- Bell Street as it is today.
A new park along Bell Street took one of its first steps toward reality last night, as Seattle Parks and Recreation and the firms designing the project asked for community input. The project will transform most of the street between First and Fourth Avenues into a pedestrian-oriented, tree-lined open space, trading one of its two travel lanes and about two-thirds of its street parking for an expanded sidewalk and more plant life.
“A major piece of this project is about the change in the relationship between vehicle and pedestrians on Bell Street,” said Patrick Donohue, Seattle Parks and Recreaton’s project manager for the park. “To the driver who is concerned by the loss of a lane of travel I would point to the great need for open space in Belltown and this project as an excellent opportunity to realize new open space in the neighborhood.”
The community-input meeting drew over 100 people in the ugliest of November weather. Some had suggestions, and others were worried or angry about what the project would create. One man complained repeatedly about the reduction in street parking and traffic capacity along the route. Others feared the area would welcome Belltown’s infamous crackhead population or otherwise make the area less safe.
But wouldn’t a park—especially one with the potential to bring in much more foot traffic—help to make the area safer? “If you look at what we have now,” said Richard Nordstrom, president of the Belltown Community Council, “and if you [imagine] the park in there, what would you prefer to have in there? It’s pretty much a no brainer.”
There does seem to be a lot of excitement for the idea. Some community suggestions included allowing spaces for performance art or farmers markets, or even the impractical idea of installing a Vegas-style light show.
The city designated Bell a “green street”—a heavily built area that could be used for open space—way back in 1985. But right now it contains some large stretches of nothing. Take a walk from Fifth Avenue to the waterfront, and you won’t see much. A lot of the properties are apartment buildings. Businesses along the route are mostly on street corners, facing the avenues and turning their backs to Bell Street. In fact, only two businesses—a “doggy daycare” and an architecture firm—have Bell Street addresses between First and Fifth. That’s something Nordstrom hopes this park will change.
“It won’t change overnight, but I do see it changing, of course,” Nordstrom said. “Imagine you have a property and everything around it starts looking good, why wouldn’t you take advantage of that?”
The specifics of the design are still largely up in the air, but it looks like what will emerge will be an innovative hybrid of street and park. The typical width of the corridor is 66 feet, said Kris Snider, a member of the design team from Hewitt Architects. The “park” will include a 26-foot-wide pedestrian path (more than twice the typical width of a downtown sidewalk), which can be expanded to 33 feet if the sole remaining parking lane is blocked off. The current conceptual design, approved by the city council in June, slashes street parking from 74 spaces to 29.
“I live up on the north side of Belltown,” Nordstrom said. “We always have lots of parking here. The only time we don’t is when a significant thing is going on at the Seattle Center, or if it’s after 10 p.m. on a Friday or Saturday night. SDOT has really done a good job of identifying the density of traffic that goes down there, and they’ve done a good job of counting and knowing how many parking spots were down there.”
The park should start construction early next summer, and is scheduled to finish by the end of 2010.
Did you dial this one in, or was this written in a time warp? That doggie daycare has been closed for a couple months, and the architecture firm storefront is now a pool hall.
It is a “no brainer”! Improvement to the area through the creation of a Park Boulevard allows a space for creative community activities and increases the surrounding property values. If I had a business in Belltown I would want to be right on that new Park.
I’d rather have crack heads in the park than performance artists.
This is utterly awesome.
Funny how gentrification is always a “no brainer.”
This is amazing! If this works well, it would be perfect for Pike/Pine or Broadway. Good post.
i think we needs streets that are drivable, sidewalks that are walkable, shops that are accessible, and places to eat and sit as a part of it all. i’m not sure this accomplishes all that in the best way possible.
What the area needs is a bunch of damn cops. You throw a foofy park in there, and it’s just more cover for the crackheads that are constantly smokin’ up in broad daylight. Third and Bell is the worst corner in all of downtown — and a park is just gonna make it worse w/o a 24/7 police presence. Horrible idea.
“or even the impractical idea of installing a Vegas-style light show.”
Yeah…can’t have that. Gotta do something special and unique to Seattle like performance art or farmers markets. Let us have something cool just this once!
Dominic,
You need to loan this guy your copy of Jane Jacobs’s The Death and Life of Great American Cities.
Grant, read the chapter on parks before you write: “But wouldn’t a park—especially one with the potential to bring in much more foot traffic—help to make the area safer”
Jacobs was pretty dubious of park’s capacity to bring in more foot traffic. Some parks do, like Cal Anderson. Some parks don’t, like Victor Steinbrueck park, which in spite of being in an area with plenty of foot traffic is mainly a place for alcoholics to hang out.
Obviously predicting whether a park is going to bring in foot traffic is more of an art than a science. But this park, on a strip without a lot of apartments facing it (most of the apts on Bell have main entrances on 2nd or 3rd and not on Bell–you even point this out) and without a lot of shops that bring people in at various hours (a defunct dog grooming spot doesn’t count), seems like a crackhead magnet.
I’m happy to be wrong here. And there a lot more people in Belltown now than 10 years ago with more on the way, so maybe this park will work, but I doubt that it will deliver any time soon. Maybe when Belltown and South Lake Union add another 5,000 people.
Consultant at 500.00 per hour like anything the city will pay for.
Gosh, can it be that simple.
Who are the users? Why will they use? Isn’t the SAM schlpture garden just a few blocks north?
Whey would you hang on some barren street scape as a better option. Last time at the SAM park, most of the people there were eating lunch and really using the space as a park – enhanced by art rather than art located in a park.
What to do about Belltown – tell the tourists that is where you get over priced food, watery drinks and crack.
I live a block from Cal Anderson, what a treasure – giant space teeming with people and there for 50 reasons from games to dogs to kids to sex hunting to naps to lunch to naps to lovers to naps….. did I say noon hour naps? Love it, a park concept matched to the area and totally great.
Suffer yuppies in Belltown.
Performance artists and farmer’s markets are the new beige. They make an area both vibrant and world-class.
Why do they need any lanes of traffic? Why not turn it into a pedestrian zone and make it a European “fussganger” paradise? The area is on a grid and traffic could easily find other streets to drive on.
It’s funny how every generation has a love affair with
1. factory-built housing
2. car-free streets.
(and now
3. green roofs.)
None make real sense as cost-effective ways to get the job done..
•••
I don’t know the design of this park and maybe the designers will do something interesting. But in general if the goal is to make it attractive to pedestrians and thus activate a street all you need are
1. a 12′ wide sidewalk
2. street trees
3. shops enfronting the sidewalk (and people actually shopping at those shops.)
Most of the rest is needless frou-frou.
You want to compress human activity not spread it out. Interesting pedestrian spaces require an amazingly small amount of square feet.
It’s hard for me to believe that people not already using this street will start to use it because of a _park._ In fact if you take away the on-street parking you will end up with fewer people on the street.
But hey! every generation needs the chance to make the same mistakes.
This is a recession, surely some of the adjoining buildings to this street are empty. Use eminent domain and add them to the park.
But also, this park will need plenty of patrolling. Belltown is covered in scabby whores, open drug deals, and the pimps and dealers are willing to get violent. All of Belltown needs more open street patrolling (hello, citizens and residents, you have a role to play here!). Let’s not forget that the small corner park Belltown had got turned into the dog park because it was an open marketplace for whores and gang-banging drug dealers.
Dust off and nuke it from orbit. It’s the only way to be sure.
Tent City?
Bring in some people…. much cheaper.
The plan is just silly. And a street, even empty is NEVER a park – get real.
#5 one man’s gentrification is another man’s progress.