To get a sense of what the monorail agency is really up to on Second Avenue, though, you need look no further than the corner of Second and Pike Street, where--far from disturbing the peace--the agency came up with a plan that saves millions of dollars, preserves a historic terra cotta building, and puts a smaller dent in the urban landscape.
Back in the summer of 2002, the monorail agency--then known as the Elevated Transportation Company--released its initial renderings of the station at Second and Pike. The fanciful drawings showed monorail tracks gliding through a 24-story office tower, entering and exiting the building around the third floor. The plan at the time was to integrate a monorail station into the tower, which would be developed by William Justen's Samis Land Co.
"At that time, the monorail stations were over 200 feet long," agency director Joel Horn recalls. "But as we were talking to the communities both downtown and up and down the alignment, the request was, 'Can you make these stations smaller?'"
As it turned out, they could. By using elevators instead of escalators, Horn says, the stations could be reduced to about 100 feet in length, because elevators take up less space on the ground. Horn says that in most transit stations, "The elevator's off in a corner somewhere and it's very slow." Monorail planners opted to put the elevators, in Horn's words, "front and center." The elevators will not only be large--big enough to accommodate wheelchairs, strollers, and bicycle riders--but glass-walled and, in the words of station designer Don Wise (of Zimmer Gunsel Frasca architectural firm), "very, very fast." There will also be stairs at the stations for people who prefer to walk up to the platform.
The smaller station footprint gave the monorail agency new flexibility. Instead of buying up the entire block--which included both the Eitel Building, a century-old, seven-story terra cotta structure that is eligible for the National Register of Historic Places, and the Doyle Building, a registered historic landmark--it could build the station on just one or two parcels. The choice came down to two plots of land: the potentially historic Eitel Building (owned by developer Richard Nimmer), or the Green Tortoise Hotel and a parking lot (both owned by Justen's Samis) in the middle of the block.
The debate unleashed a flurry of lobbying by the two property owners. Neither, understandably, wanted to lose his property; and both wanted the economic benefit of having a monorail station--with thousands of riders disembarking daily--next door. "So you've got two folks saying, 'Put the station next door,' and the reason is obvious," Horn says. "It's very clear that you get an economic benefit by being near one of these, and of course [Justen] would prefer to get this economic benefit for his organization rather than have the economic benefit be for [Nimmer's] organization."
In negotiations and public meetings, each developer contrived to convince the monorail agency to tear down the other's property. "What I find fascinating is that you've got private-sector people asking us, the government, to condemn property next door to them to put the monorail station there," Horn says. "But if the idea was to buy their property, well, that's a travesty."
The decision came down to two issues. "The first thing you say is, would you rather build in a parking lot," potentially saving millions, "or would you rather take down a potentially historic building?" Horn says. "Well, that's not a very tough question."
On to the second question: Which location is better for the urban environment? From monorail station planners' point of view, the answer was obvious. "We have learned to put the corner store"--retail development--"on the corner," Wise says. With a station in the middle of the block, where Justen's parking lot now stands, monorail planners hope to spur new developments where Second Avenue intersects with Pike and Pine Streets. "The whole concept with Second Avenue is that each one of our locations is a prime development site. We want people to be drawn along Second and along Pike Street. So our design work has been done to facilitate development." Moreover, Wise says, the SMP wanted the station to visually direct people toward Pike Place Market one block away. The decision was made: Save the historic building, take out the parking lot and the undistinguished building that houses the Green Tortoise, and put a smaller station with high-speed elevators in its place.
For his part, Justen--a one-time financial backer of the monorail who once wrote an op-ed supporting the project--says putting the station at the end, rather than the middle, of the block "would really energize" the now-blighted corner by "improving the connection between the station and Pike Place Market." Justen points out that the upper floors of the Eitel Building have been vacant for 27 years, a condition he says even a next-door monorail station is unlikely to remedy.
Justen, needless to say, was far from pleased with the SMP's decision. On March 23, he signed a formal appeal of the agency's environmental impact statement, alleging that the EIS "does not adequately disclose or discuss the impacts of the monorail on the ability to maintain existing structures along Second Avenue."
But even as Justen was signing off on the complaint, he and the SMP were working to come up with a way to accommodate his development plans on Second Avenue. Downtown monorail stations, including the one between Pike and Pine, will include larger, stronger foundations and columns that can accommodate development right on top of the stations. "It would be a real waste" if both the parking lot and the Green Tortoise were simply condemned, Justen says. Instead, "We are working with [the SMP] to see if we can do a joint housing development." Justen, it turns out, may not have to abandon his Second Avenue plans after all.
barnett@thestranger.com By Erica C. Barnett
