from The Everything App…Marshawn Lynch riding a bike to Lumen

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— Rock Me Amadeus Ex Machina (@mikeall.bsky.social) January 25, 2026 at 3:04 PM

At that game, the Seahawks punched their ticket to the Superbowl, which is taking place in Santa Clara, California, just south of Lynch’s native Oakland, where he’s also no stranger to two-wheeled transportation. As Seahawks fan are all too familiar, the team is looking for redemption against the New England Patriots, who defeated them in their last Super Bowl appearance in 2015, after the coaching staff opted to try a pass play in the final seconds of the game, rather than just give the ball to their dominant running back in Lynch. The pass was intercepted, dooming the Seahawks’ comeback attempt.

Today, the Seahawks find themselves favorites to win, but 2015 proved there are no sure things, even when the ball is on the one-yard line and Marshawn is in your backfield.

Lynch has remained beloved by fans and a continuing presence via his cameo appearances on numerous shows and movies, known for his love of bicycles and all around having a good time. The former football star has done a number of these “ride out” events with SE Bikes, including a tour of Tokyo, where critical mass rides are less common. Maybe it won’t stay that way for long!

The post Sunday Video: Marshawn Lynch Bikes to Victory, Seattle Seahawks Superbowl Edition first appeared on The Urbanist.

When complete, the new facility will complete a loop between Thomas Street, the main east-west connection to Seattle Center through South Lake Union, and the highly used Fourth Avenue protected bike lane. In contrast with the other major bike corridor on Second Avenue, which skirts around the Seattle Center campus, this project will directly connect riders with its front door.

SDOT is citing a goal of encouraging 80% of future FIFA match attendees to arrive at their events without a private vehicle as a major goal of extending this connection. But when it comes to permanent infrastructure upgrades on Seattle streets intended to improve mobility ahead of FIFA events, it’s a bit of an outlier.

While next summer’s soccer matches are being treated a major deadline to complete projects already in progress around the region — with Sound Transit’s 2 Line light rail connection across Lake Washington at the top of the list — new ones are harder to come by. While King County Metro is preparing to add a shuttle bus for attendees between the stadiums, central downtown, and the waterfront, the city doesn’t plan any additional bus lanes to complement them, nor additional protected bike lanes around south downtown. An improvement that would have decreased bus delays along the Third Avenue bus mall was officially put on ice after initially planned to coincide with FIFA.

Unlike normal high-demand events at Lumen Field, the six FIFA matches will include additional security measures that translate to less on-site parking directly at the stadium, increasing the necessity to provide additional multimodal options.

Seattle Center’s fan zone is set to be a major destination for the 750,000 Seattle visitors expected for FIFA events. The fan zone is one of 10 planned in different cities across the state. Lumen Field itself can only accommodate 69,000 spectators, so the Seattle Center campus will essentially act as the overflow zone, with a new state law around alcohol access making it much easier to turn the entire area into a beer garden.

Seattle Center’s new connection is set to include one additional block of two-way bike lane along the west side of Fourth Avenue between Vine Street and Cedar Street, before a diagonal crossing to the east side of the street north of Cedar. These diagonal crossings, common across the broader bike network, have proven pretty unpopular with bike riders, with long light cycles usually needed to get riders from one side of the street to the other.

At Denny Way, right turns across the bike lane will be banned, with drivers directed to use Cedar Street to access eastbound Denny Way instead.

On the other side of Denny, the two-way bike lane will replace of a row of back-angle parking alongside Fisher Plaza, continuing up to Broad Street. There it will navigate the trickiest intersection along the stretch, at the loop driveway at the Space Needle leading to the valet parking area. At this intersection, SDOT proposes a new all-way crossing cycle fully separating walkers and rollers from drivers, but as one of the busiest pedestrian crossings in the city, implementing this will make or break the project.

Finally, at Thomas Street riders will use the existing walk cycle to either head eastbound toward South Lake Union or west into Seattle Center. This project coincides with Seattle’s Center’s plans to revitalize the Thomas Street pedestrian corridor to “improve the streetscape, strengthen the connection to surrounding neighborhoods, and create a welcoming and exciting experience for visitors.” As the major way for people walking and biking to connect directly through the civic campus to get to Uptown, that change could be a significant improvement, if done right.

With this connection built, it should turn an additional connection on Fifth Avenue N into a layup: there are even a few hundred feet of protected bike lane on that street already. But the major renovation of Memorial Stadium, a joint venture of the City of Seattle, Seattle Public Schools, and the private One Roof Foundation, is set to leave the expanse of surface parking along Fifth fully intact and the bike network disconnected.

The Belltown to Seattle Center Connection Project is still in early design, with construction set to be fully completed by next summer’s six world cup matches.

The post Bike Lane Proposal Would Connect Seattle Center FIFA Fan Zone first appeared on The Urbanist.

Some Parisians and French residents have greeted hosting duties with chagrin, and even consternation and anger. While Paris’s bid offers a promising example of French public planning, transit-oriented development (TOD), and public private partnership, it’s also faced strong criticism due to concerns about gentrification and greenwashing. 

The Olympic Village is a case in point. Built as infill development on the urban fringe with a mix of public and social housing and the needs of Greater Paris in mind, the Olympic Village aims to be a symbol of French planning and building prowess. While there are many concerns about the Olympics, the Olympic Village may be a model for building social, sustainable, and transit-oriented development for American planners and citizens.

Paris, a city famous for its urban regeneration, is attempting to use the Olympics as a means to an end and overcome the de-industrialized rust belt around the city’s exterior. Much of the Games’ infrastructure and programs will be located outside of the city limits, in areas that have been traditionally neglected economically — the Seine-Saint-Denis and Plaine Commune, in particular. While the promises of the Olympic promoters to reinvest in the area and create a better quality of life are on the surface noble, they also present a challenge to avoid displacement of low-income residents, environmental damage, and social conflict.

The Olympics have long come under scrutiny for the pressure the Games have placed on cities to invest in temporary venues and amenities over the host city’s long term needs. As a result, the International Olympics Committee (IOC) has attempted to reform itself so that the Games will fit to the spatial needs of the Paris region. 

“[T]he extant literature has established that hosting commonly results in a variety of injurious outcomes for cities,” Swiss geographer Sven Daniel Wolfe wrote in 2023. “These range from broken budgets and private profit at the expense of the public … to gentrifications, evictions, and white elephant infrastructures, occurring regardless of national or political economic cultures… This harm is often most visible in the host city spaces selected for intervention.”

In the face of this backlash, the IOC has attempted significant reforms to try and meet the needs of the host city. Much coverage and promotion of the Olympic Games by the IOC, Solideo (France’s public Olympics delivery authority), and the French and Paris governments stress the lack of white elephant projects, the focus on sustainability, and using the Games to meet the needs of the Paris region rather than the Games.

One of the most high-profile environmental efforts was the $1.5 billion cleanup of the long-polluted Seine River, which included improvements to Paris’s stormwater retention and sewer system. Aimed at allowing the Seine to host the swimming portion of the triathlon, the project could have benefits for the whole watershed that long outlast the Games — even as triathlon has been delayed after heavy rains temporarily spiked pollution in the river.

Yonah Freemark, a U.S.-based researcher with the Urban Institute, said that Paris has made some strides in using the Olympic Games to promote lasting urban renewal rather than a fleeting economic boost at great expense. 

“Compared to previous Olympics, the Paris Olympics certainly has resulted in significantly less Olympics-focused infrastructure,” Freemark told The Urbanist. “There was no effort to build a new stadium, they were able to take advantage of the existing stadium, the new investments that have been made like this swimming centre are pretty minor. There just aren’t that many of them. You know, you see places like Sydney or Beijing that rebuilt entire sections that are city built gigantic new sports facilities that just was not the case in Paris.”

Olympic Village Eco-Quarter

One of the few permanent pieces of infrastructure is the Olympic Village. Built by Solideo with governance from the state, the Paris region and the city itself, the site features a variety of mixed-used development to meet the needs of Paris’s housing supply. A former brownfield on what was a largely industrial area, the village is an example of new urban development. The complex is vast and spans nearly 100 acres over three municipalities in Northern Paris. A giant sustainability-focused eco-quarter popular with French urban planners and architects, the village is bisected between the Seine and connected by a pedestrian bridge, which should also benefit future residents and help them get around without a motor vehicle.

Located near several metro stops, the village is the home for an estimated 15,000 athletes. A variety of housing designs are built into the new neighborhood to make the area feel organic and unique. In style, it is designed similarly to other French Eco Quartiers: relatively dense neighborhoods which use environmentally friendly building methods. Olympic Village buildings heavily used wood over concrete. Solar panels and gardens line the roofs, and after the Games these buildings will be converted into mixed-use housing and office space to create economic activity and social mix.

After the Games, the village will be home to 6,000 future residents located near Central Paris with ample access to rapid transit. The village will include: “6,000 residents, 6,000 office workers, two schools, two crèches [nursery/daycare], 1 new gym, plus a newly renovated gym, a large public space, improved access to the river and to Rue St Denis, a renovated high school, a grand ‘parc urbain’ or urban park, a fire department, a mixed use shopping and health facilities, and five lines of transport: [the RER] and lines 14, 15, 16, and 17 of the Grand Paris Express.” (translated by author)

Between 25% to 40% of the housing will also be turned into public housing to help handle Paris’s cost of living goals. The percentage is based on the various municipalities’ needs. France’s national government requires that cities hit ambitious affordable housing targets, and these goals have been heightened through cooperation with Paris and nearby municipalities. Although social housing is a subject of debate in contemporary politics, French urban planning laws require greater accountability for municipalities to meet social housing objectives than in the U.S. 

In Greater Paris, much of this housing work is being done through multiple layers of governance, both from the top down and horizontally. The City of Paris has worked with its nearby municipalities closely for the past 20 years or more and with private funding from developers as well. This is a massive collaborative effort that incorporates strategic territorial planning to meet the needs of Paris and its citizens.

Compared to the U.S., the amount of work being put into public housing is remarkable. The village is a walkable, transit-rich large-scale infill development with much of the housing offered below the market rate. The scale of the project for social housing is something American cities have sometimes struggled to build. The Paris Olympic Village is a change from previous Olympic Villages in France, such as the Grenoble Olympic Village of 1968 – a garden city largely made out of cinder blocks, currently in a state of neglect in part due to its isolation from the rest of Grenoble. The new village is largely constructed out of wood when possible, and is meant to be a green, walkable eco-village. 

The Olympic Village could be a case study for American cities on how to develop social housing connected to transit projects, as the village will be next to the Pleyel Junction, the new Aquatic Centre, and Stade de France, the national stadium built for the 1998 FIFA World Cup. Hopes are high that this area will become a major hub of economic activity like La Défense or Les Halles.

Criticism of Olympic development 

Not everyone has bought into the hype, however. Concerns about the ecological impact of the games as well as gentrification have been protested by the anti-Olympic group Saccage (which in French means devastation). Largely led by local residents, the organisation has called the Olympics unaffordable and likely to lead to the expulsion of working class residents.

“The various devastations caused by the Olympic Games only accelerate the ecological problems and social injustices in our cities, and deprive us of the means to decide collectively about what surrounds us,” Saccage said (translated from French).

Critics have other concerns with the site, particularly its location for social housing right next to one of the most polluted highways in France. The high price of private housing for sale in the village has also drawn criticism.

Now that the Games have commenced, what was an industrial wasteland a decade ago is now a new neighborhood that will be home for thousands of permanent residents. We do not know how it will be looked upon by its residents and whether it will be remembered as a successful step in modern French urban planning in the long run. Will public housing, transit-oriented development, and ecological restoration, prove a successful and thriving model for the rest of the world to follow? Or will it end up with a mixed reputation like that of previous post war banlieues and other new towns master-planned from scratch and imposed on communities? It will take time, and no doubt the lived experiences of the residents to find out if it will be successful in the end.

The Olympic Village is a case study of transit-oriented development and public housing. The approach to make a mixed use neighborhood that has public housing and transit are things worth implementing for American cities looking to rezone, infill, and promote large public housing projects. It also shows an Olympics based on avoiding wasteful ‘white elephant’ spending, and it’s a model that we should expect to see followed in Los Angeles in 2028.

To quote Yonah Freemark, “I think that [the focus on avoiding less useful projects] is a reflection of the new approach to Olympics Games [that] the International Olympics Committee has tried to encourage. So from that perspective, I think it’s a good thing.”

The post Paris Hopes to Forge a New Model for Olympics-Oriented Development first appeared on The Urbanist.

A few years ago, I decided to mix things up and took my kids on the bus to Yesler Terrace Park. With spectacular views, streetcars rolling by, and a lot of great urbanism, I found it to be an incredible addition to our park rotation. It has a whimsical playground with slides, hills to sled down, a sweet merry-go-round, and a great coffee shop nearby to help me wake up that morning.

But the best thing about Yesler Terrace Park? The mini soccer pitch.

There were people of all ages, backgrounds, and skill level waiting their turn to get on the pitch. The smaller scale allowed full games to go on even with just a handful of players. It was so captivating to watch with the ball movement, tricks, and quick action. There was a sense of community, comradery, and activity around this nucleus of the park.

The skill and one-on-ones reminded me of the classic Nike soccer commercial featuring legends of the game competing in a sudden death three-on-three tournament. Small fields not only take up less space, they allow more games to spring up when you only have two or three aside, and the number of touches on the ball gives people more time to develop their skills and show off their abilities.

Soccer brings communities together

The pitch is part of the RAVE Foundation, a Sounders-affiliated charity that built the mini pitch in the community. It was designed knowing that soccer — or football (depending on where you’re from) — is an international language that brings global communities together. People of all ages, genders, ethnicities, and skill levels play. The demographics of Yesler Terrace feature people from all backgrounds, origins, economic statuses. The pitch is part of their sense of community.

When Belgium welcomed international migration, planners located soccer pitches centered around parks and housing to help immigrants assimilate. This was to make newcomers feel comfortable, welcomed, and meet each other no matter if you spoke French, Flemish, Italian, or Arabic. Everyone speaks the same language when the ball is at your feet. This led to Belgium’s golden generation — children of immigrants from Africa, the Middle East, South America, and elsewhere in Europe — bringing the Belgians to greater heights than ever achieved in the global game. They currently sit fourth in FIFA’s world rankings.

Seattle parks needs more active uses

Seattle doesn’t really design parks for activity, it designs them for open space and silence. This isn’t a knock on peaceful serenity parks provide in an urban setting. But let’s be flat honest with ourselves. A park is supposed to be full and active; open space is supposed to be quiet and empty. And most of our parks are too quiet and too inactive.

Lake Union Park should be the center of activity and action for the city’s dense downtown neighborhoods. But it’s mostly filled with vast gravel pathways, small trees, and geese walking around relieving themselves. Sure, this is serene to some, but a little bit of space can go a long way to fill it with people and activity.

We don’t see parks as a center of activity here in Seattle. We design them as large open lawns where someone can walk among the birds chirping or stroll through a meadow with their dog. We need more spaces for people, not dogs and birds, to play downtown.

But perhaps park planners are simply responding to the feedback they receive. Pickleball courts are being protested in West Seattle, and people don’t want to touch our golf courses near light rail. Try turning a public golf course into a park and people make heartfelt excuses that they are a part of nature and bird migration patterns and simply cannot be turned into a public space that has no financial burden to experience.

Heck, we don’t even allow vendors into our parks. This is because Seattle parks are designed to be lowly attended, to only sit quietly and gaze at a tree, but what they really should be are community plazas of recreation, commerce, and activity.

We can make parks vibrant, and it won’t take up much space

Imagine if RAVE Sports built mini soccer pitches in Lake Union Park. We may see a soccer match pickup during lunch or on a nice weekend. And it doesn’t need to be limited to soccer. We could put up basketball courts, pickleball courts, tennis courts, a playground, you name it, and this park would suddenly come to life. On a warm summer day, you would see more people on Lake Union’s waterfront than you would at Golden Gardens or Alki Beach. This can also reactivate Downtown Seattle and already have activated Pier 62, with more waterfront improvements on the way.

With people at the park there is now a reason for venders to show up and sell ice cream, sandwiches, gyros, tacos, and spring rolls. There’s a reason for a farmers’ market to pop up, and not just because it was scheduled. Maybe someone will set up a small band to entertain the patrons. Parks bring out activity, life, and a sense of community through gathering. Open space is for a hike, a view, and a book; Seattle has plenty of those kinds of parks.

With more park acres per capita than Manhattan, surely we have the space for recreation. What our parks need are places for activity and celebrate our city’s diversity and cosmopolitan aspirations, and what better way to do that than a soccer pitch.

Seattle needs a pitch for every park

After returning to our local favorite, Sandel Park in Greenwood, I realized the concentration of activity was entirely on the playground and basketball court, not the acres of open lawn. Children’s soccer leagues will set up briefly in the lawn, and kids chase the ball on a small, coned off field playing three-on-three or four-on-four matches learning the game and practicing skills.

The problem is these fields are temporary and full of bumps and mud. Something tells me a RAVE Foundation field (or four) would work wonderfully here. The Yesler Terrace Park pitch is flat, turfed with fake grass, and drains. Five minutes after it rains — or even if it’s raining at the time — the field works out wonderfully for a match, ensuring the pitch is used year-round.

All our parks could easily fit several of these mini soccer pitches. These fields would be some of the most active spaces in every neighborhood. They would be used by youth leagues learning the game, and, after practice is over, become a hub of community activity with pickup games springing up at all different times.

Most major talents in the game were discovered on community pitches. Players in Brazil, Argentina, and Belgium didn’t come out of some expensive travel soccer team, they were discovered in their community’s backyard. Lionel Messi honed his skills on a community pitch in Rosario when he was discovered. Argentina hoisted the World Cup trophy last year solidifying Messi’s status as the greatest to ever play the game.

RAVE is on their way to build 26 community fields around the Seattle metro in time for the 2026 World Cup. With six matches scheduled for Seattle, just imagine if the city built many of these in city parks with hopes to grow the game. As the tournament gets closer and local interest grows, the game’s next American soccer star could be inspired to run out and play and be discovered in one of our parks. It would be a dream come true if Seattle’s parks became the plazas of our communities, a center of activity, gathering, and commerce. That’s a pitch I think we can all get behind.

The post Op-Ed: Parks Need More Mini Soccer Pitches, Fewer Empty Lawns first appeared on The Urbanist.

New Years Day is always that threshold for whether it’s a wrapup of the prior year or stage setting for the new. One too many things left undone (or strong beers before midnight) can make the turn of the calendar foreboding rather than fun.

As far as major events go, Seattle’s 2023 was pretty good, as the city hosted baseball’s All Star Game, concerts for Taylor Swift and Beyoncé, and the Kraken’s first playoff run in the hockey franchise’s second season. The sports outcomes were not always what we wanted, but they were entertaining. Big waves of visitors downtown lasted all summer.

Fun continued into the new year as the NHL Winter Classic was played at T-Mobile Park. Seattle stepped up for the game. The team, the stadium, and the city came out looking fantastic. The show and surrounding party also gave a glimpse to how things could work a lot better around Climate Pledge Arena and Seattle Center.

A Classic Winter Classic

Start with the sports. Behind ascending goalie Joey Daccord, the Kraken shut out the defending champion Las Vegas Golden Knights 3 to 0. The players arrived in style, with the Kraken in fishing overalls and the Vegas players going full Elvis. The win and strong goalie play was such a boost. It’s been a faltering start to the team’s third year, one I’ve taken personally as last year’s Blue Line Curse saw fit to continue through autumn.

Dressing up T-Mobile as a hockey venue was glorious. While a hockey rink will consume most of a baseball diamond, there’s still an acre of outfield to deal with. The team doubled down on the maritime theme with fishing docks and a smaller rink for kids hockey. The band Heart came out to play two songs during the first intermission (you can guess). From the almost affordable seats on the 300 level, the sightlines worked to make for a fun game to watch. The attendance of 47,313 almost triples the capacity of the Kraken’s regular home at Climate Pledge Arena (CPA). The many Dippin’ Dots stands, not as useful in 46º weather, also sold souvenir cups of hot chocolate. 

Most importantly, we got there early enough to actually get MOTO pizzas without spending half the game in line. Phenomenal. For those who like crusts and spice (i.e. not cowards) the pizzas are worth buying a ticket to the ballpark. Made in the Detroit form – rectangular and covered in enough cheese to deep fry the dough below – the ballpark versions are two phone-sized pieces of all crusty edges and flavor for $20. The “Kissd” with sausage, pepperoni, and spicy honey is fully a journey per piece. Just some of the best pizza in town, beyond superb stadium food.

And the city was great. Like a normal ballgame, Occidental Avenue was completely open for pedestrians and hot dog vendors. People were in a great mood, Seattleites almost greeting one another verbally in public. The weather cooperated, rolling back the morning’s marine layer and showing the venue and downtown in sunbreaks and wisps of blue sky. 

So much about the Winter Classic worked. It was a celebration of Seattle icons and iconic. Team had a great showing. Legends were cheered as they introduced past players from many sports. It was a great warm up to later in the day when Husky Football won the Sugar Bowl and advanced to the National Championship. And all on the eve of the most important event of the year: my birthday.

Some Rough Edges to Hockey in a Ballpark

Leaving open the important question, did we celebrate the last gasp of the old or ring in the new? Was the Winter Classic a 2023 hangover or a worthy kickoff for 2024 and beyond? 

Let’s consider the few things that fell flat for the Winter Classic. The lines sucked. And there were lines everywhere. The NHL Fan Village on the parking lot north of Lumen Field required a separate pass to enter, which came as a nondescript email. The line to get in once you had a pass stretched the entire length of Lumen Field. We skipped it, and don’t regret it. Everyone one who did go in said they got to do one thing inside – interactive game, beverage, picture with the Stanley Cup – then had to leave for time.

The lines repeated inside the ballpark. It’s understandable that, when you’re opening an enormous venue for just one event in the middle of the off season, some things won’t be available. Draft soda and beer was no-go, as all the machines were flushed and sealed for the year. Souvenir stands were huge waits. Food concessions faltered and ran out of many favorites before the third period. The concourses were mobbed, shoulder-to-shoulder trudges.

But there were fairly short lines at the bathrooms, which is weird because the number of restrooms seems proportional to CPA, and there are fewer chances during two hockey intermissions versus at least 16 breaks at baseball. 

Timed intermissions are not the only separation, as baseball and hockey are opposite ends of the pro sports calendar. Having an outside plus-sized day game at the ballpark for an indoor winter evening sport like hockey gives us some interesting insights. They are points that extend to other winter sports too, like eventually NBA basketball returning to Seattle.

Bringing Light and Playfulness Across Town

Daylight alone changes the feel of being in the city, and the sports seasons are impacted by it. It’s easy to hit a bar and grab food during the summer when it’s daylight during the baseball game, and possibly after. (Thank you pitch clock.) The party on Occidental Avenue is normal for 81 home baseball games. Having the party for hockey, along with the (still packed) Fan Village, were only accessible because the Winter Classic was a noon game that ended by 3pm. 

The ease of enjoying ourselves around the ballpark for the hockey game was notable. We take for granted the easy outdoor party for baseball in the summer. That it isn’t available to a regular weeknight hockey game is suddenly kind of crushing. And, by extension, it wouldn’t be for a returned Sonics team who would also be playing through the Dark Wet Seattle winter.

It goes beyond event stuff or bar hopping. Just taking a child to the game is challenging. It’s difficult to move through the city with a kid at night, use transit, and find appropriate places to grab a bite to eat. The kids see all of the troubles that people experience on the bus. The few bars that are open don’t let them in. During the summer, we can walk a few blocks to catch the next ride, find a food truck, or even huff it home. Not as easy in January. We’re not going to see a weeknight hockey game START before sunset until we change the clocks again. 

The area around Climate Pledge has slowly improved since we declared it not ready for the Sonics a year and a half ago. Restaurants have opened further into the neighborhood, including filling gaps on Roy Street and 1st Avenue. Transit leaving the games is still irregular and slow, but the 1st Avenue bus lane is almost, sometimes obeyed by car drivers.

Unfortunately, Uptown is still a lot of long walks into nothing. Seattle Center is a post-game deadzone on two sides of the venue. The renovation of Memorial Stadium doesn’t look to correct that. One Roof Foundation, an offshoot of the Oak View Group that built CPA, promises a “student centered non-commercial” approach to build “a stadium in a park” to replace the Seattle Schools’ aging stadium. That might not be what the area needs if it’s more closed gates at night.

While the neighborhood slowly picks up, eating inside the arena has become more difficult. I have spent a lot of words declaring CPA’s food to be top notch. I will still stand by my assessment that they’re giving top notch effort trying to be interesting. Pricy seats have amazing choices, vegetarian options are bountiful, and nontraditional chowders and potatoes are tasty. 

Unfortunately CPA is getting the basics wrong. The snack shelves look picked over at the beginning of every game and shrinkflation has hit the bagged popcorn HARD. The prevalence of grab-and-go makes the Kraken’s permanent home feel as temporary as no-drafts, all cans at the winter game in the ballpark. Ice cream is still difficult to find and removing the souvenir cups wrecks any easy options for kids. The super greasy burger place right at the front door makes CPA’s beautiful atrium smell terrible. And the pizza at the arena doesn’t stand a chance next to MOTO at the ballpark. There’s like five pizza places at CPA, including a Ballard Pizza Company outpost. Nope, not a chance. 

Winter Classic Cocktail Thinking

Bringing the Winter Classic to Seattle was a coup for the team and the city. If this event is just the end of 2023, the sight of the Mariner’s home diamond transformed into the Kraken’s home ice could be a worthy capper to a pretty interesting year in Seattle. 

Or it could be the start of something even more incredible. The Winter Classic was an amazing chance to find unexpected delights in different places. Having the icy winter night sport brought out into open air daylight shows us some of the things we didn’t know we were missing. An Occidental Avenue style pedestrian plaza stretching into Queen Anne or Uptown. More cheap hot chocolate and snack options. Liveliness and affordability to be more inviting to families. That’s when the city will be ready for the Sonics to return.

Designating New Years Day as the beginning of something new isn’t easy. It rings too much of resolutions, and we avoid those. Instead, let’s say that the Winter Classic gave us a brand new cocktail, a surprise mix that we’re going to spend the year perfecting. A little bit more baseball around my hockey, in the hopes of ending up with a great place for basketball too.

The post The NHL Winter Classic Can Accelerate Seattle’s Sonics Boom first appeared on The Urbanist.

The groundwork for the event was set years ago, when Glendale, Arizona’s State Farm Stadium was selected as the neutral site for the game. The 17-year old stadium hosted one previous Super Bowl back in 2008, a mere two years after opening as home for the Arizona Cardinals, who had been playing at the University of Arizona’s Sun Devil Stadium. The NFL does not like being a tenant in a college field.

Which brings us to this Sunday Video where former Secretary of Labor Robert Reich does a fantastic explainer on the playbook that billionaires use to extract money from municipalities. Tax waivers and straight up cash abound as the ultra-rich threaten to relocate the teams they aggressively market as part of the community. Like a good neighbor, State Farm is there to put naming rights on the building whose owner wants a municipal hand out.

The video includes a special shout out to union buster Howard Schultz and his relocation of the Seattle Sonics. Enjoy the commercials, everyone.

The post Super Bowl Sunday Video: The Dark Side of Sports Stadiums first appeared on The Urbanist.

The post Sunday Video: The Most Urbanist Soccer Arenas In North America first appeared on The Urbanist.

The Seattle Mariners will be playing in major league baseball’s postseason for the first time since 2001. With a walk-off home run on Friday night, the team clinched its position in the championship tournament. Their appearance as a wild card team ends the longest active playoff drought in men’s professional sports.

Of course, baseball being what it is, this is only the sixth longest MLB playoff drought of all time.

Two decades is an eternity in sports and life and a city. Seattle is different than it was in 2001. The luster has worn off what were brand new stadiums. The seats look out on a taller skyline. And a more people are around to enjoy the game. Let’s look back for a moment.

The Seattle Mariners’ last playoff appearance took place in a new stadium and city on the verge of change. After opening Safeco Field halfway through 1999, the team found success in 2000, and made the playoffs as a Wild Card team. After defeating the Chicago White Sox in the division series, the Mariners lost to the ever detestable New York Yankees. In the off season, the Mariners lost shortstop and admitted steroid user Alex Rodriguez.

Nonetheless, the 2001 Seattle Mariners won more games than any other team in MLB history other than the 1906 Chicago Cubs. But then six games in September were postponed due to the 9/11 terrorist attacks, and an early round playoff win against the Cleveland Indians let way to another loss to the Yankees, this time a team of verve and destiny who would eventually lose to Arizona.

A changed town

That’s the legend of 2001 in Seattle. Since then, reality on the ground has been interesting. Sports have been great, but for baseball and basketball. The neighborhoods have changed. The city has grown. The tempo is not what it was at the turn of the millennium.

Since 2001, Seattle has added more than 150,000 people, growing by almost 25%. The metro region has added just under a million at about the same rate. Those arriving are working differently. Amazon and Microsoft passed Boeing as the state’s largest employers in 2019. Boeing has not been headquartered in the Evergreen State since 2001 when it moved to Chicago. It’s been long enough, in fact, that the fickle airplane manufacturer is moving its headquarters again, this time closer to federal regulators in Arlington, Virginia.

In the decade leading up to the Mariner’s last playoff appearance, there were very few tall buildings constructed in Seattle. Since then, 30 towers of heights over 400 feet have filled in the distance between the ballpark and the Space Needle. The tallest of these is Rainier Square Tower with its curved east facade rising to 850 feet. For five years of the last 20, Seattle had the most construction cranes of any city in the United States.

The McGuire Apartments saga occurred and passed into memory during the Mariners’ postseason drought. The 25-story Belltown building opened in 2001. Its construction flaws were discovered four years later, and it was demolished by 2010. The open lot has since been developed with 250 apartments, a hotel, and a Bartell Drugs.

Fans are not getting to the ballpark the same way either. Seattle voters approved light rail in 1996, but construction did not get underway until 2002. Since then, 19 stations have been added along the Link’s 1 Line, including the immensely convenient SoDo Station. During the playoff drought, two more voter initiatives were approved to expand the light rail system. The network will grow by two dozen stations over the next three years.

A changed sports town

Since the Mariners lost their ALCS playoff series in 2001, other Seattle teams have picked up some championship hardware. The Seattle Storm fit four WNBA championships, and Sue Bird’s entire career, in the last 21 years. The Seattle Sounders, which began playing six years after the Mariners last playoff win, picked up two MLS Cups. And the Seattle Seahawks got themselves one Lombardi Trophy in 2014 and gave up another one on the goal line a year later.

The Sonics have not done much, as they relocated to Oklahoma City and became the Thunder. Special hat tips and accordant gestures to Howard Schultz and David Stern for orchestrating the unpopular move. But a growing number of signs suggest the Sonics will be back soon.

In baseball, there is only one active player left from the 2001 season. That was Albert Pujols’ rookie year, and he just hit home run number 700th to punctuate his valedictory season. Eleven cities have opened new ballparks. One team — the (other) Washington Nationals — moved from Montreal, built a completely new ballpark, and won the World Series during the Mariner’s postseason drought. As a previous attender of games at Stade Olympique and appreciator of loonie dog night as well as the deafening slams of plastic seats in a brutalist concrete donut, I can definitively say that not having baseball in Quebec is an absolute loss.

For the Mariners, the world has changed too. In 2001, Edgar Martinez was in the lineup with Lou Piniella managing. Edgar played another three seasons. Piniella would manage another eight years, one for the Mariners, three for Tampa, and four for the Cubs. 2001 marked the debut of Ichiro Suzuki. The ten time All Star would spend 14 of his next 19 MLB years with the team, and post a gaudy 3,089 hits. Only 32 other players have reached the 3,000 hit plateau.

The 2001 Mariners are tied with the 1906 Chicago Cubs for the most wins ever in a season. Since then, the team has only broken 90 wins in a 162-game season three times. They’ve lost more games than they’ve won 12 times. 

Ownership of the team changed in 2016. Through a series of transfers of interests, long time minority owner John Stanton took control of First Avenue Entertainment from Nintendo of America. Longtime chair Howard Lincoln stepped down from the chairmanship. Since the last playoff berth, the team has had 10 managers and 5 general managers.

The Mariners are joining an expanded MLB playoff format. This is the first year that will see three Wild Card teams in the playoffs. Each league will have six teams playing for the championship, with the lowest four seeds in a three game series to decide who advances to play the 1- and 2-seeds. The playoffs have been expanded twice since the Mariners last participated.

A changed everything

Twenty years has seen dozens of baseball movies, surprisingly none starring Kevin Costner. There are terrible sequels to Air Bud and The Sandlot as well as a remake of the Bad News Bears. We had to suffer an attempt to make Jimmy Fallon a movie star in Fever Pitch. Chadwick Boseman broke out as Jackie Robinson in 42. And, of course, there was the great Moneyball which featured Brad Pitt eating and let everyone in on the secret that Kevin Youkilis was the Greek God Of Walks. Youkilis would spend his entire career in the majors without the Mariners getting to the playoffs.

During the draught, there have been four different actors playing Spiderman. (Spidermen?) Four different Supermans. (Supermen?) Iron Man became inevitable, as did the MCU juggernaut. More Star Wars movies were released during the drought than before. There was only one Fast and Furious movie the last time the Mariners were in the playoffs.

Moneyball does raise the specter of the way baseball has changed since the millennium. The Oakland A’s unique statistic methods — sabermetrics — was an outlier. Between the team’s perennially bottom dwelling payroll and the shadow cast by the San Francisco Giants, the Oakland A’s general manager Billy Beane was compelled to strategize differently. His team of Princeton economists then infiltrated the rest of baseball. Probably the best evidence of this is the advanced stats that get shown on Apple TV’s Friday night baseball broadcasts. 

Now, let’s reflect on that phrase for a moment. Try thinking about streaming a baseball game on Apple TV in 2001. The best selling phones in the early 2000’s were the Nokia candybars. The first BlackBerry smartphone was released in 2002. The first iPhone would not be released until 2007. Actually, the first iPod was released on October 23, 2001. That was the day after the Yankees defeated the Mariners in the ALCS.

And where were we as a people in September and October of 2001? That’s a truly difficult question. The fall started out pretty well, then it turned sideways real fast. I had the opportunity to visit the National 9/11 Memorial and Museum this summer. They do an excellent job keeping the atmosphere somber. They do a better job of separating the events of the day sectioned from the remembrance of those lost. Highly recommended, if you can visit.

I’ve also gotten to go to visit a particular farm in Iowa. This is the point where any reasonable baseball article would quote Field of Dreams. And, trust me, I can do the “People will come, Ray” speech by heart. For lots of reasons.

Unfortunately, too many people make a terrible mistake listening to James Earl Jones talk about the continuity of baseball. They think it’s about scraping back what’s gone by, and clutching it like a precious jeweled egg. People use the “America rolls by like an army of steam rollers” line to argue against change and justify toxic nostalgia or preservation at any cost. But that’s not why it’s important. After all, this is the same movie where Annie Kinsella mocks someone trying to ban books by saying, “I think you had two fifties and went right into the seventies.”   

The People Will Come speech is about connection, as is baseball. It’s a deliberate finding of the story, being able to take a spot today and work to the start of the thread. Hand over hand through reference and statistics and memory and the joy of listening to a game, the appeal of baseball memory is about discovering the joy of today and the hook to some point in the past. The gift isn’t only the old dusty package tied with a string. It’s knowing the route to get there. Seattle, as a very young city, does not have many of those kinds of threads. This fall’s return to the baseball playoffs is setting up to be one of them.

The post Mariners’ Victory Returns October Baseball to a Changed Seattle first appeared on The Urbanist.

Boeing had previously used the campus for its commercial aviation headquarters, but has moved and winded down operations and fenced the site. That left the Tukwila Station area, which abuts Renton to the east, as mostly empty and devoid of activity. The Boeing campus was also very much in the suburban office park mold: spread out, bound by collector roads and a freeway, and covered in huge surface parking lots with minimal pedestrian permeability. Before Boeing took over the site in 1992, Longacres was a horse racing track for nearly 60 years.

For an urban neighborhood of 6,000 residents to thrive, the grid will need to be filled in, particularly for pedestrians. Otherwise the site will end up feel rather isolated and car focused.

“We think there’s a really unique opportunity to create housing there on the train line,” Ned Carner, chief investment officer of Unico, said in an interview with Puget Sound Business Journal (PSBJ) ahead of the announcement. “(The Sounders) are going to have a really amazing state-of-the-art training facility which we think will breathe more life back into Longacres and create some energy there as we go to lease it up.”

Unico has a great deal of existing office space to fill on the campus. “The campus has two main buildings totaling over 900,000 square feet as well as some smaller buildings, including a day care center,” PSBJ’s Marc Stiles reported. “None of the commercial space will be demolished.”

Adding 3,000 homes on the site could in turn help support more retail and restaurants that made the offices seem less forlorn and disconnected from the surrounding cities.

Exactly what Unico has in mind for the housing development isn’t yet clear. No permit activity has been reported yet on the City of Renton site, but the project does appear in a “Highlighted Projects” page. A site plan rendering suggests a row of apartment buildings along the western edge of the site, but few details have been provided.

“The aim is to revitalize Boeing’s abandoned office campus and activate the 115 acre site with transit-oriented redevelopment, including updated office and new housing (3,458 residential units), retail, dining, recreational facilities, and open space amenities,” the Renton site noted, with a completion of the first phase of redevelopment expected in 2025, apparently.

“Unico’s master plan is built around the property’s two lakes and a mile-long walking path,” Stiles added in his piece. “Carner said it’s a 10-year business plan with an overall build-out cost ‘that would be likely in excess of $1 billion.'”

Geekwire also covered the announcement and attended the ceremonial groundbreaking for the Sounders FC facility with local dignitaries like King County Executive Dow Constantine and State Sen. Bob Hasegawa (D-Seattle). Geekwire‘s John Cook noted Renton has ambitions to join the tech boom that is transforming the downtown cores of Seattle and Bellevue 13 miles to the north, and said Carner talked up the I-405 freeway access, calling it “unparalleled.”

“The City of Renton has long worked to brandish its image, looking to attract high-growth employers as a diversification strategy from an economy once reliant on Boeing and aerospace,” Cook wrote. “As nearby Seattle and Bellevue burst at the seams, Renton could serve as an alternative tech destination.”

It’s also a racially diverse city, with more than half of the population identifying as people of color and/or Hispanic.

Renton hasn’t yet landed any major tech employers, Cook noted. In an earlier report, Stiles noted Renton was in one of the region’s worst-performing office submarkets. “Over a third of the office space in Renton and Tukwila was vacant despite a low average annual asking rental rate of $36.84 per square foot, according to JJL’s third quarter report,” Stiles wrote. “By comparison, the annual asking rate was $61.34 a foot around Seattle’s Lake Union, where around 15% of space was vacant.”

The city of about 107,000 has served as more of bedroom community for surrounding employment centers and it traditionally has offer some of the more moderately priced housing in the area. That is quickly changing as home prices skyrocket in Renton, as in many cities across the state. The average Renton home price has reached $716,750 after jumping a staggering 24.4% in one year, according to Zillow.

Adding 3,000 homes would be a welcome relief in such a supercharged market.

The post Unico Announces 3,000 Homes and Sounders FC Practice Complex at Renton’s Longacres Site first appeared on The Urbanist.

Skateboarding as a recreational activity and sport mostly started in cities using unique bits of infrastructure and public space to bring creativity and excitement in accomplishing tricks. Tony Hawk, a renowned skateboarder, talks with Vox about some of skateboarding’s most legendary spots, particularly in America.

The post Sunday Video: Skateboarding’s Legendary Spots first appeared on The Urbanist.