p.m., adjourning at 12:00 a.m. on July 22. The council heard updates on the NE 85th Street Station Area branding and the Urban Forest Management Plan, took action on park rules and parking enforcement, discussed home business allowances, received an update on the city’s response to federal immigration enforcement, and debated detention center regulations. Several public comments were heard on topics including the greenway, e-bike safety, property development, and immigration concerns.
Thank you. Our study session tonight is on two items. First, we'll have an update on the Northeast 85th Street Station Area Branding and Mary Project. Second, we will have an update on the urban forest management plan. We expect to reconvene our regular meeting at 7:30. City manager. Okay. Thank you, Madam Mayor. Deputy Mayor, members of the council. So yes, our first topic is going to be the AFS Street Area Branding. I'm going to turn it over to our economic development manager, Jen Davis Hayes, to make the presentation. And we're looking for council feedback. She's going to introduce our special guest as well. So take away, Jen. Great. Thank you very much, Council members, for uh hearing our update tonight. As you mentioned, we're here for the Northeast 85th Street Station Area Branding and Marketing Project. So hopefully we'll have a new name for that later this fall. So as a reminder, this is one component of the work we do on Northeast 85th. For instance, in the last few weeks, I've met with three of the large property owners in this area. And I continue talking to developers. That's in turn have actually created interest in other Kirkland properties. We're looking at having a third one in this fall. And of course, there thanks to council support for changes in parking development standards, et cetera, that helped to uh further entice redevelopment in this area. And later this year and in 2027, we're looking at a multi-prong marketing strategy from these materials. So we hired Watson Creative, we'll meet the team tonight to help name brand and create marketing collateral for the real estate industry for us to be able to go out and go to develop sponsored of uh events to do promotion through Peterson Business Journal and Daily Journal of Commerce, et cetera. Um we've created uh we've worked with them uh with an internal steering committee of myself, communications staff, planning staff, and the Kirkland Chamber Executive Director. Um so tonight you'll hear journey of where we've been so far, but also it's not just a status update, but to get a better understanding of the naming criteria. So tonight we are joined by our fabulous team uh from Watson Creative. Um, and so first uh we have Greg Needham, who is um the director of strategy, and he will be doing the presentation mostly tonight, but he is also joined by Byron Fernie, who is the brand strategist and writer, Trina Mata, who is the senior account strategist, and Paolo Esteban, who is our senior project manager. So they have done a great job, and we look forward to hearing from them today. Greg Thank you very much. Let my share my screen real quick. Can you see my screen? We can. Welcome everybody. Great. Thank you for having us. Um Kirkland Council, it's a pleasure to be here. I'll just add quickly. I think uh city councils and commissions are my favorite and often most effective level of government. So I really appreciate your time in having us and excited to run you through this. We don't want to take up much of your time tonight. We've greatly shortened the presentation. It started out when we were working with the team there at about a hundred slides. We've shortened it down significantly. Um just to familiarize yourself, we're Watson Creative, uh founded and based in Portland, Oregon. We've got a team of about 30 um currently scattered all around, and most of them are contributing to this work. And in case you weren't aware, Kirkland has a warm spot in our heart. We've been doing work for the City of Kirkland Police Department for some time on recruitment campaigns as well.