I consider in downtown. As a downtown resident, developer and enterprise proprietor, I see the town’s potential. Downtown Seattle is the epicenter of our area’s financial system, tradition, arts and innovation.
Mayor Bruce Harrell’s current Downtown Activation Plan announcement makes clear downtown’s future is significant for the town and your complete state. I wish to thank Mayor Harrell for his management and for recognizing that Seattle can not afford to take a “wait and see” method.
Nor can we depend on previous approaches that fall wanting addressing the present challenges of hybrid work schedules and fewer individuals downtown. This new problem gives us new prospects. We are able to revitalize Seattle by specializing in daring efforts that reimagine and reshape our metropolis.
A type of daring efforts is to concentrate on south downtown, a novel and numerous neighborhood with immense chance, however one the place funding has lagged.
This previous weekend of sold-out Taylor Swift live shows and Mariners video games, coupled with the current MLB All-Star Week, supplied a glimpse into an brisk, resilient south downtown. We noticed the dynamic fusion of residents, companies, employees and guests immersing themselves in downtown and close by neighborhoods all through the day and night.
What Seattle simply skilled doesn’t need to be a onetime occasion.
South downtown is the way forward for growth within the metropolis core and requires a growth plan centered on neighborhood enter, fairness and inclusivity and that’s keen to take daring, decisive motion.
For my part, this consists of embracing important residential growth that meets the wants of numerous earnings ranges. It consists of shifting the King County authorities campus out of the downtown core. It consists of making Third Avenue a devoted pedestrian- and bicycle-friendly thoroughfare. It ends in a 24/7 south downtown full of exercise, creativity, financial alternative, livability — and most essential — individuals.
South downtown has outgrown its position as a commuter-centric employment vacation spot the place employees abandon it after 5 p.m. Town should remodel the realm right into a residential neighborhood to assist tackle the housing disaster and foster a thriving neighborhood. Transferring the county campus out of the downtown core permits for the redevelopment of seven metropolis blocks that would create hundreds of housing items and make connections with close by gems just like the waterfront, Pioneer Sq. and Chinatown Worldwide District.
Transferring the King County campus is a large endeavor but additionally one that may completely reshape the neighborhood, and credit score goes to King County Govt Dow Constantine and the Metropolitan King County Council for starting the method of reviewing the Civic Campus Plan.
We additionally want to acknowledge making a secure and welcoming Third Avenue is crucial to not simply Pike and Pine, but additionally south downtown. Third Avenue has for many years fostered an environment that daunts east-west foot site visitors, permits criminality to flourish, amplifies the notion that downtown is unsafe and in the end severs sights just like the waterfront and Pike Place Market from the remainder of the town.
What Third Avenue wants are individuals and bustling exercise. We are able to revitalize Third by reworking it right into a pedestrian-centric plaza full of retail, eating places and leisure. Bus and mass transit stay crucial for downtown residents and employees, however it’s time to be daring about Third Avenue after a long time of neglect.
South downtown is surrounded by all the pieces that makes Seattle a novel and great place to stay, from the superbly redeveloped Yesler Terrace to 2 main stadiums and dozens of arts and cultural sights all through. South downtown has sadly develop into a lifeless zone caught in between all this power and exercise. With a few of the most vital density and underutilized growth capability in your complete state, a centered effort on investing in south downtown and making it a livable neighborhood could be a significant catalyst for the restoration of our complete downtown and metropolis.
A affluent Seattle requires a vibrant south downtown. Nevertheless it requires braveness, creativeness and the desire to make these needed modifications a actuality.
It’s what downtown’s residents, companies and employees want, and what all of us deserve.
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