No organization has had more impact on Delridge in the last decade than the Delridge Neighborhoods Development Association and now its founding director is stepping down.

The nonprofit agency hopes to hire a new executive director by mid-March.

Paul Fischburg possesses the mind of an architect and the heart of a social worker, a good combination for a nonprofit organization that buys as well as builds apartment buildings to preserve low-cost rentals in Delridge. These days however, Fischburg's heart is winning.

"What has interested me most is what goes on inside the buildings," he said. "I get the juice out of that community stuff that happens."

The Delridge Neighborhoods Development Association has done $40 million worth of real estate development in Delridge in the past six years. Between purchasing apartment buildings in Delridge and developing its own new projects, the organization has become a landlord and it needs property managers.

The nonprofit agency also grew from five to 12 employees so there's a need for an organizational structure, staffing plan, written operating procedures, asset management and personnel policies. Those tasks don't interest Fischburg.

He's not sure what he wants to do next and will allow himself time to figure that out. He's considering teaching. He enjoys working with children.

"My adult life has been about getting stuff done," Fischburg said. "I want to get bored."

He's a frustrated musician and plans to continue learning how to play the guitar, clarinet, banjo, piano and conga. Recently he was working up a number to perform at the next talent night at Puget Ridge Cohousing, where he and his family will continue to live.

Fischburg was the inspiration and spark plug for the cohousing development near Sanislo Elementary School. Cohousing is an antidote to the isolation and loneliness of city life. People agreed to live in small houses with shared yards and a "common house" in which to share meals and events a few evenings each week, all in the name of getting to know and therefore care about their neighbors.

Back in the 1990s, Fischburg convinced then-Mayor Paul Schell to include Delridge in the citywide neighborhood planning process that was going on at the time. Neighborhood planning brought together residents, merchants and property owners in established neighborhood commercial areas; "urban villages," as city planners called them. West Seattle's designated urban villages were the Junction, Morgan Junction, the Admiral District commercial area and Westwood Village.

Delridge had no commercial area but Fischburg managed to persuade the mayor to allow Delridge to participate in the neighborhood planning effort. Through that process, he helped Delridge residents ponder what they want for their neighborhood in the future. Those ideas still guide the Delridge Neighborhoods Development Association today.

Delridge residents asked for affordable housing. The Delridge Neighborhoods Development Association purchased the Centerwood Apartments, Holden Manor and the Delridge Heights Apartments. It also developed new housing projects of its own, always with affordable units.

"There would be no low-income housing in Delridge (without the Delridge Neighborhoods Development Association)," said longtime Delridge activist Vivian McLean, who also serves on the agency's board of directors.

She thinks the nonprofit agency sustains Delridge's ethnic mix by providing affordable housing to immigrants and other low-income people. Without affordable housing, Delridge could become less ethnically diverse.

"We'd lose our great variety of different colors," McLean said.

People complained there weren't enough businesses in Delridge. The gas stations and minimarkets along Delridge Way served commuters passing through but no one was meeting the needs of Delridge residents. Fischburg determined that Delridge needed a new commercial area somewhere between Andover and Orchard streets.

The organization built Brandon Court at the corner of Delridge Way and Brandon Street in hopes of creating a more centralized business area that could serve Delridge residents.

The Delridge Neighborhoods Development Association made a deal with the city. The city agreed to move its neighborhood service center from White Center to Delridge, where it would be housed in Brandon Court. Condos were built on the floors above.

People said someday they'd like to have a library in Delridge. A few years later, Delridge got its own branch of the Seattle Public Library right next door in another partnership between the city and the Delridge Neighborhoods Development Association. Affordable apartments were built on the floors above the library.

"He (Fischburg) created a center for Delridge," said Jim Diers, former director of the Seattle Department of Neighborhoods and now an instructor at the University of Washington. "It's a physical and a psychological center. Before, Delridge was just a way to get somewhere else."

In the early 1990s, the old Cooper Elementary School had been closed due to worries about the building's strength in an earthquake. Many Delridge residents who helped with neighborhood planning expressed a desire to make productive use of the then-closed Cooper School. So Fischburg guided the effort to renovate the old school's classrooms into live-and-work studios for artists. There's a theater, dance studio and recording studio in addition to space for nonprofit social service organizations in the new Youngstown Cultural Arts Center.

"Youngstown (Cultural Arts Center) probably would still be boarded up," said Ron Angeles, the Delridge Neighborhood Service Center director.

"In my mind, Paul has been instrumental in revitalizing Delridge," said Diane Sugimura, director of the Seattle Department of Planning and Development. "Not only did he have the skills, knowledge and gumption to pull off these cutting-edge projects, he did them in a way that really reflects what the community is all about. The neighborhood, the city owes Paul a great big thank-you."

"That's what's so wonderful about Paul's influence," said Steve Daschle, chairman of the Delridge Neighborhoods Development Association's board of directors. "He uses brick and mortar to create community."

Tim St. Clair can be contacted at tstclair@robinsonnews.com or 932-0300.