Comments

1
Tearing down the waterfront clears up over 30 acres, not just the 9 acres that the city is playing with. Nine acres is smaller than Cal Anderson Park (11 acres) and the same size as Sculpture Park (9 acres).

WSDOT is planning on building a second surface waterfront highway on the remaining ~20 acres. Why isn't anyone talking about this or trying to stop it? The point of the tunnel is to free up surface space, not to build a double highway.

McGinn probably can't stop the tunnel, but he and everyone else should stop the 2nd new surface highway so we get 30+ acres on the waterfront. Who wants to go to a narrow park bordering a new highway anyway, no matter how nice it is?
2
I could listen to James talk all day. Loved the presentation, he's got his work cut out for him! The SW design's interface with the seawall (and, perhaps more importantly, their engineers) will also be interesting to watch evolve.
4
What Raku said. (Well, I still hope we can stop the tunnel, but the most important part is stopping the surface highway.)
5
oh please. I streamed the presentation and it was nothing. Its main theme was globalization, opening as it did with images of container-stacked freighters and Seattle's position in the Pacific. Scare tactics subtly warning of ecosystem danger. None of the current waterfront committee drawings were projected and presented. These should've been the evening starting point or highlight.
The slight presentation of the Union Street corridor was interesting, but again no rough idea, which they must be working on was actually presented; just a photo of its dismal condition now. Whatever design the city has to present, it's being kept under wraps like a psychiatrist milking a patient. I've been to Rail-Volution 3 times, been to dozens of such presentations. And it was one of the worst I've seen. Bored tunnel advocates will say anything for their job or whatever.
6
It would be more of a surface boulevard than a highway. Mayor Mcginn is wise to support the surface-transit option.
7
Yeah, this was pretty awesome.

"Swim" was Copenhagen, though, rather than Stockholm. (http://www.e-architect.co.uk/copenhagen/…) I'll take a Seattle version, please!
9
"Design god" -- what nonsense.
Corner has hardly designed anything.
(He decorated the Highline Park, didn't design it.)

His talk, however, was meant to be about the politics of the deep-bore tunnel and offer a WOW design and instead he gave a professional but over-long analysis of existing conditions.

http://citycomfortsblog.typepad.com/citi…
11
@3: The revenue potential of the Seattle waterfront goes far beyond real estate prices.

20 years from now, the billions spent on it will be as inconsequential and forgotten as the money that was spent 12 years ago on the baseball stadium.

12
Keep the waterfront industrial with a vital port. Washington is the most trade dependent state in the nation (20% of our state's GDP is dependent on trade). Seattle's port plays an important role in that. I don't want to see boutique low wage jobs replace good paying jobs. We can have an attractive waterfront and an industrial waterfront. Seattle's port supports more jobs than Boeing does statewide.
13
"Given the soil conditions with weight of skyscrapers, there is a high probability of sinkholes," roughly quoting Sgt Doom.

The probability of sinkholes is highest between King and Marion Streets where soil composition is entirely compacted glacial till and fill soil. There is a lesser probability of sinkholes all the way to the north portal.

Underground water pressures surrounding the bored tunnel will be severely altered, directed 'upward' around and above the DBT. These pressures can cause surface buckling and unrepairable damage to building foundations.

Altered flows of underground water also form rivulets around the DBT and carry away soils, forming first 'voids' and then sinkholes. This is the extreme hydrology risk (among many extreme risks) that corrupt corporate puppets at WsDOT will not answer.
14
David,
Field Operations were the lead designers of the High Line. Diller Scofidio + Renfro designed the stairs and elevators, Piet Oudolf designed the plantings, Buro Happold were the engineers, and L'Observatoire did the lighting.

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