Here’s an example of how Seattle is handling their ‘public realm’ design as part of the redevelopment of South Lake Union. A light-industrial area that many wanted to retain for its working-class jobs (one of the reasons the ‘Seattle Commons’ proposal was rejected), SLU is in the process of transformation, as the story below explains.
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Running through the centre is Terry Avenue (map here), a north-south street that serves as a right-of-way for the South Lake Union Streetcar and also leads to a new park at its north end. The streetcar seems to have provided the impetus for a number of spec office buildings of no particular architectural merit – like the early days of Yaletown but without, so far, the tower-and-podium form of residential development.
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Given the width of Terry Avenue, the city has been able to extensively widen and landscape the sidewalks.
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There’s an emphasis on seating and outdoor dining (atypically empty on this Sunday afternoon):
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The Mercer Mess – an arterial route through the district we’ll look at later – is being restructured and which will continue the auto-accessibility of SLU and Seattle Centre from the freeway without, hopefully, the congestion. But South Lake Union already has many transportation options – transit, walking, cycling, and a great location between the CBD and the old streetcar neighbourhoods to the north – which should see a decline in the need for parking,
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Once residential development quickens, combined with support services, particularly for families, it’s easy to see how SLU will be a textbook example of the new mixed-use, high-density, inner-city neighbourhoods successfully reversing the post-war Motordom of America.
It is refreshing to see a non-Vancouverism approach to inner city redevelopment – low rise, surface transit, and employment heavy. I hope residential will be a supplemental rather than predominant use here.
Both Portand with the Pearl District and Seattle’s SLU can give Vancouver many lessons.
Can you expand a little? What’s the difference between Pearl District and, say, Kistilano?
Augustin – pretty easy to see the differences on the ground. Worth a visit down south.
Factually, the tight Pearl block and ownership pattern, former industrial uses, land use mix and courtyard forms of dense, mid rise development are substantially different from almost anything hereabouts other than, say, Gastown. Densities are in the range of 6FSR compared to 2.5 on west 4th and Broadway in Kits.
Gordon, it is interesting how your piece on Terry Street and South Lake Union praises the redevlopment, revitalization and pedestrianization of the immediate area, while glossing over the inter-relationship with big motordom projects.
You wrote: “The Mercer Mess – an arterial route through the district we’ll look at later – is being restructured and which will continue the auto-accessibility of SLU and Seattle Centre from the freeway without, hopefully, the congestion.”
The redevelopment of South Lake Union, or at least, its rapid pace and apparent success in spite of a moribund US economy, must be due in large part to the commitment to remove the Mercer Mess by means of a several billion dollar replacement tunnel project. This is a big motordom project, and is being funded by all the residents of Washington State. If such a scheme were proposed in Vancouver, I can just imagine the howls of protest from urban advocates, but in Seattle….