The growth in Seattle’s downtown areas over the past few years, even during the worst of the financial crisis, has been remarkable. Two large cities, Seattle and Bellevue, are both forests of cranes and have been for years.
Seattle’s South Lake Union neighborhood, which was created in an early 20th century hill-flattening, has been given over from a mix of low-slung warehouses and old residences to apartments, condominiums, and corporate headquarters. As Seattle’s Capitol Hill neighborhood prepares for the coming of underground light rail, increased height limits on main street Broadway Ave look to create a new urban canyon.
And yet there is one neighborhood in Seattle that simply can’t catch a break. Pioneer Square, the original Seattle neighborhood, has been well preserved over the years but largely stagnant.
Pioneer Square features a mix of boutiques and art galleries, a subway stop, and plenty of restaurants. At night it is home to a considerable number of nightclubs catering almost exclusively to people from outside the neighborhood – in part because not a lot of people live in Pioneer Square. This lack of regular residents and basic services for the residents who do live in the neighborhood creates a vacuum of the kind of workaday street life that makes a good urban neighborhood feel safe and vibrant.
One of the most famous bookstores on the west coast today, Pioneer Square’s Elliott Bay Book Company, will be moving to Capitol Hill in spring of 2010. This, more than anything else, represents the decline of the neighborhood. Such a close, well-connected neighborhood should not be suffering as Pioneer Square does. Physically, Pioneer Square is in fine shape and is home to many well-maintained, beautiful buildings.
Problems frequently cited with the neighborhood center around a large homeless presence, open drug dealing, rambunctious behavior by partiers, and not enough parking.
Some more law and order certainly would help, but Pioneer Square is an old neighborhood. It has a high concentration of homeless services. It is adjacent to sports stadiums, and features a lot bars and nightclubs. It already possesses a bawdy reputation going back to the turn of the century. In short, perception can be a blessing as well as a curse. With more of its own residents, and more visitors from in-city, Pioneer Square would be able to live beyond its reputation.
Which brings us to the main point – Pioneer Square is inconveniently located. It is at the bottom of a hill, in a part of town without plentiful parking. While it has a subway stop, for years before the light rail opened the tunnel closed at 7 pm and wasn’t even open on Sundays. It would be interesting to see if more people have visited from South Seattle neighborhoods conveniently located to light rail since the line opened. When access opens to Capitol Hill and the U-District in 2016, Pioneer Square may hit a sweet spot of being very convenient both to live and to visit for people who don’t want or need a car.
What should happen between now and then? Probably the best thing that could happen, is for people in Seattle who care about the neighborhood to find ways to visit and patronize the businesses in daytime and early evening hours. These are the hours when a lack of legitimate users will kill any hope a neighborhood has of feeling “normal”. The city should get serious about putting more cops on the street with a focus on after dark hours.
Pioneer Square may also want to try non-sports related special events on summer days and evenings when no sporting events are scheduled. Occidental Ave is a natural to be given over to street fairs, and some side streets could be narrowed, with wider sidewalks encouraging cafes and restaurants with outdoor seating.
Finding ways to bring Seattleites in regularly is what it will take to build the kind of critical mass that will keep Pioneer Square viable. Seattle’s founding neighborhood deserves no less.
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