Pioneer Square’s Big New Deal

An enormous, multi-tower, multi-use development has just broken ground in Pioneer Squre. Is Stadium

By Joe Follansbee December 12, 2011

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This article originally appeared in the January 2012 issue of Seattle Magazine.

On one of the last warm summer days of 2011, a construction crew put up the black steel tower of a pile driver in the extreme northwest corner of the parking lot just north of CenturyLink Field. Within days, a reciprocating WHAM! bounced among the brick and sandstone walls of Pioneer Square, as if the workers were announcing a turnaround for the beleaguered neighborhood. At least that’s how some residents and business owners interpreted the banging, seeing it as a first step toward new respect for a part of town perceived lately as an environment better known for hand guns than nail guns.

The crew at the pile driver kicked off a long-anticipated project officially called Stadium Place, but more popularly known as the “North Lot” development, because of its location on the north side of CenturyLink Field, between the stadium and King Street.

The brochures and fact sheets produced by the local developers, Daniels Real Estate and R.D. Merrill Properties, have all the buzzwords and catchphrases Seattleites expect: The project improves “density” with more than 915,000 square feet of residential and commercial space in the “vibrant” Pioneer Square district. It takes “green design to a new level,” pointing to a plan to generate electricity from wastewater and wind. And it’s the “largest transit-oriented development on the West Coast,” referring to the project’s proximity to light rail, traditional rail, bus lines, the junction of I-5 and I-90, and all of these modes’ connections to Seattle-Tacoma International Airport. There’s even a nod to cars; motorists will have 110 new places to park. The first phase of the project is expected to be finished by September 2012, with the last phase completed in late 2013, if market conditions are right.

But the fact that gets Pioneer Square boosters really excited is the 738 new housing units to be brought to the neighborhood—512 apartments in the first phase and 226 apartments or condos in the second phase—almost doubling the total number of apartments or condos currently available in the neighborhood, according to the developer.

Most will be “market rate,” meaning buyers and renters will pay the going price in the open market. But 30 apartments will be set aside for low-income artists’ studios, to replace the spaces lost when the 619 Western Building was condemned to make way for the Highway 99 tunnel. And the project will include 70 units of affordable housing constructed in the nearby International District. (Local housing officials define “affordable” as rents or mortgage payments that won’t break the budgets of households with incomes at 80 percent of King County’s median income, or about $67,806 in 2009.)

Whatever the mix, it’s the added housing for middle- and upper-income people that’s critical to the project’s hoped-for positive impact on the neighborhood, says Jen Kelly, a Pioneer Square resident and activist who blogs at The New Pioneer Square (thenewpioneersquare.com). “I know people who want to move to Pioneer Square but can’t find market-rate housing,” she says. “The biggest thing the neighborhood needs is new people that have a vested interest in [Pioneer Square’s future].”

People have always lived in Pioneer Square, which was the name given to the cobble-stoned public plaza at the intersection of Yesler Way and First Avenue to honor the area’s first white settlers of the 1850s. Without much planning, these early arrivals created a “vibrant” neighborhood, if not always in the way 21st-century middle-class Americans define the term.

Almost from day one, the area south of Yesler Way to the tide flats of Elliott Bay (now crowned by stadia) earned a reputation for catering to the base desires of young working men: drinking, gambling and whoring. More than one of the beautiful brick buildings in Pioneer Square today was a den of iniquity a century ago.

Seattle’s “oldest neighborhood” (purists in West Seattle dispute the claim; Seattle’s founders spent a winter at Alki Beach before moving to the other side of Elliott Bay) has since been the frequent target of reformers, starting with prohibitionist religious leaders and politicians who saw the saloons and brothels as cankers on the otherwise fresh face of the city.

And even as some vices faded, others appeared, particularly drug dealing, which was under full-scale assault by police as recently as 2010.

As the city prospered, the well-off moved north and east, leaving behind an relatively poor enclave that attracted the down-and-out, a legacy with echoes to the present day; social services such as Union Gospel Mission, which opened in 1932, and the Compass Center, a more recent arrival, are concentrated in Pioneer Square. Many of their clients live in Pioneer Square; almost 90 percent of the housing built in the area over the past few years is for low-income residents.

By the 1960s, the neighborhood was seen by property developers as ripe for “urban renewal,” a nationwide trend of bulldozing decrepit buildings in favor of “revitalization”—in Seattle’s case, into parking lots. But in 1970, activists in the relatively new cause of historic preservation, led by Seattle Mayor Wes Uhlman, got the neighborhood declared a national historic district. By that time, a thriving art scene had taken root, with dozens of galleries and studios, and eventually the nation’s first art walk.

But the preservationists and their political supporters made a crucial error, says Kevin Daniels, president of Daniels Real Estate and a board member of the National Trust for Historic Preservation, the country’s leading preservation organization. Activists saw the neighborhood primarily as a commercial district for retailers and service businesses that would cater to downtown workers by day and tourists by night and on weekends, he says. Pioneer Square’s saviors played down the possibility that local people might want to live there, so little housing for the middle class was planned or built. “To have a healthy community,” Daniels says, “you need to live, work and play in the neighborhood.”

That’s not to say the late-20th-century vision for Pioneer Square failed; it may have simply played out like any of Seattle’s frequent booms and busts. In the 1990s, for example, high-tech startups such as RealNetworks were attracted to the neighborhood by cheap rents, and cutting-edge underground music clubs showcased grunge bands such as Nirvana, cementing Seattle’s status as a pop culture mecca. But in 2001, the one-two punch of the Mardi Gras riot and the Nisqually earthquake made many Seattleites think twice about a visit to the old quarter and its elderly brick structures. That led to another downward spiral, climaxing with the departure of Elliott Bay Book Company in 2010 from its First Avenue storefront. “When Elliott Bay Books left, that was the catalyst for the newest revitalization,” Daniels says.

Despite the setbacks, Pioneer Square continued to attract urban homesteaders, such as blogger Jen Kelly, who was lured away from the new high rises of the Denny Triangle to the more human, if rougher, scale of low-rise buildings that date back to the Great Seattle Fire of 1889. “It has a small-town feel within a big city,” she says. In addition, low rents and abundant vacancies in the commercial sector have seduced “new economy” companies such as Isilon, Zynga and OneHub (from high-tech haven Bellevue), reminding Seattleites of Pioneer Square’s historic role as an economic cradle. The city government is catering to the settlers by letting Comcast put in new high-speed Internet to the area through a city-owned conduit. And last spring, the Seattle City Council paved the way for packing in new residents by approving building-height changes that allow two-dozen-story projects, such as Stadium Place, to go up next to older historic structures. Some preservationists complained, but residents and businesses are happy enough to make the tradeoff: more people and activity for a potential cost to the neighborhood’s historic character.

Entrepreneurs in more commonplace businesses are also seeing new possibilities in Pioneer Square, including Mike Klotz, co-owner of Delicatus, a delicatessen with a modern Northwest spin on the traditional deli. Delicatus opened kitty-corner from the Victorian-style pergola on the Pioneer Square plaza about the same time that Elliott Bay Book Company departed. Klotz’s current customer base is the traditional office and tourist crowd. And he hopes Stadium Place will bring in yet another wave of urbanites who will see that Pioneer Square doesn’t deserve its bad rap. For instance, the New Pioneer Square blog reports that the neighborhood’s crime rate is “on par” with Fremont’s and Wallingford’s. And Klotz says he sees more police officers patrolling Belltown than Pioneer Square, a signal to Klotz that his neighborhood is comparatively safer. “Pioneer Square has a reputation as the Bourbon Street of Seattle,” Klotz says, “but it is not as unsafe as people talk about.”

As the saying goes, however, perception is reality. Developers such as Kevin Daniels understand that a gleaming new apartment tower on its own won’t change Pioneer Square’s image, no matter how inaccurate. And the ongoing debate over parking, in addition to the worsening traffic mayhem caused by the construction of the Highway 99 tunnel, will only underline many Seattleites’ unease about visiting Pioneer Square. Ironically, the construction madness may help the neighborhood paint a more positive picture of itself. “You’ll hear more about Pioneer Square in the next two years than you’ve ever heard before,” Daniels says, noting that the state will blanket local media with come-hither messaging intended to reassure locals that Pioneer Square is still functioning, even as the biggest mechanical moles in history punch holes underfoot in the glacial till.

Fortunately, the neighborhood seems past the old squabbling that sometimes pitted new arrivals against advocates for the homeless, for example. Residents say they’ve never seen the various factions so united in support of Stadium Place. “The ‘North Lot’ is a project universally supported in the neighborhood,” says Leslie Smith, executive director of the Alliance for Pioneer Square, an advocacy group that includes a representative of Compass Center on its board. Daniels, who also sits on the alliance’s board, adds that social service providers are now seen as assets, not impediments, to the neighborhood. “We’re embracing them,” he says. “We want them to be a part of the community.”

But Daniels worries that some residents may be placing too much faith in Stadium Place as a turning point for the neighborhood. The project won’t bring in families; no one is even discussing building a public school in Pioneer Square or adding kid-friendly improvements to the limited green spaces, such as Occidental Park, which would create an attractive intergenerational mosaic similar to Ballard or Columbia City. And apart from Uwajimaya and a few tiny corner markets, there’s no place to pick up a loaf of bread or a gallon of milk. On the other hand, the sight of new housing slowly filling with relatively affluent people could give a Whole Foods or even a Safeway the confidence to invest in nearly unbroken ground. “Stadium Place is only a first step for the neighborhood,” Daniels says, “but it’s a big first step.”

 

The crew at the pile driver kicked off a long-anticipated project officially called Stadium Place, but more popularly known as the “North Lot” development, because of its location on the north side of CenturyLink Field, between the stadium and  King Street. The brochures and fact sheets produced by the local developers, Daniels Real Estate and R.D. Merrill Properties, have all the buzzwords and catchphrases Seattleites expect: The project improves “density” with more than 915,000 square feet of residential and commercial space in the “vibrant” Pioneer Square district. It takes “green design to a new level,” pointing to a plan to generate electricity from wastewater and wind. And it’s the “largest transit-oriented development on the West Coast,” referring to the project’s proximity to light rail, traditional rail, bus lines, the junction of I-5 and I-90, and all of these modes’ connections to Seattle-Tacoma International Airport. There’s even a nod to cars; motorists will have 110 new places to park. The first phase of the project is expected to be finished by September 2012, with the last phase completed in late 2013, if market conditions are right.
But the fact that gets Pioneer Square boosters really excited is the 738 new housing units to be brought to the neighborhood—512 apartments in the first phase and 226 apartments or condos in the second phase—almost doubling the total number of apartments or condos currently available in the neighborhood, according to the developer. Most will be “market rate,” meaning buyers and renters will pay the going price in the open market. But 30 apartments will be set aside for low-income artists’ studios, to replace the spaces lost when the 619 Western Building was condemned to make way for the Highway 99 tunnel. And the project will include 70 units of affordable housing constructed in the nearby International District. (Local housing officials define “affordable” as rents or mortgage payments that won’t break the budgets of households with incomes at 80 percent of King County’s median income, or about $67,806 in 2009.)
Whatever the mix, it’s the added housing for middle- and upper-income people that’s critical to the project’s hoped-for positive impact on the neighborhood, says Jen Kelly, a Pioneer Square resident and activist who blogs at The New Pioneer Square (thenewpioneersquare.com). “I know people who want to move to Pioneer Square but can’t find market-rate housing,” she says. “The biggest thing the neighborhood needs is new people that have a vested interest in [Pioneer Square’s future].”
People have always lived in Pioneer Square, which was the name given to the cobble-stoned public plaza at the intersection of Yesler Way and First Avenue to honor the area’s first white settlers of the 1850s. Without much planning, these early arrivals created a “vibrant” neighborhood, if not always in the way 21st-century middle-class Americans define the term. Almost from day one, the area south of Yesler Way to the tide flats of Elliott Bay (now crowned by stadia) earned a reputation for catering to the base desires of young working men: drinking, gambling and whoring. More than one of the beautiful brick buildings in Pioneer Square today was a den of iniquity a century ago. Seattle’s “oldest neighborhood” (purists in West Seattle dispute the claim; Seattle’s founders spent a winter at Alki Beach before moving to the other side of Elliott Bay) has since been the frequent target of reformers, starting with prohibitionist religious leaders and politicians who saw the saloons and brothels as cankers on the otherwise fresh face of the city. And even as some vices faded, others appeared, particularly drug dealing, which was under full-scale assault by police as recently as 2010.
 As the city prospered, the well-off moved north and east, leaving behind an relatively poor enclave that attracted the down-and-out, a legacy with echoes to the present day; social services such as Union Gospel Mission, which opened in 1932, and the Compass Center, a more recent arrival, are concentrated in Pioneer Square. Many of their clients live in Pioneer Square; almost 90 percent of the housing built in the area over the past few years is for low-income residents. By the 1960s, the neighborhood was seen by property developers as ripe for “urban renewal,” a nationwide trend of bulldozing decrepit buildings in favor of “revitalization”—in Seattle’s case, into parking lots. But in 1970, activists in the relatively new cause of historic preservation, led by Seattle Mayor Wes Uhlman, got the neighborhood declared a national historic district. By that time, a thriving art scene had taken root, with dozens of galleries and studios, and eventually the nation’s first art walk.
But the preservationists and their political supporters made a crucial error, says Kevin Daniels, president of Daniels Real Estate and a board member of the National Trust for Historic Preservation, the country’s leading preservation organization. Activists saw the neighborhood primarily as a commercial district for retailers and service businesses that would cater to downtown workers by day and tourists by night and on weekends, he says. Pioneer Square’s saviors played down the possibility that local people might want to live there, so little housing for the middle class was planned or built. “To have a healthy community,” Daniels says, “you need to live, work and play in the neighborhood.”
That’s not to say the late-20th-century vision for Pioneer Square failed; it may have simply played out like any of Seattle’s frequent booms and busts. In the 1990s, for example, high-tech startups such as RealNetworks were attracted to the neighborhood by cheap rents, and cutting-edge underground music clubs showcased grunge bands such as Nirvana, cementing Seattle’s status as a pop culture mecca. But in 2001, the one-two punch of the Mardi Gras riot and the Nisqually earthquake made many Seattleites think twice about a visit to the old quarter and its elderly brick structures. That led to another downward spiral, climaxing with the departure of Elliott Bay Book Company in 2010 from its First Avenue storefront. “When Elliott Bay Books left, that was the catalyst for the newest revitalization,” Daniels says.
Despite the setbacks, Pioneer Square continued to attract urban homesteaders, such as blogger Jen Kelly, who was lured away from the new high rises of the Denny Triangle to the more human, if rougher, scale of low-rise buildings that date back to the Great Seattle Fire of 1889. “It has a small-town feel within a big city,” she says. In addition, low rents and abundant vacancies in the commercial sector have seduced “new economy” companies such as Isilon, Zynga and OneHub (from high-tech haven Bellevue), reminding Seattleites of Pioneer Square’s historic role as an economic cradle. The city government is catering to the settlers by letting Comcast put in new high-speed Internet to the area through a city-owned conduit. And last spring, the Seattle City Council paved the way for packing in new residents by approving building-height changes that allow two-dozen-story projects, such as Stadium Place, to go up next to older historic structures. Some preservationists complained, but residents and businesses are happy enough to make the tradeoff: more people and activity for a potential cost to the neighborhood’s historic character.
Entrepreneurs in more commonplace businesses are also seeing new possibilities in Pioneer Square, including Mike Klotz, co-owner of Delicatus, a delicatessen with a modern Northwest spin on the traditional deli. Delicatus opened kitty-corner from the Victorian-style pergola on the Pioneer Square plaza about the same time that Elliott Bay Book Company departed. Klotz’s current customer base is the traditional office and tourist crowd. And he hopes Stadium Place will bring in yet another wave of urbanites who will see that Pioneer Square doesn’t deserve its bad rap. For instance, the New Pioneer Square blog reports that the neighborhood’s crime rate is “on par” with Fremont’s and Wallingford’s. And Klotz says he sees more police officers patrolling Belltown than Pioneer Square, a signal to Klotz that his neighborhood is comparatively safer. “Pioneer Square has a reputation as the Bourbon Street of Seattle,” Klotz says, “but it is not as unsafe as people talk about.”
As the saying goes, however, perception is reality. Developers such as Kevin Daniels understand that a gleaming new apartment tower on its own won’t change Pioneer Square’s image, no matter how inaccurate. And the ongoing debate over parking, in addition to the worsening traffic mayhem caused by the construction of the Highway 99 tunnel, will only underline many Seattleites’ unease about visiting Pioneer Square. Ironically, the construction madness may help the neighborhood paint a more positive picture of itself. “You’ll hear more about Pioneer Square in the next two years than you’ve ever heard before,” Daniels says, noting that the state will blanket local media with come-hither messaging intended to reassure locals that Pioneer Square is still functioning, even as the biggest mechanical moles in history punch holes underfoot in the glacial till.
Fortunately, the neighborhood seems past the old squabbling that sometimes pitted new arrivals against advocates for the homeless, for example. Residents say they’ve never seen the various factions so united in support of Stadium Place. “The ‘North Lot’ is a project universally supported in the neighborhood,” says Leslie Smith, executive director of the Alliance for Pioneer Square, an advocacy group that includes a representative of Compass Center on its board. Daniels, who also sits on the alliance’s board, adds that social service providers are now seen as assets, not impediments, to the neighborhood. “We’re embracing them,” he says. “We want them to be a part of the community.”
But Daniels worries that some residents may be placing too much faith in Stadium Place as a turning point for the neighborhood. The project won’t bring in families; no one is even discussing building a public school in Pioneer Square or adding kid-friendly improvements to the limited green spaces, such as Occidental Park, which would create an attractive intergenerational mosaic similar to Ballard or Columbia City. And apart from Uwajimaya and a few tiny corner markets, there’s no place to pick up a loaf of bread or a gallon of milk. On the other hand, the sight of new housing slowly filling with relatively affluent people could give a Whole Foods or even a Safeway the confidence to invest in nearly unbroken ground. “Stadium Place is only a first step for the neighborhood,” Daniels says, “but it’s a big first step.”

 

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