Credit: Photo Courtesy of the People’s Waterfront Coalition

City leaders have been squabbling over the waterfront for years—particularly since the 2001 Nisqually earthquake, which knocked the 50-year-old Alaskan Way Viaduct’s federal structural-sufficiency rating down to 9 points (out of 100). It became clear that what’s there must be demolished and replaced. But the game has changed. Whereas there seemed to be agreement in recent years on how to best replace the concrete hulk—when former mayor Greg Nickels and former King County executive Ron Sims struck a deal with the governor for a tunnel and the city council agreed to a deep-bore-tunnel option—those plans now seem more tenuous. Sims and Nickels are gone. So is city planner Ray Gastil, whom we poached from New York City because of his waterfront-­planning accomplishments. Lawsuits are pending to block the tunnel. And newly elected leaders at City Hall have their own ideas about rebuilding the waterfront and investing in major transit infrastructure.

Regardless of the political tumult, the process to rebuild the waterfront is proceeding on a tight schedule. City leaders and civic activists are jumping into the design phase and developing preliminary plans—plans that could feature beaches, parks with trees and lawns, community gardens, children’s play areas, and concert venues—that will be released this fall.

Here is where we stand: In May, the Department of Planning and Development (DPD) will launch a search for design consultants to reenvision 25 acres of land that has been eaten up and overshadowed by the viaduct since 1952. The swath runs from Pioneer Square to Belltown. In October, city planners will unveil preliminary designs for public comment.

“We finally have a real budgeted project to design and ultimately build the waterfront,” says Marshall Foster, the new planning director for DPD. “We’ve never had that before.” The city, the county, and the state have agreed on funding for three elements essential to development: removing the viaduct and replacing the main roadway, replacing the utilities that run under the viaduct, and allocating money to develop the waterfront. There’s some dispute about how much money will go specifically toward a rebuild—after demolishing the viaduct and digging a tunnel—but suffice it to say there are hundreds of millions of dollars. The city alone has committed $123 million for creating public space.

What will that space look like? Cary Moon, director of the People’s Waterfront Coalition, says the future waterfront can’t be a homogenous shopping strip that caters just to tourists, but needs to be a more urban area that supports a variety of uses. Creating competing spaces that play off each other will draw locals and tourists alike. The waterfront needs “active edges, with cafes and shopping, a community garden, a kids’ playground, industrial ping-pong tables with steel nets, beaches—anything’s possible,” she says.

But several variables—how to pay for replacing the seawall and lingering questions about the viability of the deep-bore tunnel—complicate the timeline. Balancing these issues is the Central Waterfront Partnerships Committee, formed by the city council last November to advise on waterfront development. Forty-one people from the Seattle Parks Foundation, the American Institute of Architects, People for Puget Sound, Allied Arts of Seattle, and neighborhood groups make up the group that will ultimately make recommendations to the city on the time line for construction.

The group has the ear of Seattle City Council member Sally Bagshaw, who ran for office last fall, in part, to push for the deep-bore tunnel under downtown and to open up the waterfront. “The tunnel is a means to an end,” she says. (The outcome of the tunnel dispute, of course, bears on the waterfront development because it would reroute traffic away from Alaskan Way.) Bagshaw explains that losing the tunnel would mean losing dedicated state funds for rebuilding Alaskan Way closer to downtown businesses once the viaduct is demolished.

Others disagree. The tunnel project is the subject of two lawsuits spearheaded by citizen activist Elizabeth Campbell, who claims that the Washington State Department of Transportation hasn’t conducted the environmental reviews needed before deciding on a deep-bore-tunnel option.

Moon and others argue that the waterfront can achieve the same outcome with the tunnel or by making transit, I-5, and downtown road improvements. Eventually, she says, the viaduct has to come down, and the state is obligated to pay for viaduct removal and the cost to replace the city street. Bagshaw is “dead wrong on the waterfront vision or replacement street funding being dependent on building a tunnel,” says Moon.

Disagreements aside, the leaders of the waterfront efforts share a growing sense of urgency caused by an 80-year-old decaying seawall. In addition, the pillars that support Piers 62 and 63 are rotting. They can no longer support large public gatherings like the Summer Nights at the Pier concert series. The Washington Street Public Boat Landing facility south of the ferry terminal hasn’t had a pier for over a decade. The park adjacent to it is perennially padlocked, although a sign next to the locked gate still reads “This park is for enjoying shore views.”

Mayor McGinn, DPD, and the waterfront committee recognize that a comprehensive waterfront vision needs to include the seawall shoreline, which is the spine of the new public space. They’ve accelerated the waterfront-­planning effort to parallel the seawall-­replacement effort.

Moon says there are several great opportunities to connect to the water, if the seawall is designed to accommodate it. Elliott Bay is shallow enough for beaches directly north and south of the aquarium (adjacent to Piers 62 and 63) and south of the ferry terminal (near the defunct public boat landing). If the seawall is designed to recede in these places, in tandem with the waterfront design, Seattle could have multiple beaches, or a lower-level walkway, with steps that sink into the bay. The question is, what do the people want to see?

The next priority is getting the public to chime in about what they want on the waterfront. “It’s the only way to ensure that in the end this project really sings,” says Moon.

So what happens next? DPD is creating a steering committee of roughly 10 people to hire and guide the design consultants and ensure great public outreach. The committee will be composed of citizens with expertise in planning, design, and public development, tasked with overseeing the design work. In October, city staff and civic leaders will bring this preliminary vision to neighborhoods for public comment. recommended

Former Stranger news writer Cienna Madrid has been a writer in residence for Richard Hugo House, a local literary nonprofit. There, she taught fiction classes and wrote 4/5 of a book about a death-row...

42 replies on “Brave New Waterfront”

  1. Or, they could just put in a nice boulevard and spend the tunnel billions on what Seattle really needs and wants – I-5 widening though downtown.

  2. The current plan has bastardized both NEPA and SEPA, our flagship environmental laws that we in Seattle cherish. There is still a lot of information that needs to be put together and evaluated before an informed and educated project can go forward. Those are things that do not characterize the plan as it stands currently.

  3. Beaches I want beaches. I’m so jealous when I visit Vancouver.
    How about an inviting place for people to come hang out. Public activities, events and the like will draw the people.

  4. brainstorm idea –
    take the 24hour trucks hauling fill dirt/rock from the capitol hill station / link tunnel and build (and fill) a new seawall 30 feet further offshore.
    Result: Acreage for some condos (to generate tax money to help justify expense); an acre maybe even for public housing (my god!); a wider right of way/roadway (to shut the Port up); and more parks and beach space (for the sensible crowd). It’s been done before, in NYC: (battery park city).
    Didn’t they build La Guardia airport on fill?

  5. I love the beach.

    Remember, only you can prevent $1 to $3 BILLION cost overruns that we can’t afford for a Billionaires Tunnel that serves no need, carries HALF the freight of the existing or replacement viaduct (or surface plus transit) and has ZERO downtown exits and DOUBLE the global warming emissions impact just from running exhaust fans 24/7/365.

    Fight the Power!

  6. @5 – If Chihulhy builds one we can grind it up for use in creating the beach, especially after the Seattle Center Junior Hardball team finishes with batting practice.

    Sand is just glass in a different form, with a bit of local rocks from breaking up all the pedestals.

  7. Oh, Jesus, not this boulevard-beach-trees shit again. Is there no one involved in the process who has laid eyes on a city before? This is hippie bullshit.

    My recommendation, if they do have to tear the fucking thing down, is a rabbit’s warren of three or four-story buildings as close together as the fire code will allow, preferably as wide as a current alley. With a dozen T or Y intersections. Include the blank blocks and parking garages for more room. Make it interesting and cool, not vapid and blank. Otherwise that lovely boulevard (i.e., surface highway) is going to be a killer.

    And for chrissake, any plan that comes with vivid green artwork like that should be dismissed out of hand. Force everyone to show it in February.

    Hold a competition.

  8. @6 – Exactly. It’s the problem with the “Seattle Way” – people around here are too damned interested in *talking* to actually get anything worthwhile accomplished. And they get uppity (as Seattlites love to do) when you point out that they’re doing it, too.

  9. Someone the WSDOT snuck in not one, but two new highways on our waterfront (one surface and one tunnel). Complete bullshit. No doubt we’ll have three more elevated highways on top of the surface highway when this is done.

    Oh yeah – remember Seattle’s goal to become the world’s first carbon neutral city? I think the city meant their goal is to turn the city into 100% carbon.

  10. Guys, go visit Vancouver. No, the one in BC you narrow minded idiots. Head on down to Denman & Georgia a 4 lane blvd with bike lanes. Pretty nice eh? There’s a beach on Denman & Davie. No one’s swimming in False Creek but it sure is nice for watching fireworks etc.

  11. What is this obsession with putting grassy fields at the waterfront? And why does Seattle always want to choke off the capacity of it’s main highways, thereby creating more and more traffic gridlock?

    When it comes to pretty parks for single moms vs. getting home from work in less than 2 hours, I vote for the highway.

  12. The only thing I see missing is the change in buildings along the parkway… These would quickly change to high-end (read: expensive) places to live, offices, etc.

    So, make sure to add a big black box pointing out “Expensive living spaces”.

    I’m curious also, with the considerable cuts in human services, where the displaced folks currently living in that area would go. Hmm…

  13. I’d normally agree with Fnarf @12 on this, and I was originally skeptical of http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rose_Kenned… for that very reason.

    Yet in spite of its aesthetically lackluster results, it has been HUGELY successful in its main goal of connecting parts of the city that previously felt detached from one another. The North and South Station areas feel twice as close (and thrice as walkable) as they ever have before.

  14. Addendum: while my example @27 might be relevant to the Waterfront, I don’t understand why Seattleites continue to clamor for “more open space” in EVERY public or private land-use proposal. What are all those parking lots, setbacks, landscaped courtyards nobody uses, endless front lawns in our “high-density areas,” and other assorted interruptions to street frontage and urban cohesion if not open space?

  15. Bring back concerts on the Pier!! No indoor concert venues – we want to feel the wind and hear the boats!

    Join the “Bring back the Pier concerts in Seattle!” Facebook group. http://www.facebook.com/pages/Bring-back…

    And yes, technically I don’t care if they are on a pier, especially one that’s rotting, I’d just like to see them outdoors right on the water.

  16. FNARF is consistently among the most interesting writers (staff included) at the Stranger.

    He knocks it out of the park once again, though I think he’s a bit harsh on the beach (the stretch by the sculpture park) is awfully nice and could be a practical way of armoring the shoreline.

  17. Tear it down. Widen the surface street to three lanes in each direction. No cost overruns. Freight capacity is enhanced. Douchebag commuters get to keep commuting. Spend the savings on condemning & rebuilding the piers, or on a new seawall, or on Pike Street whores.

  18. Wait until the next earthquake brings down the Viaduct. When Seattle finds out there aren’t that many consequences from losing it, then, make a decision?

  19. Fuck cars. All the people concerned with traffic and gridlock can drive around Seattle…or maybe go back to the suburban hells that you drive in from. Let’s invest in people rather than more car infrastructure. While we’re at it, let’s close off the street through the Pike Place Market (except for deliveries/vendors) so that it’s more walkable and less polluted. Cars are the past. Urban walk-ability, green spaces and P-Patches are the future.

  20. “or maybe go back to the suburban hells that you drive in from”

    You mean Ballard?

    Some day you’re going to grow up, have kids and a wife/husband; maybe you should realize that people like that pay all the bills in this town, not hipsters on fixies on Cap Hill. It’s why the city listens to us.

  21. “Moon and others argue that the waterfront can achieve the same outcome with the tunnel or by making transit, I-5, and downtown road improvements.”

    I love the people who think the tunnel is too expensive, and mention the widening of I-5 as an alternative. As if that is as simple as slapping another couple lanes in. First, widening I-5 would be massively expensive, require us to raze buildings on some of the most economically productive land in the entire state, and would be fraught with all the same expensive engineering problems as tunneling on the waterfront.

    The reason people bring it up as an alternative is because it doesn’t have a reliable price tag yet, so we can all pretend is won’t cost as much or be as disruptive as the 99 tunnel. Get real.

  22. Tear down the old viaduct and simply replace it with a new one. It serves a vital north south connection between Ballard and South Seattle’s industrial maritime industry. Many union wage jobs depend on that arterial. Seattle is nice and scenic enough as it is. We don’t want to take industry off the waterfront and turn Seattle into a service/tourist industry minimum wage city. The maritime industry in Seattle supports more jobs than Boeing does statewide. Just build a new viaduct and to hell with consensus and debate. It’s time to move forward.

  23. I don’t think we’re being radical enough. Lets ban all private vehicles from Downtown, Lower Queen Anne, South Lake Union, Capitol Hill, and First Hill. While we’re at it lets close I-5 for good through downtown and reclaim the land for something else.

  24. When looking at the viaduct, it’s good to look at what others did.

    SF – surface/transit on the embarcadero. – it was and is a huge success

    PDX – surface transit. – also a huge success

    Boston – tunnel. – went 200% over budget

    Rebuilt downtown viaduct – not a single dim witted idiot.

    A few more figures to think about:
    Tunnel cost: $4 billion

    Rebuilt Viaduct cost: $3 billion

    Light rail ine to West Seattle and Ballard: $1.6 to 2 billion

  25. I say we leave Seattle to the hipsters.

    OK, maybe that was uncalled for, but it’s late.

    I’d like for them to push the seawall out about 300 feet. Rebuild the wharves and add some public spaces for the people who’ll return to Seattle once they ban panhandling.

    They you can take down the viaduct, push the harbor traffic onto an extended Eeeeddddgggaaarrr Martinez Way, or move it all to Tacoma where they built roads for their port several years ago.

    The you could add a roadway with bike lanes. Hey let’s make the bicyclist register their bikes, and carry manditory insurance too. Maybe we’ll get them to follow the rules of the road, and monkeys will fly out of my butt.

    Ok I’m out of here.

  26. I almost forgot to complain about Sound Transit. /whine /nowhine. Let’s just let Trimet build their Max lines up here, they seem to get things down.

  27. I could’ve figured the segment of waterfront in dispute was south of Coleman Dock. The old public landing structure is historic and should remain. However, the new seawall could be extended west 20′ or 30′ to widen the sidewalk there.

    It’s likely that Alaskan Way will be 6 lanes instead of 4 lanes. SDOT is flat out lying about that and about the route they propose to handle AWV displaced traffic ala Mercer West. Figure on a Harrison/Thomas couplet rather than 2-lane Mercer Street and steep Mercer Place hill.

    Early in the AWV replacement studies, (pre-Crunican), a 2-lane frontage road was proposed with islands between it and a 4-lane Alaskan Way. This frontage road is necessary to divide thru-traffic from motorists looking to park. Without it, motorists will be forced into cruising for a parking spot back onto Alaskan Way with the proposed 13 stoplights between Pike and King Streets amidst 20,000 to 40,000 additional vehicles than ply the waterfront today.

    It’s just like this design commission BS that takes 5+ months to finalize a design, then give the public has a week to consider before breaking ground and distributing money. The basic design proposals are ready for public view now, not later. Putting it off 5 months is a sign the design commission punks don’t want public input.

    The Deep-bore Tunnel is a catastrophe in the making. WSDOT and SDOT have done their worst on this one and bamboozled Seattle half-wits and functional idiots into believing it’s their best AWV replacement option. In fact, the best option is some version of Tunnelite, but fools are too proud to admit they’ve been had. Grace Crunican should be charged with criminal negligence and serve a prison sentence. She’s on an insane vendetta to punish evil liberals.

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