Black Hole 1

The most notable feature of the block between Stewart and Pine streets and Second and Third avenues was a hole. It stretched across the whole west half of the lot, 30 feet deep and gaping. This is where it was all supposed to happen. The 1 Hotel & Residences announced the arrival of a new sensibility, advertised with plants and warm abstract textures on banners adorning the construction walls and the neighboring Macy’s garage. A pioneering line of responsible eco-luxury from a company that had previously brought us the W brand of boutique hotels, 1 promised tranquility and light and air quality purportedly rare—certainly not like the dark modernity of the W brand, which makes anywhere feel like SoHo, New York, though an urban shopping mall “experience” was to complete the 1 package. Excavation began over two and a half years ago—and the hole was born.

The site was once home to one of my favorite international-style buildings, with light green terra-cotta tile shaping ribbon windows on its facade. It housed a rather small furniture store aptly named Grand Furniture. Boarded up prior to my arrival in Seattle in the first month of 1990, I was never able to walk into it, but I enjoyed its defiant presence downtown. It felt like some very straitlaced fellow in a brightly colored suit. It was cleared away in the early 1990s, and the site slumbered as a blank piece of land until 1 began.

When I moved here, I was struck by how people here dressed different, not just different from what I had known, but particular. The light was even different, silver and shadowless; it created an environment that seemed to hold time. Maybe that’s why, years later, I was surprised and pleased to walk by the corner of Second and Pine and see it had changed—overtaken by a collection of independent vendors selling a variety of products, some that looked strikingly similar to those offered by famous French and Italian design houses. Eager shoppers and curious pedestrians made the lot seem alive that summer afternoon. The vendors were from corners of the world I have yet to know personally, which admittedly factored into my response. It felt exotic, like other markets I had been to on streets around the world, but grounded, organic,
authentic. Every tourist and citizen walking between Pike Place Market and Macy’s, Nordstrom, Pacific Place, and Westlake Park walked by this degentrified interlude in the retail core.

Seattle is a city that has worked very hard at establishing its ground plane. A tremendous amount of effort has gone into taming its exemplary wilderness and topography. Hills have disappeared, islands and shoreline have been created, and concrete bridges now float on deep water. So what’s happened now to the big hole, after two and a half years of an interesting kind of absence, seems to make perfect sense: They’ve filled it in. Watching them fill it two months ago with 19,000 cubic feet of clean dirt put to rest any hopes for a last-minute green light on “green” luxury. It took about 10 weeks for the compacted earth to reach level with the surrounding sidewalks and the alley. The dirt was trucked in from the Maple Leaf Reservoir, where the Department of Homeland Security is funding the lidding over of that reservoir, much like the transformation of Lincoln Reservoir into Cal Anderson Park on Capitol Hill.

This past building boom has transformed this city into at times unrecognizable form: alien blue glass awnings, Vegas-inspired neoclassical detailing. Sites that previously conjured pure potential now sit full and concretely mediocre, towering commitments of millions of dollars, thousands of hours of human concern clearly stated.

It’s somehow fitting that our very own Seattle City Hall is a viewing perch onto an even larger hole occupying an entire city block. From there it is apparent: We are in the midst of a period where little big will happen soon. Public projects already in the pipeline—light rail, the big road and tunnel projects—may continue at their deliberate pace and largely out of sight, but hope for other kinds of growth is in the hands of small business. So it seems like a perfect time for small enterprises that enrich a place. A recent trip to Portland left me envious of the selection of food from vendors in small booths along sidewalks and ringing parking lots—a resourceful use of that often-questionable stretch of land between parking and pedestrians.

As the unveiling of the “new” parking lot on Second and Pine approaches, I know what I’m hoping for: to eventually be able to browse for a nice knockoff wallet in the warm open air in that in-the-path-of-everything-else block, or to pick up something unexpected to eat on my way to catch a show. Amid the backdrop of hunkered-down homeowners, the construction freeze, dried-up lines of credit, and nearby vacant buildings is a wonderful condition. The gift of space—an astonishing amount of space—for all sorts of living things to grow.

Jerry Garcia is a senior project manager at Olson Kundig Architects in Seattle.