The Long-Awaited Transformation of Seattle's Waterfront
Also today: How ‘Mr. Joburg’ is reviving downtown Johannesburg, and how rising power bills are driving US voters.
Minus the viaduct, the Seattle Aquarium now anchors the northern end of the park’s promenade.
Photographer: Wolfgang Kaehler/LightRocket via Getty Images
Earlier this year, Seattle celebrated the grand opening of its new Waterfront Park, one of the biggest public projects in the US. Designed by the firm behind the High Line in New York City, the new “front porch” to Seattle features a scenic promenade, an aquatic-themed playground, new bike paths and plenty of greenery. With curving ramps that connect to the Pike Place Market and the rest of the city’s commercial core, the park could bring a much-needed boost to a downtown rattled by office vacancies and, more recently, attacks from the US president.
The project’s path to completion hasn’t been easy, or cheap: Transforming this 1.2-mile stretch along Elliott Bay took 15 years and required the replacement of a crumbling seawall and the demolition of an earthquake-damaged highway viaduct, contributor James S. Russell reports. It also cost more than $800 million, not counting the $3.3 billion it took to dig a two-mile highway tunnel for the traffic the viaduct once carried. Today on CityLab: Can a Waterfront Park Wake Up Downtown Seattle?