At Burien's recent Von Boorian Days, we visited the Town Square Booth and looked at the pictures of the condominiums, and the large pictures of the new City Hall/King County Library building.

We were shocked and dismayed to see that the Library/City Hall stood out like a sore thumb. It does not blend with anything that is in Burien. It's black-and-purple color truly made me feel sick to my stomach.

When I asked the people manning the booth why the developer did not correlate the design, I was told he was working with the King County Library to do just that and the King County Library fired him.

This is a disaster for Urban Partners as well as the City of Burien because the developer went to great efforts to include community input into the rest of the project, which has warm and friendly colors.

The rest of Town Square will have to look at this shiny bright black ultra-modern building that will reflect the bright sun on this beautiful community for as long as it lasts.

If you were living in a residential neighborhood, which includes condominiums and townhouses, would you want to live next door to a huge shiny black-and-purple building that overlooked your home?

Everyone I talk to who is aware of the new Library/City hall design feels depressed by the thought of the ultra-modern black-and-purple building in downtown Burien. A more fitting location would be along International Boulevard in Sea-Tac.

Deputy Mayor Jack Block Jr. had a wonderful idea of having brick on the exterior of city hall. In addition it could have pastel colored concrete where the purple color is now designated. Then it would blend with the rest of Town Square. It would also be more cost effective than the current design.

For aesthetics the concrete could have etched figures of fir trees on it to complement the fact that one of the streets the city hall will be built on was historically Fir Tree Street. Having etched fir trees on the building's exterior would be fun, but it is only a suggestion.

The main thing is to have it blend in with the total newly built community and the rest of Burien.

The leaders of Kirkland, Mercer Island, Issaquah and Redmond are using timbers, stone, concrete and steel for their buildings. They are also using warm and inviting colors for their beautiful towns.

This is a very expensive aesthetic disaster if it is built in Burien. A bright purple-and-black building does not complement the warm and inviting colors that are being shown as colors for the rest of The Village At Town Square.

Robbie and Robert Howell

Burien