The new sports field is an opportunity to reimagine the park for a denser community. Not only will Lincoln athletics be located in the park, but the areas east and south of the park are soon to be upzoned. To keep up with demand for athletic events in the park, the western side near Aurora needs positive activation to better distribute capacity during events.

Unfortunately, SPS has chosen a plan that prioritizes parking over accessibility and events. Their preferred ‘Option A’ plan would scrape the recently rebuilt Soccer Field #2 along with historic trees to cram two fields into a footprint that’s too small for them. Sidelines will be shrunk to the legal minimum and every side of the fields will be up against dangerous conflicts: BMX bike jumps to the west, the skate park to the north, a retaining wall against Green Lake Way parking to the east, and fencing to a baseball diamond to the south:

Athletic events will not be able to be hosted as there won’t be room for seating or safe space for visitors. SPS says Lincoln varsity games will be at other high schools as a result. Overcrowding will generate dangerous conflicts. As a local coach named Patrick says: ”I have coached and officiated games at the LW fields for 20+ years, and have seen the current over-use and limited parking and open space around the existing fields evolve into a crisis. Build new fields in Woodland Park – DO NOT put more density / use on the LW complex!!”

The design also blocks access to the park from the popular pedestrian crossing at 52nd street. Walking paths are eliminated and SPS has said people should walk on sidelines instead, including people that are walking their dogs. We can’t complain about dogs (and pet waste) on athletic fields if we let our designers plan our parks to be used that way. For safety, it is also likely the athletic fields will require fencing on all sides, further turning the park into a walled compound rather than an integrated community asset.

Additionally, the district’s plan would replace seven to nine large, century-old trees along Green Lake Way with synthetic turf and a retaining wall. These trees form a continuous line along the Green Lake Way walking path and are a clearly established design element of this Olmsted park’s character, visible in aerial photos dating back to 1936.

The plan also destroys recent investments made in the rebuild of Soccer Field #2, including the expensive lighting system, concrete visitor platforms, seating, and turf. The scope and budget of the project could be most severely impacted by Option A’s legal risks. By choosing a design that severs pedestrian access, generates hazardous user conflicts, and destroys historic resources, SPS is opting itself into a mandatory, multi-year Environmental Impact Statement (EIS) process.

There is a better alternative: Option C

SPS first presented their Option A to the community on November 6, 2025. They looked at developing the gravel lot at 50th and Aurora as “Option B”, but they included a new parking lot and said the design was too expensive and impactful. The community responded with concerns and an alternative called “Option C” by the end of November.

Option C incorporates low impact versions of Option A and Option B. It adds a new soccer field where the gravel parking lot is now at 50th and Aurora. For football and events, Option C would upgrade Soccer Field #2 to a hybrid field with a grandstand.

Option C Part 1: At the athletic complex

Option C adds a north-facing grandstand to the upgraded Soccer Field #2, adjacent to recently renovated bathrooms at 52nd street. Paths and intentional spacing around the field are preserved so visitors can safely circulate and people walking into the park will not be blocked by field users or fencing. Trees, lighting systems, concrete platforms, and the recently installed synthetic turf of Soccer Field #2 are all preserved.

The upgraded central field would be given sufficient space away from dangerous conflicts with the skate park and BMX bike jumps. In case certain events require two fields, SPS could also utilize the nearby Soccer Field #7, located across from the Green Lake Pitch & Putt. To increase capacity and in case a third field is needed by another sports league, a new field at N 50th Street and Aurora Avenue N has its own parking and restrooms, preventing overcrowding.

The end result at the athletic complex would be a spectacular location for hosting events. The grandstand looks out over the upgraded Soccer Field #2, the softball fields, Soccer Field #7, the Green Lake Pitch & Putt, and will possibly have glimpses of Green Lake:

The way Option C avoids all the negative impacts of Option A are apparent when you overlay the impacted areas of Option A and Option C. Infrastructure, trees, access paths, public safety, and space for visitors are all preserved.

Option C Part 2: Developing the gravel lot into a soccer field

To add capacity and prevent overloading of the athletic complex, Option C develops the gravel lot near N 50th and Aurora into a soccer field. Spacing and trees will buffer the field from busy roads. The site and the adjacent picnic loop with 170 parking spots and bathrooms need positive activation. Removing vehicle access to the lot also allows for the addition of green space along the sidewalk, including rehabilitation of sidewalk trees.

The proposed soccer field added for Option C is only 300 feet long, which is a bit shorter than the 330-foot ideal. There are at least five soccer fields in Seattle or Bellevue that are 300 feet long: Whitman Middle School, Bobby Morris Playfield at Cal Anderson Park, Queen Anne Bowl, Marymoor (Field #5), and Grass Lawn Park (Field #1). Additionally, there will still be two fields in Lower Woodland Park at 330 feet — the upgraded football/soccer hybrid field, and soccer field #7.

SPS studied the gravel lot location, but for an alternative they called “Option B” that included a brand new 38-spot parking lot and space for a full sized football field at 360 feet long. That required destroying 78 trees and rerouted the paved picnic loop.

If you overlay the two options, you can see the much smaller scope of Option C on the site. By limiting impacts to the gravel parking lot, the scope of the project becomes manageable. Tree impacts are cut to a fraction of what Option C impacted, and no existing infrastructure is destroyed.

The only reason SPS offers for refusing Option C: The gravel lot parking spots are essential

When asked why they don’t consider Option C, SPS has either directly said the gravel lot cannot be removed without adding parking elsewhere, or they have hand waved “cost and scope” as a reason. SPS studied Option C sites with Option A and Option B, so Option C is firmly within the project’s geographic scope. In terms of cost, they point to their own Option B as why Option C will be too expensive, but Option B was expensive due to its massive footprint, which is because of the parking lot they added, which brings their reasoning full circle back to the issue of parking.

So is the parking in the gravel lot as essential as SPS claims? Is it so important that we should be sacrificing public safety, public events, the environment, park accessibility, park history, and recent infrastructure investments in order to save those parking spots?

There are 170 parking spots in the picnic loop directly adjacent to the gravel lot, and that number is plenty for a new soccer field. Regional events like cross county meets and cyclocross can move event hosts out of the picnic loop and onto the new soccer field, freeing up parking in the loop. Those events can also start taking advantage of the 120 spots and two sets of bathrooms towards the north end of the park near Aurora, locations that have been neglected up until now.

So who actually needs the gravel lot parking spaces? SPS has claimed that the gravel lot parking is important to the zoo, but the zoo has not used the gravel lot since it moved its primary entrance to N 59th Street and Phinney Avenue and enlarged their parking lot there. The gravel lot has also been shut down for years at a time when it has been used as a staging ground for construction projects, such as when Green Lake Way and NE 50th were recently repaved. The community has survived.

The truth is that the gravel lot is an ugly waste of space rather than an attribute. The construction project could open up opportunities to rehabilitate the trees that will surround the new field, to rebuild the curb where there is now a driving entrance, and to add green space and trees. Furthermore, having the field in the gravel lot will distribute activity away from the athletic complex, preventing overcrowding there and providing space for events.

Why has the process taken so long?

We in Friends of Woodland Park understand the frustration, and we share it. For the first year of the process in 2024, the focus was on whether to replace Wallingford Playfield or not, which turned into a huge mess and caused people outside of that area to tune out. SPS took a similarly high-handed approach when designing the field there, ignoring the community until they got a lawyer, then giving up. SPS designers then set their sights on Lower Woodland Park in the summer of 2025, but the initial focus on adding a track loop near the Green Lake Pitch & Putt was largely non-controversial.

Up until the November 6th meeting last year, outreach on football field placement was directed only to organized groups, such as BMX bike jump users. Park users not affiliated with groups were not notified or invited into the conversation. The first public communication was sent out for the November meeting, where the project team ruled out Option B as too expensive and said that only Option A was possible. No questions were allowed at the meeting, and it was clear the plan was set.

Since the November 6th meeting, over 350 people have endorsed a petition calling for SPS to abandon Option A and adopt Option C. At the Parks Board Meeting on January 22nd about 20 people spoke or protested in favor of rejecting Option A and advancing Option C. Nobody spoke in favor of continuing with Option A, and I am not aware of anybody in the community that wants Option A instead of Option C. Project managers responded to community opposition by cutting their presentation short and then leaving without taking questions or speaking with anyone. So far, the project team hasn’t had a single public meeting where the public was allowed to even ask questions.

It should not be this way. An example of how the Seattle process should work is when the South Transfer station was rebuilt in Wallingford. There, project managers did genuine outreach to the community, worked with people over a period of a year and came up with a mutually agreeable solution, then rolled out a transfer station design that is the best it could possibly be. The community was included, and no lawsuits required. You’d think it would be easier to design an athletic field that everyone is in favor of than to rebuild a dump that nobody wanted. The issue is that SPS is choosing to do outreach after they have already decided on a design, and that just doesn’t work.

What will it take to convince SPS to work constructively with the community?

The only advocates for Option A at the parks board meeting January 22nd was the City’s project team — Andy Sheffer, who is Seattle Park’s Deputy Superintendent of Planning and Capital Development, consultant project manager Paige McGehee, and Richard Best, Director of SPS Capital Projects and Planning. As they have refused to speak with the public, all we can do is make guesses based on the plans and statements they have put forward, and those show that parking is their foremost concern. Perhaps there are issues with Option C, and perhaps there is a better alternative yet to be considered, but as SPS has only looked at Option A and refuses to speak with anybody, we are stuck.

We as a community need to continue to try and get this project on track. You can sign our petition here, or reach out to SPS at their project page using the “Let’s Talk” feature. If you have questions or hear back from SPS, then please let us know at friends.lwp@gmail.com.

The post Op-Ed: How to Fix Seattle’s Plan to Expand Lower Woodland Playfields first appeared on The Urbanist.

It’s nighttime at Gas Works Park. Surrounded by good friends and community, one can see the glow of LED props being spun and juggled, framed by the luminescent skyline of Downtown Seattle and reflected in the water of Lake Union. Music is playing, but it’s at a low enough volume that conversation can easily be carried without raising one’s voice. Fellow parkgoers are largely sober and in good spirits. 

For flow artists, jugglers, and movement artists like me, it’s a special time to be connecting with those who share in their love of movement art – largely individuals with few options for the space and time necessary to hone their craft.

From behind comes the affront of a floodlight, immediately piercing the moment of shared company. A Seattle Police Department (SPD) vehicle approaches, the officers’ faces cloaked behind the onslaught of the light beam. Over an intercom, the group is told that the gates to the parking lot will be shut and locked, and any vehicles inside will be stuck overnight. No matter, as tonight’s visit was made possible by the Burke-Gilman Trail. The SPD vehicle carries on, as does the joy of the time found with friends on a jovial though peaceful Friday night.

Not 20 minutes later, the same SPD vehicle returns, this time with a more stern command: the park is now closing, and it must be vacated. Confused, parkgoers are looking around, surprised that this unique space and time in which the community can gather is now being dashed. Under explicit threat of arrest, everyone reluctantly gathers their belongings, makes quick goodbyes, and disperses. None in attendance can recall having been rudely dispersed in this fashion in the countless previous gatherings in this space. 

There had been no disturbance, no noise complaint, no altercations, no reason to be leaving the park, aside from the dictation of park hours – a reflexively imagined transgression. As a result, this peaceful gathering of artists, with already limited options for convening and practicing their art forms, has been cut short inexplicably.

This is the sort of outcome delivered by the Summer Safety Plan implemented by Mayor Bruce Harrell’s administration, with strong support of District 4 Councilmember Maritza Rivera, District 3 Councilmember Joy Hollingsworth, and District 1 Councilmember Rob Saka. Announced in May 2025, the plan included earlier curfews at some of the most highly used parks in Seattle, including Gas Works, Golden Gardens, Magnuson, and Alki Beach. 

Alki Beach and Golden Gardens saw their respective hours shortened from 11:30pm to 10:30pm permanently for summer months, Magnuson boat ramps saw their hours permanently shortened to 10:00pm, and Gas Works saw its hours shortened from 11:00pm to 10:00pm for the summer months on a pilot basis. Other actions taken in the Summer Safety Plan include increased police patrols, new barriers for parking lots, and other, more minor adjustments. 

The purported reasons for these adjustments in hours and police presence is an increase in violent crime and “nuisance activity” in the summer months. 

Was an interest in public safety truly at the heart of these actions taken? Further, if public safety was in fact the good-faith goal of these actions, are they the most appropriate actions for these critical public spaces? While violent crime was mentioned as the motivating factor in the Harrell administration’s summer safety plan document, Councilmember Rivera’s discussion of this plan in her district’s July newsletter focused much more on “noise complaints” at Magnuson Park and Gas Works Park, with nary a mention of any instance of violent crime. 

The summer safety plan reiterates its focus on a data-informed approach to its strategy. What does the data tell us? The only data cited in the safety plan document describe that “71% of community-generated calls happen during opening hours which are 7 a.m. to 9 p.m. This is especially true for assaults and thefts. In contrast, burglary calls tend to be more frequent before 10 p.m.” So far, the data does not support a surge in late-night patrols and shortened park hours. 

Based on available crime data from the Seattle Police Department (SPD) dating from 2008 to September 2025, when this data was pulled, the rates of violent crime are not significantly different from that of the city at large. A breakdown comparison of crime rates by the four largest parks mentioned in the safety plan is listed below.

One of the glaring details of this information includes the high raw number of crimes to occur at Alki Beach, though it should be noted that the City broadly defines Alki Beach, capturing a fair amount of property extending blocks from the beach itself, including a large number of the neighboring bars and restaurants across the street. 

A more detailed breakdown below shows the seasonality of crime at the above listed parks, compared with the city. Percentage rates are grouped relative to crime per park, i.e. a value of 2.0 in the column “Percent Violent Crime” for Golden Gardens in Summer signals that 2% of all crime to have occurred in Golden Gardens Park is violent crime in the summer months.

Out of the four largest parks affected by the Summer Safety Strategy, only two saw their violent crime rates peak in the summer months: Magnuson and Gas Works. 

Gas Works saw only two incidents of violent crime since 2008 (significantly less than other parks), and only one of them occurred during nighttime. In fact, that nighttime act of violence occurred at 12:40am, well past even the original park closure hour of 11pm. With only 16 total crimes reported in the last 17 years, Gas Works appears a remarkably safe place, relatively speaking, with an exceptionally low incidence of crime overall. 

It’s worth noting that Magnuson Park’s overall violent crime rate (1.8%) is well below that of the city as a whole (5.2%), even if its violent crime rate peaks in the summer months.

If there is not significant data to support additional police and shortened park hours, then why were they prioritized, particularly when there is greater incidence of violent crime elsewhere in the city? 

Absent further data regarding police calls and non-criminal complaints, one can only look to the other broad category of activity cited as “nuisance activity,” in which the Summer Safety Strategy lists highly dangerous behaviors such as “excessive noise” and “lack of adherence to park hours.” Councilmember Rivera’s newsletters make frequent mention of noise complaints, signaling the priorities of city leadership in a more honest way than the purported reasons in the published Summer Safety Strategy. 

Harrell’s spokesperson Callie Craighead has remarked that, at least with respect to Gas Works, police patrols are “not permanently stationed at the park.” The problem remains, still, that the policy of shortened park hours leaves the door open for selective enforcement, keeping alive the problems of biased policing and encumbered public access. 

There are serious, even if unintended consequences for this ham-fisted approach, including needless friction between police and members of the public, as well as increased opportunity for bias in policing, stemming from unresolved racial disparities in SPD policing. When police resources are as limited as they are purported to be, then pre-emptive patrols in low-crime, high-income areas, such as Gas Works Park, are simply not prudent as is claimed.

The most striking downside of these shortened park hours, overlooked by policymakers and supporters of these actions, is the sterilizing effect of these actions on peaceful parkgoers and artistic communities that rely on nighttime access to expansive public spaces, such as Gas Works, for which there is negligible data to support increased patrols and early nighttime closures. 

In what ways, then, can safety truly be bolstered in parks, if not by way of restriction and policing? One aspirational answer can be found in Los Angeles, where an initiative called “Parks After Dark” has utilized intentional programming in parks, as the name would suggest, after sunset, finding significant reductions in crime in addition to boosts in public health as outcomes for participating parks. 

Further inspiration can be found in Paris, where, since 2019, about one quarter of the city’s parks remain open a full 24 hours during the summer months, supporting a variety of nighttime uses throughout the city’s public spaces. The program has been successful to the point of expansion in the six summers since the initiative began.

Many cities globally have positions specific to nightlife culture and activation, often informally called a “Night Mayor.” Even the City of Seattle’s Office of Economic Development holds a similar position, though the position’s purview largely excludes parks and the activation of public spaces at nighttime. Seattle’s reputation of innovation leaves an opportunity for experimentation, where the city’s concerns with public safety in parks at night could also be an opportunity to expand the use and activity of those same parks throughout the day and night.

In the timeless classic The Death and Life of Great American Cities, Jane Jacobs writes that “effective neighborhood physical planning for cities should aim […] to use parks and squares and public buildings as part of [the] street fabric; use them to intensify and knit together the fabric’s complexity and multiple use. They should not be used to island off different uses from each other.” 

Parks thrive when they have a variety of uses facilitating nearly constant use by the public, enhancing the “eyes on the street” principle of community vigilance, popularized by Jacobs, that strengthens public safety far more preemptively than armed patrols do. When a variety of people are using or passing through a park or public place, their very presence is what goes farthest to prevent violence and to protect neighbors of that park. 

Seattle’s parks and arts presence are among its greatest assets, as is the city’s ability to experiment, innovate, and set new precedents for governance and collective action. At a time when artists and artistic communities have faced dwindling opportunities to practice their crafts, their gathering spaces should be supported and uplifted, rather than squashed and sterilized. 

Our path to actualized public safety in our parks relies precisely on our city’s ability to innovate and create, where historic paths to repeated harm must give way to safety grounded in accountability, transparency, and above all, community. 

Seattle Parks appears convinced their shorter summer hours are popular with Seattleites. If the Parks department has not heard your voice, email them at pks_info@seattle.gov. 

The post Op-Ed: Shortening Seattle Park Hours Was Misguided, Failed to Promote Safety first appeared on The Urbanist.

In the early 1960s, the protagonist of Choi In-hoon’s The Square, Lee Myung-jun, wanders in the chasm between South Korea’s capitalism and North Korea’s totalitarianism, unable to fully set foot in either, staring into the void of existence. He lingers on the threshold between land and sea, between two worlds. Can we honestly say that we enjoy genuine communication in the city to which we belong, in the square upon which we set our feet?

I have walked Seoul’s Gwanghwamun Plaza and Los Angeles’ Grand Park, traveling back and forth between the two cities. The squares were open and expansive, yet there was no sense of dwelling. Hundreds of footsteps brushed past one another, yet rarely did eyes hold each other’s gaze. In these places, I felt, with even sharper clarity, that the question posed in The Square remains as painfully relevant today. 

Gwanghwamun Plaza is considered the symbolic center of Seoul. Statues of King Sejong and Admiral Yi Sun-sin stand tall, flanking the boulevard, while tourists and citizens stream between them. Yet a strange silence hovers when one stops to take in the space. The benches are there, but few sit. The fountains flow, but their sounds are drowned out by traffic. On weekends, protest chants echo briefly — and then the crowds dissipate, leaving behind only commemorative photos. 

Though meant to honor 600 years of Joseon history, the plaza feels distant from the rhythms of daily life. The scene is grand, but the sensation of a living city is absent.

In contrast, Grand Park in Los Angeles is bursting with organized vitality. Yoga sessions, food trucks, and concerts keep the plaza busy. It appears open and engaging, but its energy is strictly scheduled. There is no space for unplanned lingering. On days without events, fences cut off access, and the plaza becomes disconnected from the city’s daily tempo. We cannot experience the plaza on our terms. It is, paradoxically, both open and closed — bustling, yet vacant.

What these two plazas reveal is a shared void in contemporary urban life. We no longer possess “meeting places” in the city. Instead, we internalize the plaza — imagining it within churches, cafés, gyms, digital spaces, or the cities of our memories. Lacking true communal spaces, we fabricate them inside ourselves.

In that sense, Siena’s Piazza del Campo in Italy evokes something magical. Medieval red-brick buildings encircle the shell-shaped plaza’s sloping terrain. There are no stages or monuments — just people using the space freely. Lovers recline under the sun, sharing beer. Children throw crumbs to pigeons as older women look on. This plaza commemorates nothing; it simply allows life to unfold. Form does not dictate life — life gives shape to space.

A few years ago, I saw a Korean student burst into tears upon entering the Campo. When asked why, she replied, “I was overwhelmed by the form of the space.” At that moment, I too felt as if an old lover long gone was quietly watching me from across the plaza. 

Though the architecture was ancient, the emotion was startlingly new. That space no longer felt like an object — it felt alive, like a sacred being. Not a designed structure, but a place where life breathes.

Such moments raise essential questions: Who are we? And what kind of beings are we in the cities we inhabit? In Seoul and LA, where speed and efficiency dominate, we are losing the ability to walk without purpose or to sit without obligation. A true plaza should not be a venue for events alone — it should be a space where doing nothing is enough. A space where you can sit silently beside a friend, or share presence with a stranger. In such seemingly useless space, real life finally opens.

Gwanghwamun and Grand Park are less expressions of urban vitality than manifestations of what I call ‘urban vacancy’-spaces that exist for state, capital, or cultural branding, but leave little room for unstructured life. Within them, we grow more isolated, brushing past one another. These cities now prefer segmentation to connection and control over encounter.

We must reimagine the plaza. Not as a site of spectacle, but as a space of staying. Not a place of design, but of unpredictability. The recovery of the plaza is the recovery of society — and the rediscovery of our collective identity. To find the lost plaza is to begin sketching the kind of city where we can truly live together. This is a call to action for all of us to contribute to the transformation of our urban spaces.

The post Op-Ed: A Tale of Two Cities — Why Do Plazas Empty Us? first appeared on The Urbanist.

Set to be implemented before the 2026 FIFA World Cup takes over Lumen Field next June, the near-term changes could also inform and influence permanent changes to the street — long a goal of stadium advocacy organizations and Pioneer Square business groups. In fact, the project was specifically added to the eight-year levy with a $6 million earmark, after lobbying from SoDo power players including Seahawks chief operating officer David Young.

Included in a decade-old Stadium District study that outlined ways to improve the vicinity of city’s biggest sports venues, the Occidental project was officially rebooted in 2024 by the Seattle Parks Foundation and the Alliance for Pioneer Square using private funding.

Initial “stakeholder workshops” included representatives of all of the major groups with an interest in the area. Among the participants were the Washington State Public Stadium Authority and First & Goal, which operates the Seahawks, but no members of the general public. That likely resulted in a much more narrow range of options for the street’s future than many Seattle residents would like to see.

As the first People Streets and Public Spaces project to move forward, Occidental will likely set the tone for street activation projects across the city, adding to its importance. So far, it looks like changes envisioned for the street will be very incremental, as opposed to bold and transformational.

“To balance the needs of users for event days and non-event days on Occidental Avenue, amenities and facilities should allow for optimum flexibility,” a stakeholder workshop summary released last December by consultant MIG states.

Fully pedestrianizing Occidental does not appear to be on the table. Pedestrian advocates like Seattle Neighborhood Greenways have pushed the City to embrace pedestrianization projects, campaigning in particular for Pike Place, Lake Washington Boulevard, and Capitol Hill “superblock” on Pike and Pine streets as low-hanging fruit. Eating up limited “People Streets” funding on incremental projects of a more cosmetic nature could garner pushback.

“While seating and gathering spaces or meet-up areas are necessary, consider how these areas are managed and how they function for events and non-event days,” the workshop summary continues. “Not only are the users of Occidental Avenue diverse with varying interests, the type of event (e.g. concert or game), how they use, and access Occidental varies by time of day. For example, while street vendors might only operate during event hours, event producers and suppliers for local businesses may only need the early morning hours to have unobstructed access to loading docks and alleys.”

Initial concepts for “tactical urbanism” treatments — quickly implemented changes that would also be easy to remove — were presented last week to the Pioneer Square Preservation Board, which has jurisdiction over changes along most of the street segments being eyed. They include ideas to activate specific “nodes” along Occidental with movable tree planters, chairs and tables, and barricades.

SDOT is also proposing to create a delineated walkway along the west side of the street, where no sidewalk exists right now. But the concepts shown to the preservation board look to preserve the parking along that side of the street as well, with a “walkway test” implemented between the parked cars and the roadway.

One clear impetus behind this project, at least from many of the official stakeholders, is a desire to change how the street vendors along Occidental Avenue are managed. John Marchione, the executive director of the Washington State Public Stadium Authority, described the current setup as looking like a “flea market,” per notes from a May 2024 meeting. Surveys collected by MIG from the stakeholder group on top priorities produced vendor management as a major theme, with a nearby Crossfit gym owner wanting to see “vendors moving to a better space that opens [more] parking.”

Cracking down on illegal vending has been a priority for the Harrell Administration citywide, with $2.7 million earmarked for SDOT to ramp up street use inspections to address illegal vending “particularly near venues and busy spots during evenings and weekends,” according to the draft budget released last month.

When the Seattle City Council approved the brand new Seattle Transportation Plan last year, it included an entire chapter on People Streets and Public Spaces, envisioning neighborhood studies looking at public realm upgrades across the entire city with a special focus on transit hubs. But the plan’s primary funding source, the transportation levy, only includes $39 million to spread around all neighborhoods for those projects, with levy commitments to build eight people streets and to make eight public space investments. Occidental Avenue is now at the head of the line.

The full cost of the Occidental project is almost certain to exceed the amount available in the transportation levy, especially when considering the long-term goal of making the improvements permanent. An internal memo at SDOT dated early last year cited a $30 million cost to create a festival street along Occidental, based on a cost comparison to recent projects along Pike and Pike Street and between the waterfront and Pioneer Square.

“This is going to be an iterative process. There’s near-term improvements. A lot of what we’re going to be bringing to you next time is testing for a long term improvement,” Alliance for Pioneer Square Executive Director Lisa Howard told the preservation board, which expressed its support for the project. “So just keep in mind that we’re going to bring you along the way, but this is also going to be a long-term project. There’s redevelopment opportunities along the sidewalk that are going to be outside of the scope of the project. There’s integration of other large projects like WOSCA and the plaza, and contextually we think we’re headed down the right path.”

After the stakeholders give their final buy-in at this stage — expected by the end of the month — that’s when public engagement starts. How much influence members of the public will actually be able to have remains to be seen.

The post SDOT Plans ‘Tactical Urbanism’ on Occidental Avenue Ahead of World Cup first appeared on The Urbanist.

For those new to this series, a little background on Seattle’s Shoreline Street Ends is helpful. Because Seattle is bounded and divided by numerous fresh and salt bodies of water the city has what are called ‘street ends’ — streets that end when they encounter a water body often continue under the water, sometimes resulting in mini-parks or recreational spaces. There are hundreds of such occurrences – almost as many as there are east-west and north-south streets. 

Many of them, 142 to be exact, are part of a Seattle Department of Transportation (SDOT) program called Shoreline Street Ends. The program’s goals are to:

• Help create great neighborhoods;
• Improve public access to and enjoyment of Seattle’s shoreline;
• Enhance shoreline habitat;
• Encourage community stewardship of shoreline Street Ends;
• Support maritime industry; and,
• Responsibly manage private permits and deter non-permitted encroachments.

A little over half of the 142 street ends are defined by SDOT as “worth a visit,” while the remainder are either “not yet ready for visitors” or have “no public access.” Street ends are concentrated along the Ship Canal and Lake Washington, but also occur along each of the city’s other shorelines. Working with the city and neighborhoods to secure funding, pass legislation, and organize work parties, the non-profit and all-volunteer Friends of Street Ends help ensure Seattle’s accessible street ends grow in number and those already serving visitors continue to thrive.

Shoreline Street Ends vary in character from sandy beaches to docks wedged amongst shipyards and industrial uses. They are spacious and they are compact, and most are very easy to find. They support habitat for native species of flora and fauna and are convenient places to launch a kayak, sailboat, or motorboat. Oftentimes, they are adjacent to waterfront parks, expanding upon those assets. They are as varied as Seattle’s topography, and you can visit them any time.

Cycling is the best way to visit Seattle’s shoreline street ends. Many are accessed from low-traffic streets or bike paths.

Introduction

Lake Union has 16 ready-for-visitor street ends, six which occur on its southern and western shores and are profiled in this post. The three street ends on its northern shore between the Aurora Bridge and Ship Canal Bridge were written about in a previous post, and those along the eastern shore will be featured in a future post.

Lake Union, Portage Bay, along with the Ship Canal and Salmon Bay, are the heart of Seattle’s maritime activities. The street ends highlighted here give an unrivaled window through which to admire their pleasure and commercial ships, as well as the float planes that lend this body of water its vibrancy. Non-motorized uses are in abundance, too, be they paddleboarders, sailors, swimmers, or daring high divers. The expanse of the lake opens up great views to Downtown, Queen Anne, Wallingford/Fremont, and Capitol Hill.

#85 Yale Avenue North

Street End #85 Yale Avenue North on the Lakes’ southern shore is, like many those featured in previous posts, it is quiet, leafy, and has a bench allowing friends to enjoy it. 

Lake Union has the greatest diversity of uses of any of Seattle’s water bodies, and includes at least a dozen marinas, dry docks, and even a seaplane base. At its southern end, there is Lake Union Park, downtown’s largest. Paddleboarders and kayakers abound in its waters, thanks to the many access points along its shores. 

Lake Union’s street ends are linked together by the Cheshiahud Lake Union Loop, a seven-mile path named after one of the last of the Duwamish who lived on the lake. The path links street ends and a network of other open spaces, including many that are accessible to the public but privately owned. The tables and chairs shown above give access to a restaurant’s patio, expanding one’s seating options. 

Lake Union Park (#86 Terry Avenue North)

Street End #86, Terry Avenue North, was vacated when Lake Union Park was built – but it offers such a compelling prospect it is still very much worth a visit.

Lake Union Park is surrounded by boats, planes, people, as well as important cultural institutions such as MOHAI, the Center for Wooden Boats, and vintage ships. Being in such a diverse environment is immersive, and it is easy to lose track of the hours while watching people, planes, and boats go by.

The pier is only one of several vantage points; there are also floating docks and rocky shorelines which offer more intimate ways to engage the water. In this photograph, you can see the Lake Union Dry Docks along with other commercial docks. 

Two of the many vintage ships at the pier’s end. The Northwest Seaport Maritime Heritage Center and the Center for Wooden Boats foster a community of old-boat enthusiasts that educate, restore, and sail these lovely craft. 

A view of Queen Anne on the lake’s western shore. Lake Union is the low point of its surrounding neighborhoods, which also include Downtown, Wallingford, and Capitol Hill. Nestled in this basin, it can feel tranquil and sheltering despite the buzz of activities animating it. The sculpture (the upside down boat) has acoustic properties – you can hear the motion of the water amplified when you stand in or beside it. Peter Richards is the artist. 

Vessels of all sizes and means of power ply the lake’s placid waves.  

MOHAI and the Center for Wooden Boats, along with corporate neighbors and apartments to the south of the pier, define the western edge of Lake Union Park’s promenade that connects the park with downtown.

Kenmore Air Seaport

The Kenmore Air seaport is not a street end, but it is along the Cheshiahud Lake Union Loop and links the south shore street ends to those along the west shore. It’s a great spot for floatplane watching.

Watching the planes land and take off one is never quite sure exactly which path the pilot will choose as they navigate the least complex runway between the lake’s many users, all while tensing the viewer until finally relieved after the plane has broken with the watery surface. Air and the sea are one and the same to these amphibious craft.

From the Kenmore Air seaport, the daring leaps divers take from the Lake Union Park Bridge are on full display.

#87 Galer Street West

The West Lake Union Pedestrian Bridge provides an elevated prospect for Street End #87, at Galer Street.

From the bridge, one can see over the buildings and landscape that frequently block one from seeing the water.

#88 Blaine Street

At first blush, some street ends, such as #88 Blaine Street, seems to have little to offer; however, curiosity and a bit of poking around is usually rewarded. 

Street End #88 Blaine Street’s waterfront edge, rampant with blackberries, blocks views to the water. Invasives are a call for better local stewardship of these public assets.

With a little bit of effort, one is able to surmount such obstacles and catch a satisfactory glimpse of the water that lies beyond the blackberry bushes.

#89 Crocket Street

Street End #89, Crocket Street, provides access to a stair leading down to the water. Descending to the shoreline gives a different, more intimate experience. Here, the over-water businesses and lower access point create an enclosure and focus that contrasts with the openness of other street ends.

This intimacy is multi-layered, with the sheltering boat slips offering even greater solitude.

A forest of columns support a marina’s roof. Like the dappled light of a forest canopy, the reflected light from the water’s surface draws one into this shadowy place.

#90 McGraw Street

The final street end on today’s walk is #90, McGraw Street. This portion of the Cheshiahud Loop appears to be off limits for the moment, its wooden structure apparently in need of attention.

Viewed from the boardwalk’s edge, however, one can still remotely participate in the various goings on of the adjacent marinas. 

A crane is the distinguishing feature of this street end and is emblematic of what makes Lake Union such a treasure. In the heart of our city we have a body of water of incredible variety and character, from industry to leisure that promotes conservation and exploration. And Seattle’s Shoreline Street End Program helps to provide access to it for all to enjoy. 

The post Seattle Street Ends: South Lake Union first appeared on The Urbanist.

The Union Bay Natural Area (UBNA) is 74 acres of public open space with miles of trails and shoreline habitat. Located between the University of Washington light rail station and U Village, it’s a breathtaking natural environment, owned by the State of Washington but managed by the University of Washington (UW). 

The University says all the right things about the natural area. The UBNA management plan calls for an “overarching goal” to “increase the area’s service to the public,” noting that “an expansion of the trail system would increase the site’s value and its utilization by the public.” The Campus Master Plan sets one goal for the adjacent intramural field area: “Improve pedestrian environment and universal access.” UW’s sustainability plan and active transportation goals also point toward opening UBNA to the public.

On paper, it’s an inspiring vision: a vast area of wetlands and trails serving students, families, commuters, and wildlife. Too bad it’s fiction.

Instead of welcoming people, UW walls the public out. From the U Village bus stop, you don’t find inviting trails — you find a mile-long, unbroken fence. Try walking around it, and you’re pushed against five- and seven-lane roads ending at giant parking lots marked “NO PEDESTRIAN OR CYCLIST ACCESS.” 

In other words, bring a car, or stay out. 

Community groups proposed a modest, no-cost solution: open a gate at the bus stop across from the U Village QFC and build a trail along Ravenna Creek, ending at an existing pedestrian bridge. The path is not only aligned with UW guiding documents, but the UBNA Management Plan specifically recommends building a public trail on decommissioned Douglas Road, which is where most of this trail would go. The end result would be both beautiful and practical — ideal for commuters and recreation. 

The Center for Urban Horticulture and UW Farm, both in UBNA, have missions rooted in sustainability and public engagement. Robert Swan, a UW School of Environmental and Forest Sciences Instructor, noted the opportunities the trail would bring for students.

“UW students are some of the most active, passionate, and hard working volunteers out there,” Swan said. “This pathway provides a rare chance to benefit everyone and everything involved – improving equitable access, creating green spaces for people and wildlife, and allowing UW students to improve their community while helping build it all.”

To gauge public support, the project was featured at the U District Street Fair, where it was a top choice with 758 public votes. To get things on track we proposed that the trail could be built without UW funds. We could model the project on the UBNA Yesler Swamp boardwalk project that was completed in 2016. Built with community funds, the project is an elevated set of boardwalks that are adjacent to Laurelhurst, in a location only accessible by car. 

After the street fair, U District Advocates met with UW representatives to request permission to design the trail. Unlike the Yesler Swamp boardwalk project, this project would be a simpler wood chip trail and would be accessible to the active commuters and public transit users that UW guiding documents claim to support. It all seemed like a no-brainer — let a neighborhood group pay so UW can achieve the specific vision they’ve laid out in their own guiding documents. 

UW’s response? No. 

Their facilities department said the fence’s purpose is to keep people out. They said the quiet part out loud: they don’t want more pedestrians, transit riders, or cyclists in UBNA. They want the area prioritized for maintenance trucks, with parking lots as buffers that keep out the homeless and transit users. Forget equity. Forget sustainability. Forget the state law requiring UW to manage UBNA for recreation, habitat, and education. 

This isn’t just hypocrisy — it’s a power play. The UBNA is supposed to serve the public. Instead, UW treats it like its own fenced backyard, a dumping ground for trucks and gear. When the community offers a project that costs UW nothing and fulfills their own promises, they slam the door.

Meanwhile, faculty and students who value public engagement are baffled. The UW Farm, the Center for Urban Horticulture, and instructors who teach sustainability all want this trail. They see it as hands-on work that benefits both students and the community. But the facilities bureaucracy’s priority is keeping the public out of public land. 

Here’s the bottom line: Union Bay doesn’t belong to UW. It belongs to the people of Washington. State law recognizes it as a wildlife habitat and mandates it be managed for education, habitat, and recreation. UW’s “access” through the Center for Urban Horticulture in Laurelhurst doesn’t meet that mandate, nor their own commitments to sustainability and accessibility. 

If UW won’t honor its promises, the state can step in — tying future funding to the trail’s approval, or even transferring UBNA to Seattle or King County Parks, where public land is managed for the public. 

This is a rare chance to get it right: a low-cost, high-impact win for equity, sustainability, and public health. UW’s leaders need to treat their guiding documents as more than rhetoric. 

For now, we’re asking for something simple: let us walk through the gate. 

To take action and support this proposal, visit the Union Bay Nature Trail website.

The post Op-Ed: UW’s Union Bay Hypocrisy: Public Land, Private Fence first appeared on The Urbanist.

Both stressed that Market goers should tell vendors (and their elected officials) they like the pedestrianization program so that it sticks around for good. As a pilot program, there are no guarantees.

The post Sunday Video: CityNerd and Kenji López-Alt Visit Pike Place Market first appeared on The Urbanist.

But with pedestrian amenities and bike facilities attached to a widened roadway, which expands to nine lanes (including parking) near Colman Dock to accommodate ferry queuing lanes, many Seattle urbanists have mixed feelings about the project. While many focus on the number of car lanes built, others lament different missed opportunities presented with such a major project. The narrow and windy protected bike path along the corridor, for example, might have been built very differently if it were being designed today.

Other elements were dropped from the project so long ago that most park visitors today never even knew about them.

The festival pier

Just to the south of King County’s passenger ferry terminal at Pier 50 is an overgrown pier, sitting in disrepair. Pier 48, owned by the Washington State Department of Transportation (WSDOT), may have a future as Kitsap Transit’s dedicated fast ferry terminal, but a decade ago it was envisioned as playing a big role in the transformation of the waterfront.

“Pier 48 offers over four acres of flexible surface in a unique setting, with extraordinary panoramic views. It presents a unique and extraordinary opportunity to provide the community with a large public open space on the Seattle central urban waterfront with a variety of recreational amenities and event venue for all seasons,” read an October 2015 presentation to the Seattle Design Commission. “The existing pier is structurally unsound and needs to be rebuilt to take advantage of these opportunities.”

As a parcel not owned by the City of Seattle, Pier 48 wasn’t included as a “core” waterfront project, but ambitious designs were created for what the pier could become, as the largest over-water structure in the area. At over four acres, the pier was envisioned as being the waterfront’s largest event venue, accommodating 6,000 attendees or more. The venue would have been a nod to history; Nirvana performed one of its most famous shows at Pier 48.

The vision was broad and ambitious: an indoor headhouse building that could accommodate events year-round, multiple outdoor event spaces, boat moorage, and a direct connection to a waterfront beach, separate from the planned habitat beach near Pier 50. None of these elements moved forward at all.

The City of Seattle has signaled that it wants to take another swing at including public space improvements with any redevelopment of Pier 48, including the project on its long list of things to be tackled as part of Bruce Harrell’s Downtown Activation Plan. However, the 2024 progress report on the plan noted that work was not yet “in progress.”

While any final plan is almost certain to be less ambitious than the festival pier idea, there’s still a major opportunity to add another amenity to the Waterfront Park’s busy southern end, where the new Molly Moon’s ice cream shop at Washington Street Boat Landing has proven to be a big draw.

The barge pool

One major project element that had been included among the “core” project elements was the idea of a pool barge attached to Pier 62. More common in Europe, the idea of building a floating public pool was sparking interest across the U.S. at the time of the waterfront plan’s development. Nonetheless, the City dropped it from the plan in 2014, blaming high cost estimates.

“With an estimated price tag of between $22 million and $23 million, the boat was described as an ‘anchoring element’ in a schematic design released earlier this year. It would have featured not only a six-lane lap pool, but also hydrotherapy spas, a locker room and snack bar,” Crosscut noted in 2014.

“While the pool barge was loved by many and received a very positive community response in project polls, it was, almost by definition (as feature that could be floated away), not a ‘critical function’ and was ultimately cut from the project,” Berger Partnership, the firm that designed the barge along with Schemata Workshop, wrote on its website after the fact. “Its wonderful absurdity is what makes it special, and the reason it was among the most predominantly featured of all the Seattle Waterfront proposals in local media and periodicals. We dream that the pool barge, by nature of its portability, may once again rise from the bay to assume its rightful place as a treasured icon and experience of Seattle.”

The Belltown bluff

Seattle’s Office of the Waterfront had grand plans for the northern edge of its project’s footprint, finally creating a better connection from the central waterfront to Belltown, one of the densest residential neighborhoods in the state. Ultimately, very few of those plans ended up getting implemented, each for different reasons.

As the city advanced plans for a new Elliott Way roadway that directed freight traffic away from Alaskan Way and its at-grade freight crossing at Broad Street, opportunities to add public space were included in early designs for the project. The centerpiece project in Belltown was set to take shape at the former site of the Battery Street tunnel portal, just north of Bell Street.

While plans for a park on the site did briefly advance, they did so outside the Office of the Waterfront’s work, and in 2021 the City of Seattle announced that it had reached an agreement with Seattle Public Schools (SPS) to hold the site for a potential downtown school. While that deal appears unlikely to be realized in the light of SPS’s financial issues, the fate of Battery Street Portal Park likely won’t be determined until the next round of parks funding is set in 2028.

The Belltown Bluff also included plans for an overlook viewpoint at Blanchard Street, a spot for people to catch great views of downtown and the Belltown waterfront. But that project ran into issues receiving approval from BNSF, which controls the railroad underneath where the viewpoint would have been located.

Concepts were also drawn up for a potential neighborhood playground on a piece of property owned by the Seattle Department of Transportation (SDOT) dubbed the “Belltown Opportunity Site.” Those concepts involved pedestrianizing a stretch of street to create a walkway down Blanchard Street, with the playground nestled in beside.

When the playground was cut from the project, the parcel’s fate was thrown into doubt, with the city considering a potential path to creating housing on the site. In 2022, Seattle City Light proposed to build an EV-charging lot on the spot instead. Later that year, the department changed its mind, citing site constraints, and the spot sits unused today.

As the park opens, there’s very little to draw visitors north into the neighborhood and no part of the Waterfront Park extends into Belltown.

Seneca pedestrian street

The waterfront project promised upgrades on a whole slew of east-west streets, and delivered many of them: Pike and Pine Street saw upgraded protected bike lanes, Washington and Main Street saw pedestrian-oriented improvements, and Union Street and Marion Street saw new pedestrian bridges. One street where potential concepts didn’t materialize into a major upgrade is Seneca Street, the former location of a ramp from the Alaskan Way Viaduct.

Early ideas for the waterfront included a pedestrian bridge over Western Avenue, mimicking the old highway ramp, with a stairway and elevator connecting to a pedestrianized street on the block between Western Avenue and Alaskan Way.

Eventually this design evolved into a rebuilt stairway and elevator closer to First Avenue, but that concept also included the idea of fully pedestrianizing the street in that section.

“The stairs will land in an alleé of street trees on Seneca Street and lead to a pedestrian friendly environment between Alaskan Way and Western Avenue. This block does not have significant vehicular demands and is adjacent to a great historic building, which has the potential to open at the street level with sidewalk vendors and cafes,” a 2012 presentation noted.

Today, the block is barely noticeable, taken over by back-angle parking and a one-way travel lane. One element of the original design did stay: there are no curbs.

Saturday’s celebration is a well-deserved one and the day will become a notable one in the city’s history books. But the dropped elements that didn’t make it to the point of a ribbon-cutting are a reminder that much work remains to create a people-focused downtown. That more complete metamorphosis will take bold leadership from those steering Seattle into the future.

The Waterfront Park’s grand opening celebration takes place from 11am to 9pm on Saturday, September 6.

The post The Seattle Waterfront Park Amenities That Never Crossed the Finish Line first appeared on The Urbanist.

Since 1947, Everett’s Funko Stadium has held everything from AquaSox games to grade school baseball games – but times are changing. The AquaSox are the High-A minor league affiliate of the Seattle Mariners and due to pressure from Major League Baseball to upgrade minor league facilities, AquaSox ownership says now it’s time for a stadium revamp. The league’s new amenity requirements include larger locker rooms, umpire accommodations, more parking, and enhanced seating. The 3,682-seat Funko Field does not meet these standards. 

The city had three options: renovate, build a new stadium, or do nothing. 

Everett chose the second option. On the eve of the new year, December 2024, the Everett City Council unanimously chose a site east of Angel of the Winds Arena — at the corner of Broadway and Pacific, right next to the Sounder rail line. 

As of June 2025, the project is in full swing and hoping to break ground in early 2026. The city is planning to tap Bayley Construction to build the new stadium. 

“The Outdoor Event Center is a key piece of our plan to grow Everett the right way – with more housing, better access to transit and a more vibrant, walkable downtown. It’s about bringing people together, creating new opportunities and growing our local economy to support the quality of life and robust public services our residents deserve,” Everett Mayor Cassie Franklin said. 

The City plans on spending $4.8 million to advance the (OEC) Outdoor Event Center stadium project to the shovel-ready stage. The City forecasts contributing a total of about $8 million toward construction and has budgeted an additional $20 million to acquire 15 properties needed to clear room for the facility. It’s likely some business relocation assistance and possible eminent domain will be needed, the City said. 

Some opponents of the new stadium are using a “No Frogs Downtown” slogan, referring to the AquaSox mascot. Legend says iconic mascot Weebly is a cross between a Pacific Tree Frog and a Central American red eyed tree frog. In a port town that can be soggy and gray, the logo is a nod to Everett’s amphibious identity.

Proponents argue the city risks losing the AquaSox team to another city with a newer stadium if they do not build the new stadium. And the transit-rich location helps Mariners fans from across the region see prospects play before they reach the big leagues. Fans can also see the franchise’s more advanced minor leaguers at Triple A team Tacoma Rainiers, the last stop before the majors.

With a price tag projected at $82 million or more, will the benefits of a brand new stadium outweigh the costs and how does the public feel about the project? And is it the best use of the land chosen, among the most transit rich areas of downtown Everett?

City promises revitalization and year-round activation 

The Franklin administration is all in on the stadium.

“At its core, this is an economic development project. Losing the AquaSox would have a negative economic impact on our community. A new facility downtown that can host baseball, soccer, concerts and other events, plus include a public park, has significant positive benefits – not just economically but also for the quality of life of our residents.” said Simone Tarver, spokesperson for the City of Everett. 

For the City of Everett, this is more than a passion project; it’s been their mission for the last several years. “It’s what we think about when we wake up,” said Dan Eernissee, economic development director at the City of Everett. 

To its backers, the proposed ballpark would be an investment in the future, contributing to downtown revitalization. The City is also hoping to use the new stadium to attract a minor-level pro soccer team, potentially both men’s and women’s. “The United Soccer League already is intending to be a big part of the project,” Tarver said. 

Everett council envisions over 100 days of annual use, including concerts, soccer matches, and festivals.

“106 outdoor events will dovetail well year-round,” Eernissee said. He added that the stadium will serve as a public park and community space, potentially including a dog park on the edge of the property. “tThe OEC will most definitely have a park element” Tarver says, “As density increases so do people with dogs.”

 “Do you know how many people in Everett have dogs?” Eernissee said. “50% of people in multifamily housing developments have a dog these days!” 

For businesses near the proposed site — between Hewitt and Pacific Avenues — the stadium means potential foot traffic, tourism, and a new wave of investment.

“It’s going to make Everett an all seasonal destination,” Eernissee said. “Now these businesses can provide pizza all year round, like Broadway Pizza could even start seasonal specials.” 

But where is the money coming from to fund such a venture? 

Questions about cost, transparency, and displacement

The stadium’s projected cost — budgeted at $82 million — has raised eyebrows. Everett’s Stadium Fiscal Advisory Committee released a report that said the downtown site would be the “most fiscally beneficial option” in the long-run, despite greater upfront costs, pegged between $102 million to $133 million.

The funding for the new Everett stadium is set to come from a mix of public and private sources and use a public-private partnership model. The plan suggests transferring project delivery to a third-party non-profit facilitator and recommends using Public Facilities Group as that facilitator.

The City’s “target budget” projects a $82 million, but they admit that a full picture of costs will not emerge until the design is finalized. The higher earlier estimate could indicate costs will rise.

• $42 million for hard construction costs.
• $20 million for soft costs (e.g., design, permits, taxes, fees, and contingency). 
• $20 million for property acquisition.

The City of Everett is committing around $7 million, potentially from capital improvement and park impact fees, while state and county support may include a $7.4 million infrastructure grant from Washington State and a $5 million contribution from Snohomish County. The AquaSox have pledged $10 million to the new stadium, and the City is hoping to secure $10 million from the United Soccer League. 

“Until design is closer to complete, we won’t have the final cost. The most recent approvals from Council provided funding to get design to 60% at which point we will have a more complete picture of the costs to share with the Council as well as our community,” Tarver said. 

To cover the majority of construction costs, it’s likely that the City will issue revenue-backed bonds, with repayment tied to stadium-generated income such as leases and ticket surcharges.

Eernissee says that the stadium is part of a larger marketing strategy for the future, while also trying to get ahead of the real estate bubble itself. 

“This is likely an area where there will be a lot of market pressure to develop,” Eernissee said. “Before the market rates get too high we’re trying to get a high enough facility that it’s appropriate for an urban center.”

Transit complement or impediment? 

The City contends that the new stadium aligns with Everett’s overall strategy of increasing public transport and development within the downtown area. 

“Sound Transit will work hand in hand with our city team,” Tarver said. “We anticipate this area will be close to a light rail station in the future.” 

And while the Everett Link extension isn’t expected until 2037 at the earliest (or 2041 if Sound Transit cost control and realignment efforts don’t go well), the city is already taking steps to prepare for it. 

“We’re still in the planning phase, so those specific decisions haven’t been made yet. Right now we are in the middle of Everett Transit’s Long Range Plan online open house to solicit input from the community on how transit services should evolve between now and 2044. Public input is such an important part of that,” Tarver said.

Downtown Everett’s future light rail station is expected to be sited near the existing Sounder station, which would put the light rail stop in close proximity to the proposed stadium. Sound Transit’s preferred option is just west of the existing transit center, but Alternative D would overlap with the stadium site. If light rail is ever extended farther north, having two stadiums bookending Broadway could prove to be an obstacle for siting a path for the extension.

Transit boosters have argued that high-density housing should be the top priority within a short walk of light rail, given the huge investment the region is making and the incredible transit access those areas will have.

Everett upzoned its downtown core in 2018, allowing 25-story towers in some areas — though highrises have yet to materialize and Everett’s population has grown slowly compared to its peer cities in the region. The proposed stadium site is in that 25-story highrise zone with a buildable square footage of 3 million. 

While the stadium would negate the site’s housing capacity, the City seems to be banking on the project being a catalyst to spur redevelopment elsewhere in the downtown core.

Property acquisition and displacement

The land the stadium is set to build upon is currently the site of some retail businesses, but most of the site is made up of older auto repair shops and specialty businesses. 

Of the local businesses still operating there, most owners are actually in support of the plan, even if it means possible displacement. 

“Stadiums are always good,” said John, a cashier at Chevron. He was made aware of the city’s plans when they did a survey, and he said his coworkers are in support. 

Eernissee says they plan to offer all of the businesses displaced leases elsewhere in Downtown Everett. 

“There’s a process to follow here. We are doing our part in following that prescribed process,” Eernissee said.

This process typically includes feasibility studies, environmental reviews, public meetings, and formal approvals from city and state agencies. It also involves finalizing funding agreements — such as bonds, grants, and private investments — alongside competitive bidding for design and construction. 

Criticism of stadium subsidies 

As a publicly funded economic development tool, stadiums have drawn criticism for often falling short of their economic promises. In 1997, two Brooking Institute researchers — Andrew Zimbalist and Roger G. Noll — wrote a book raising the alarm that publicly funded stadiums were a bad investment and failed to live up to their rosy projections, but the practice has persisted relatively unabated.

“A new sports facility has an extremely small (perhaps even negative) effect on overall economic activity and employment,” they wrote. “No recent facility appears to have earned anything approaching a reasonable return on investment. No recent facility has been self-financing in terms of its impact on net tax revenues. Regardless of whether the unit of analysis is a local neighborhood, a city, or an entire metropolitan area, the economic benefits of sports facilities are de minimus.”

Even when stadiums spur significant redevelopment, they have drawn criticism for furthering displacement and siphoning money away from social infrastructure. For example, Nationals Park in Washington, D.C., was a publicly funded MLB stadium that ultimately cost $693 million by the time it was completed in 2008. Built to anchor redevelopment in the Navy Yard, it did spur real estate investment and boost tourism, but it also drew criticism for relying heavily on public money and failing to address housing affordability or racial equity concerns. 

Located in a retail and warehouse area, Everett’s stadium will not directly displace residents. “The good thing about this project is that there’s no residents affected,” Eernissee said. 

The City has pledged to uplift existing communities and support local businesses, promising it could be a massive boon for the city. 

As a minor league stadium, the scale of investment is smaller than big league parks, but similar risks exist. If the stadium and associated redevelopment only results in benefits for sports team and rich investors, or if it becomes a long-time liability sapping City resources, it may go down in history as a boondoggle. 

What community members are saying

Residents have raised a few different arguments against the new stadium build, the most prominent being relocation of small businesses. 

“I’m incredibly annoyed that the stadium isn’t being entirely privately funded. Who asked for this? It’s fine where it is. Meanwhile we don’t have any park rangers in the city and our library services have been cut,” an Everett resident complained on Reddit. 

But Tarver says that these are misconceptions. 

“There are some major misconceptions about this project, like what funding the City would be using, the idea that this funding could bring back park rangers (it couldn’t), that this adds to the structural deficit (it doesn’t), and why Funko Field isn’t a viable option,” said Tarver. 

Some Everett residents shared the fear the new stadium could ramp up displacement pressure and change the neighborhood. 

“The proposed site is in the middle of a historic district.” said Louley, an Everett local, when asked in an online poll about the community’s idea of the new project. “In the past 20 years, this neighborhood has completely turned itself around. We are a tight-knit community that looks out for each other, as well as the large unhoused population that travel through on a daily basis.”

“Putting a sports stadium in the middle of our neighborhood is going to undo EVERYTHING. North Everett has really been leading the positive changes in the city, but because historically this was a ‘slum,’” Louley added. “The entire county wants to raze us to the ground.” 

On the other hand, some Everett residents back the project and favor out with the old, in with the new. Sverre is one such Everett resident. 

“I think long term it will be great for the city,” Sverre said. “The current facility is owned by the school district, and its priority is for student use. Players have to cross the football then up the hill to even get to the locker room or trainers offices, which are the EHS football team locker rooms. They haven’t been updated in 50 years, and are massively outdated, even for high school sports use, let alone professional athletes. It would cost way too much to upgrade Funko field to meet new MLB standards, and it still wouldn’t be owned by the team or city.” 

Beyond improving the stadium experience, Sverre sees the project as furthering the revitalization of downtown: “This new stadium is going to connect downtown Everett’s core, with the east side of Broadway, which has fallen in disrepair and is mainly older manufacture type buildings and old warehouses. It will bring a large amount of new urban housing and commercial spaces that will link up with the Everett Transit Center. This is also where the downtown light rail station will be built. I know future development will follow.” 

Looking forward

As Everett pushes forward with its vision for a modern, multipurpose stadium, the project stands at a crossroads between transformation and tension. For some, it represents long-overdue progress—an investment in economic development, public amenities, and city pride. For others, it raises concerns about displacement, equity, and whether the return will truly match the cost.

At the end of the day, one thing is clear: this isn’t just about baseball. It’s about identity and the kind of future Everett wants to build. With construction slated to begin in 2026 and a completion date eyed for 2027, the stadium is beginning to look like a done deal, but it will be a test of the city’s planning prowess and commitment to inclusivity, transparency, and thoughtful urban growth to ensure it’s a success.

The post Everett Forges Ahead with Downtown Stadium for Minor League Sports first appeared on The Urbanist.

It is this vision for our region – of cities and communities featuring great local parks, connected by trails and green spaces – that is shared by the broad coalition supporting King County Proposition 1, the county’s Parks Levy. As leaders in the business community and advocates for play equity and access, we are proud to support this important measure alongside elected leaders, conservation advocates, regional science education destinations, and organizations representing recreational sports, hiking, biking, swimming, and other healthy activities.

This levy is a renewal of a successful existing funding stream that has been paying dividends for more than two decades. The current levy distributed needed and overdue resources into previously underinvested parts of our county to address long-standing inequities. This levy builds on this commitment, and includes countywide improvements to park safety, maintenance, and upgrades – from playgrounds in neighborhood pocket parks to trail maintenance in the Cascade foothills.

Proposition 1 also expands the funding available to cities throughout King County to improve their park systems, earning the support of mayors and leaders from communities large and small. It demonstrates the kind of county-wide partnership we support and lets communities access resources without having to put together a levy proposal or investment strategy of their own – a lift too heavy for some cities.

Levy investments are also critical to the connectivity of our county. Several key multi-use trails, including Eastrail and Lake to Sound Trail, are set to be expanded or completed in the near future using funds from the Parks Levy. This investment provides safe, reliable access to non-motorized transportation for recreationists and commuters alike, providing another tool in the region’s transportation toolbox and strengthening our commitment to addressing climate change.

We are especially excited for the continued and growing support for hands-on science education in the levy – providing opportunities for free and low-cost activities for kids and families to experience the Woodland Park Zoo, Seattle Aquarium, Pacific Science Center, and other regional treasures. These places provide inspiration and learning for our next generation of employees for our region’s many small and large employers – and must be available to all.

Finally, as our region continues to grow – adding population and jobs – we must secure the forests, watersheds, farmlands and open spaces that make this place special, and protect our air, water, and climate.

What makes King County such a great place – a place for starting or growing a business, for creating jobs, and for growing our economy – is our natural environment and the world-class recreational activities, diverse communities, and shared values of equity, access, and opportunity. And we cannot take any of that for granted; we need to continue to improve our parks and trails, upgrade playfields and facilities, expand education and learning, and invest in historically underrepresented communities.

We urge your support for the King County Parks Levy on the August 5 primary election ballot. You can learn more about the levy, and the coalition supporting it, at YesKCProp1.com.

The Urbanist Elections Committee endorsed the King County Prop 1 Park Levy in its Primary Endorsements.

The post Op-Ed: King County Parks Levy Is Vote for Strong, Equitable Communities for All first appeared on The Urbanist.