May is for Maritime – Big Waterfront Events

Downtown Seattle Waterfront’s Maritime Festival is set to do some major partying from May 12-14 –it’s the 100th anniversary of the Port of Seattle!

Once upon a time, local visionaries realized that Seattle’s natural deep-water port was an asset for the city, and a resource that should belong to the people.  Their efforts helped the Washington State Legislature enact laws allowing establishment of port districts in March, 1911.  By that September, King County voters approved creation of the Port of Seattle, the state’s first public port.

As Seattle grew beyond downtown, so did the Port of Seattle.  In 2011, its services include a cargo and passenger seaport, Sea-Tac airport, a home for the North Pacific fishing fleet, first-class public marinas and conference facilities, even a string of parks around Elliot Bay.  Its cruise line business snagged a huge win a month ago when on April 6th, Disney Cruises announced their move from Vancouver, B.C. to Seattle for the 2012 cruise season.

The Port of Seattle enters its second century with huge changes on the horizon.  The first is the redevelopment of the Seattle Waterfront itself.  Over 1,000 attended the first meeting held by Waterfront designer James Corner Field Operationss on February 17, which kicked off public input on its future vision and potential uses.  Nearly 2,000 responses via questionnaire and email from the Seattle public were received.   The second is replacing the central portion of the Elliott Bay Seawall.  This part is being handled by the Seattle Department of Transportation and the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers.   The Port of Seattle is working with both entities on the best plan for the city and the next Waterfront meeting, where  James Corner presents their first design concept, is scheduled for Thursday, May 19^th.  For more information, just visit the waterfront website.

The Port of Seattle has a great centennial link with historical data on timelines, maps, stories and more.  There is also a calendar of events for the remainder of the year.  Here, we’ve attached a .pdf on May 12-14’s Seattle Maritime Festival events.  These include the “world’s largest tugboat race” along the Downtown Seattle Waterfront, a Chowder Cook-Off, survival suit races, a boat building competition, vessel tours, sea-air rescue demonstration, kids’ activities, Stories of the Sea, Career Day and a container ship full of family fun.   There is no charge for any of these events. Maritime_Fest_20110422[1]

The efforts of the Port of Seattle and the Downtown Waterfront are huge contributors to the high quality of life we enjoy in this city.  We hope you’ll check out the Maritime Festival.  We’ve come a long way in 100 years, and we’re sailing full steam ahead into an exciting future.

(Photos of Fisherman’s Terminal 2, Container Ship Terminal 19, SeaTac Aiport, Tugboat Races and Shilshole Bay Marina courtesy of the Port of Seattle)

Waterfront Seattle’s Meeting of the Minds – All of Them

 

The Waterfront Seattle project’s February 17^th public meeting was expected to bring out only 100-150 attendees, but a whopping 960 turned out for the event, filling all areas of the Seattle Aquarium plus a tent set up outside.

With a theme of “What Makes a Good Waterfront?”, it was pretty clear by the end of the presentation that how to develop the Central Waterfront will be a Seattle hot -button for some years to come. Lead Designer James Corner of james corner field operations was the keynote speaker.  They are most renowned for designing High Line, an urban park set on top of an old railroad structure in New York.  This link to a recent AIA Seattle  article contains interviews with the principals involved.

Along with questionnaires asking for audience opinions of what they want/don’t want in a waterfront, Corner’s firm is also working with up to ten different groups, or Stakeholders, for their input.  They are, in order of presentation:

Neighbors:  representatives from all Central Seattle neighborhoods plus Magnolia and West Seattle

Entrepreneurs:  includes for-profit and nonprofit developers plus startup companies

Business Owners:  Waterfront venues, Pike Place Market, Seattle Chamber of Commerce

Commuters:  car ferries, motorists, bicyclists, pedestrians

Greens:  nature experts, environmentalists plus those concerned with salmon and wildlife

Shippers & Builders: Port of Seattle plus shipping industries

Tribes:  Muckleshoot, Suquamish, Duwamish

Visitors: includes tourism venues, hotels, Seattle Convention and Visitors Bureau

Creatives:  involved with Arts and Culture, plus Seattle Parks and Recreation

Sports Teams:  Mariners and Seahawks organizations

Corner acknowledged there have been struggles for all parties to come to a consensus in forming a plan regarding the Waterfront, but is positive that differences will be resolved.  We only hope the Stakeholders remember the overlying theme of “A Waterfront for All”, and that all factions will need to do some give and take in order to do what’s best for the City of Seattle.

Waterfront Seattle spans 26 blocks, running from Olympic Sculpture Park (Broad Street) to the sports stadiums (King Street area).  Redevelopment will take approximately eight years to complete. This waterfront timeline shows the schedules for the Waterfront, Elliott Bay Seawall Project, and the proposed SR99 Bored Tunnel projects.

Another public meeting will be scheduled in May where a first draft of the Central Waterfront design should be ready for review.  We plan to attend that, so stay tuned. 

You can follow Waterfront Seattle’s progress, and can still voice your opinions. Click on the City of Seattle’s new Waterfront site.  Select “Answer” to “What Makes a Great Waterfront?” to provide your own ideas. Choose the video link to watch the full 76-minute presentation of February 17th, produced by the Seattle Channel. You’ll find tapings of past meetings and presentations here as well.  Finally, waterfrontseattle.org  also has links in Facebook and Twitter.

Central Waterfront – The Lead Design Winner & Why

From an initial field of 30 companies, the City of Seattle announced on September 21 that the award-winning firm of  james corner field operations will serve as the lead designer over 20 acres of public lands for Seattle’s new Central Waterfront. Whittled down to a field of four, they made their pitches for the project at Benaroya Hall on September 15. We were in a crowd of nearly 1,300 and watched founder James Corner lead the presentation for his group.

Although the firm is based in New York, Corner is a native of Manchester, England. He made comparisons of the work heritage of the Seattle piers to those in Manchester, making an immediate connection that he understood the heart of both. They also presented a video clip where they interviewed people at the piers, asking them for their vision of what they’d like to have done at the waterfront. It was an interesting bit because it was hard to hear the responses with the viaduct  traffic noise in the background, but perhaps it also served to reinforce another reason why the structure needs to come down.  A compelling visual presentation drawing the audience’s imagination towards the possibilities of what the marriage of a working waterfront with an urban space, or as he referred to it, “Seattle’s Front Porch” completed their time on stage, and they ended to a hearty round of applause.

Founded by James Corner in 1998, james corner field operations is a leading-edge landscape architecture/urban design practice known for strong contemporary design across many project lines. Its signature project to date is the High Line in New York City. Formerly an old elevated railroad track on Manhattan’s West Site, it was transformed into 1 ½ miles of grass, trees, benches and pathways. The project won the firm the 2010 National Design Award for landscape design and the American Society of Landscape Architects 2010 Honor Award.

The firm will work with the Central Waterfront Partnerships Committee and there will be plenty of interaction involving public outreach and meetings. Design work begins in October, with a conceptual plan to be finished in  2012. A final design will be decided by 2015, with construction scheduled from 2016 to 2018. Four of their eleven design team partners are based in Seattle and they are:  Mithun, The Berger Partnership, Herrera, and Jason Toft.  We’ll stay in touch as the project develops.

What Happened at the Waterfront: The Final Four Presentations

Seattle civic involvement was alive and well on Wednesday evening, September 15^th when an audience of  1,200+ filled the main floor of Benaroya Hall’s S. Mark Taper Foundation Auditorium and overflowed into the Founders tier level. All were gathered to listen to the presentations of the final four candidates in the running for Lead Designer of Seattle’s Central Waterfront . Their goal was to present, in 20 minutes, their vision of transforming what will be 20 acres of public lands into “a waterfront for the ages—a place for all to come together and enjoy the waterfront now and beyond” as expressed by moderator Daniel Friedman, Dean of the University of Washington’s College of Architecture and Urban Planning.

We have supplied weblinks for each company, and here’s what they had to say, in speaking order:

Wallace Roberts & Todd – Ignacio Bunster-Ossa, Principal, led the presentation.  WRT created a new waterfront, revitalizing seven miles of the Delaware River, in its hometown of Philadelphia .  Their goal is to bring water into the city, bring the city to the water, and create a heart of the city reflecting the vibrancy of Seattle.  They bring a concept of “What has been, What is, What if, and What will be” to the project and visualize the Waterfront as “an open book written over time”.

james corner field operations – James Corner led the presentation.  Most renowned for designing High Line, an urban park set on top of an old railroad structure in New York. A number of Seattle consultants are involved. They refer to the Waterfront as Seattle’s front porch, and their well-done visual presentation outlined their goals for Green Urbanism, Early Wins (start changing the Waterfront NOW), and Public Engagement.

Michael Van Valkenburgh Associates –Michael Van Valkenburgh led the presentation.  Designed Brooklyn Bridge Park, which will cover 85 acres and 1.3 miles of waterfront. On their team is architect and former Seattle councilman Peter Steinbrueck.  Their goal is to integrate concepts of “Civic, Boundless, Natural and Urban”. They presented their historical research on the Waterfront and were the only ones to really hone in on fiscal feasibility… they ensure the plan we’ll have is a plan we can maintain.

Gustafson Guthrie Nichol –Shannon Nichol led the presentation. Designed Lurie Garden in Chicago’s Millennium Park, but they were the only ones with a global project map, and the only ones who ran through an extensive array of past projects. Their concept is: “The City on the water, with a Bay as its central point and an entire Downtown as its Waterfront”. They were the only ones to mention the earthquake factor.  As the sole finalist headquartered in Seattle, they received a very warm reception.

A decision is expected shortly and we’ll bring it to you when it’s made. If you’d like to follow the news and the current chatter on the project, link onto

http://www.seattle.gov/DPD/Planning/Central_Waterfront/Overview/

http://www.facebook.com/note.php?note_id=467138365241
or  “#seattlewaterfront” on Twitter hashtag. 

To watch the presentations for yourself, below is a Powerpoint link to them, plus a link to raw video footage from the Seattle Channel.

PowerPoint Presentations: http://www.seattle.gov/transportation/waterfront_design.htm

Video Footage: http://www.seattlechannel.org/videos/video.asp?ID=5011031

Your Chance to Weigh in on the Central Waterfront

From a field of 30 applications, the City of Seattle has narrowed the list of lead designers for the Central Waterfront to four firms.  All of them have strong experience nationally and globally, a deep pool of designer expertise, and multiple design awards. We’ve provided links to their websites so you can check them out. They are:

Gustafson Guthrie Nichol – Based in Seattle with an office in London, GGN was founded by partners Kathryn Gustafson, Jennifer Guthrie, and Shannon Nichol. 

james corner field operations – Based in New York and founded by James Corner.

Michael Van Valkenburgh Associates – Based in Brooklyn, NY with an office in Cambridge, MA and founded by Michael Van Valkenburgh.

Wallace Roberts & Todd – Based in Philadelphia, with seven offices nationwide. Founded by David A. Wallace, William Roberts and Thomas Todd (fka Wallace McHarg Roberts & Todd).

The winning team will lead the designing of over nine acres of new Central Waterfront public space and a new surface street on Alaskan Way. Design work begins in October and will run until 2015, with construction scheduled from 2016 to 2018.

Want to see what these firms have in mind, ask questions, and weigh in on your top pick?  Public presentations are scheduled for Wednesday, September 15 at Benaroya Hall’s S. Mark Taper Foundation Auditorium (200 University Street, Seattle) from 7:00 p.m. to 10:00 p.m. All four firms will present their credentials, explain their approach to this project, and answer questions from the public. The City will select the lead designer shortly after this event, in part based on the quality of these presentations and their ability to engage the crowd.

Can’t make it to Presentation Night?  The Stroupe Group website will keep you informed on the winner!