Tag: Pike Place Market

City Council

Don’t Open Pike Place to Pedestrians, Council Member Urges

By Erica C. Barnett

Seattle City Councilmember Bob Kettle wants to take plans to turn car-choked Pike Place into an “event street” off the table by amending Mayor Bruce Harrell’s proposed Seattle Transportation Plan. Kettle’s amendment, which the council’s transportation committee discussed on Tuesday, would  express the council’s opposition to using funds from the upcoming Move Seattle Levy to partially pedestrianize the street immediately in front of Pike Place Market.

Advocates have been making the case for years that removing vehicles from Pike Place would improve pedestrian safety and make the market a more welcoming place for shoppers, who are now forced to dart between moving vehicles, taking evasive maneuvers that Maggie Haines, the treasurer for Friends of the Market, described fondly as “a slow dance” in her testimony against pedestrianization.

What the transportation plan proposes is far more modest than true pedestrianization. Under the plan, Pike Place would become an “event street” that could be closed down to vehicular traffic for events, much as Ballard Avenue or South Edmunds Street shut down for weekly farmers’ markets.

“Event streets,” according to the draft plan, are “shared streets” where “events may close movement of all vehicles, except emergency access, on a frequent or intermittent basis.” The goal of the new designation, according to the plan, is to “prioritize people walking and rolling around Pike Place while enabling efficient and reliable delivery of goods and access to Pike Place Market.”

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Vendors and Pike Place Market representatives decried even this modest proposal during the committee’s public comment period, suggesting that allowing even occasional street closures would kill businesses and harm low-income people and seniors.

“Pike Place is not an event street by any stretch of the word—it is the lifeline street in the market historical district,” Friends of the Market president Heather Pihl said.  “Pike Place Market is a working market, and it’s also a community including low income residents, a senior center, a food bank, a child care, and a medical clinic. It’s not a place to hang out.”
Continue reading “Don’t Open Pike Place to Pedestrians, Council Member Urges” →

Development, Historic Preservation, land use

Downtown Condo Owners Seek View Preservation Via Landmark Designation

Top to bottom: The one-story Hahn Building in 1902; present (pre-COVID) day; a rendering of the proposed 14-story hotel.

By Erica C. Barnett

On Wednesday, the Seattle landmarks board will hold its final hearing on the latest proposal to grant landmark status to the three-story Hahn Building on First and Pike Street, a former single-room occupancy hotel across the street from the Pike Place Market and just outside the market boundaries. The board has already rejected landmark status for the building, which now houses the Green Tortoise Hostel, a coffee shop, and a T-shirt store, twice—in 1999 and again in 2014—but that hasn’t stopped efforts to preserve the building, which stands just to the west of the 240-foot tall Newmark Tower condo building and its expansive views of Elliott Bay.

Unsurprisingly, owners of condos at the Newmark are behind the latest petition, which seeks to prevent the construction of a 14-story hotel that would block their views. And although the petition is couched in the language of historic preservation—it claims the Hahn building meets two criteria for landmark status, cultural heritage and neighborhood prominence—the effect of landmark status would be preserving the views of condo owners who have repeatedly dipped into their pockets to challenge the construction of any building to their west.

If the name of the building seems familiar, that’s because the owners also sought to “save the Showbox” building on the same block. The city zoned the block for a 145-story tower more than 20 years ago.

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One of the debates that emerges in the competing narratives from landmarking proponents and opponents is whether the Hahn building contributes to the overall “feeling” of the Market. The landmark application features an image of the building at sunset, taken from some point several stories above the street, that highlights Elliott Bay, rooftops, and the neon Pike Place Market sign below. The competing narrative, from landmark opponents, presents the experience most actual Market visitors would have of the area—photos taken at street level, showing the Market sign and wide, cobbled streets, along with more recent additions like the City Target and the 55-story Russell Investment Building, constructed in 1988. (The Newmark Tower itself wasn’t built until 1991.)

Historic Seattle and a number of other preservation groups, including Vanishing Seattle, have bolstered the condo owners’ status as concerned, historically-minded citizens, promoting both a Change.org petition and a nonprofit, Save the Market Entrance, that were created by residents of the Newmark. Save the Market Entrance even has the Newmark listed as its address. Eric Lacitis of the Seattle Times first reported on the Astroturf petition.

The board meets tomorrow at 3:30pm to consider the landmark nomination. According to the “do not landmark” recommendation, “staff does not recommend designation of Hahn Building/Hotel Elliot at 103 Pike Street as it does not appear to have the integrity or the ability to convey its significance as required” by the landmarks preservation code.

Affordability, City Council, Density, Development, Historic Preservation, housing, Morning Crank, Transportation

Afternoon Crank: Density Opponents Sharpen Their Pencils, City Seeks Consultant for Quick-Turnaround Showbox Review

1. As the city council begins what could—could—be the final round of discussions about the Mandatory Housing Affordability proposal (the plan, in the works for two years now, would upzone 6 percent of the city’s exclusive single-family areas and require developers to fund new affordable housing), density opponents are sharpening their pencils.

The Seattle Coalition for Affordability, Livability, and Equity (SCALE), which blocked the plan for a year with environmental appeals, produced a list of proposed amendments to the plan that would effectively gut the proposal, by forcing the city to charge developers to pay new “impact fees” to offset the perceived negative impacts of new housing, instituting minimum parking requirements for new developments, quadrupling the fees developers would pay toward affordable housing under the ordinance, and rolling back many of the zoning changes entirely.

The proposed amendments include things like increasing tree canopy requirements (thereby reducing development capacity) in low-income neighborhoods; changing the definition of “family-sized” housing to exclude two-bedroom apartments; requiring large open spaces or even yards for new multifamily developments; and reducing the MHA rezones to reflect the affordable housing targets in existing neighborhood plans, which did not contemplate the massive population growth nor the rise in inequality that Seattle has experienced over the last ten years.

SCALE’s Toby Thaler, who argued the group’s case against MHA before the city hearing examiner, did not respond to an email with questions about the document. While some of the amendments the group is proposing are obviously fanciful—no one is seriously talking, for example, about blowing up the “Grand Bargain” with developers by requiring them to fulfill 50 percent of their affordability requirements with on-site housing—they could serve as a kind of Overton window (or, if you prefer, opening gambit) for the upcoming discussion about neighborhood-specific changes to the plan, which begins next week.

Housing advocates will want to keep an eye out for what citywide and block-by-block changes council members (and Mayor Jenny Durkan) propose, and whether those changes track with the proposals put forward by SCALE. (The amendments aren’t available yet, but I’ll post about them as soon as they are.) Durkan has said in the past that she believes “neighborhoods” should have more input into the city’s development decisions; whether that means acceding to homeowner advocates’ demands during the final stretch of the MHA debate will become clear in the coming weeks.

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2. The city will spend $75,000 this year (of $100,000 allocated in last year’s budget) on a contractor who will advise the mayor and council on whether the Showbox should become a permanent part of the Pike Place Market Historical District. According to the scope of work for the contract, obtained through a public records request, the contractor will “Review the historic significance of the Showbox theater, study the relationship between the Showbox theater and the Pike Place Market, consider amendments to the PPMHD Design Guidelines related to the Showbox theater, draft legislation, conduct outreach to stakeholders, and conduct State Environmental Policy Act (SEPA) review on permanent expansion of the Historical District, as appropriate.” According to a spokeswoman with the city’s Department of Neighborhoods, DON has not chosen a consultant yet, but remains on the schedule outlined in the work plan.

The contractor will have to get all that work done quickly; the city’s schedule calls for any SEPA findings to be published in March, with all the work wrapping up in April, and a council vote to permanently expand the historical district in June. Two to three months is a remarkably short time frame for a single contractor to conduct a full public outreach process, do a thorough environmental review, and draft legislation for the council to consider and pass. To put this timeline in historical context, the Market Historical District has been expanded twice before: Once, in 1986, to include Victor Steinbrueck Park, and again in 1989, to add a parking garage and senior housing. Seattle Times archives show that the debate over the latter addition lasted more than three years, and archival records at the city clerk’s office show that the council was receiving letters on the draft legislation fully nine months before they adopted the expansion.

Under the city’s current schedule, the Showbox building would become a permanent part of Pike Place Market three months before a trial is scheduled to begin in a lawsuit the property owners filed against the city; that suit charges that the city violated the Appearance of Fairness Doctrine, which requires council members to remain neutral on so-called quasi-judicial decisions like historic district boundary expansions, as well as the owners’ First Amendment and due process rights.

The debate over the Showbox’s fate began when a developer, Vancouver-based Onni, filed plans to build a 44-story apartment building on the property, which the council had recently rezoned to allow just such a development. The Showbox itself is owned by Anschutz Entertainment Group, and is a tenant in the building, which is owned by strip club magnate Roger Forbes; AEG’s lease expires in 2021.

3. After pushback over the fact that its original “service area” was confined almost exclusively to  neighborhoods north of I-90 (including many north of the Ship Canal), Uber announced today that its JUMP bikes will be available in South and West Seattle. The company, which launched its bikesharing service in Seattle late last year, got some bad press last week when the Seattle Times reported that riders who left bikes outside the service area could be charged $25. (An Uber spokesman says the company has not imposed the fee on any riders.) Lime Bikes, Uber’s competitor, launched citywide in the summer of 2017.

The red outline on this map shows the new service area, which includes three of four “equity areas” (low-income communities and communities of color) designated by the city. The original, blue-outlined area included just one of the equity areas, which includes the Central District and a sliver of South Seattle that extends down to the Mount Baker light rail station.

This is hardly the first time a “sharing economy” company has decided to serve the wealthier, whiter areas of the city first. Six years ago, Car2Go launched with a service area that excluded the entire South End and West Seattle while serving areas as far north as Bitter Lake.

City Council, Courts, Development

City’s Showbox Defense: “Save the Showbox” Law Doesn’t Require Saving the Showbox
Council member Kshama Sawant’s “Save the Showbox” rally and concert outside City Hall last Wednesday, one hour before the required public hearing on the legislation.

On Friday, City Attorney Pete Holmes quietly filed a response to a lawsuit by the owner of the building that currently houses the Showbox, seeking partial summary judgment (essentially, a partial dismissal) on a number of grounds. The most telling: The city maintains that the “#SavetheShowbox” legislation that made the Showbox, and only the Showbox, a part of the Pike Place Market Historical District does not require the building owner to keep the Showbox as a tenant. This completely contradicts the city council’s contention that the legislation had to be passed—and passed on an emergency basis, bypassing the usual public hearing process—right away in order to assure that the Showbox remains in business.

In its motion, the city attorney’s office argues that King County Superior Judge Mary Roberts “should dismiss Plaintiff’s compelled speech claim because the Ordinance does not, as Plaintiff alleges, ‘requir[e] continued performances at the Showbox.’ City law does not force Market property owners to perpetuate their existing uses.” This is quite a claim, considering the intense effort by Showbox fans, activists, and council members—particularly council member Kshama Sawant—to “Save the Showbox” on the grounds that it must be preserved specifically as a music venue in perpetuity. From an email Sawant sent to supporters just last week: “If we stay organized and mobilized, and unrelenting in our demand that Council make the Pike Place Historical District expansion permanent, then we can absolutely #SavetheShowbox!”)

And while the legislation itself is silent on whether the Showbox must be retained as a music venue specifically, it goes on at length about the value of the Showbox—a tenant using a rented space—as an irreplaceable cultural institution, the “loss” of which “would erode the historical and cultural value of the Pike Place Market neighborhood.” That’s pretty hard to square with the city attorney’s claim that the emergency Showbox preservation ordinance, which stopped a 44-story apartment development that would have provided around $5 million for affordable housing, had nothing to do with “saving the Showbox” as a music venue—unless you believe that what the council meant, when it drafted and passed the legislation, was that the unremarkable two-story building that houses the Showbox is what contributes cultural value to the neighborhood.

In its motion, the city attorney’s office argues the “Save the Showbox” “Ordinance does not, as Plaintiff alleges, ‘requir[e] continued performances at the Showbox.’ City law does not force Market property owners to perpetuate their existing uses.” This is quite a claim, considering the intense effort by Showbox fans, activists, and council members—particularly council member Kshama Sawant—to “Save the Showbox” on the grounds that it must be preserved specifically as a music venue in perpetuity.

The rest of the city attorney’s petition has to do with two basic issues. The first is whether the land owner, strip-club magnate Roger Forbes, has the right to sue under the land use petition act, and whether he has standing to claim that legislation barring him from developing his property constitutes an illegal property taking. The city argues that because Forbes and the developer to which he planned to sell his land, the Onni Group, didn’t file a permit application for the proposed 44-story development after initiating a pre-application process for the development on July 24, they haven’t exhausted every option for appeal. (This is also the argument the city makes in claiming that the reduction in Forbes’ property value can’t be considered a taking).  Of course, council members made it much less likely that Onni would file for a permit when they began discussing legislation to kill the development a few days later, and when they passed a new law in early August, on a fast-tracked “emergency” timeline, to prevent Onni from moving forward with its proposed apartment tower.

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The second is whether the city violated appearance of fairness rules that require council members to remain neutral (and not take public testimony) on quasi-judicial land use matters such as spot rezones, which the Showbox property owner claims the extension of the historical district was. The city claims that because Forbes didn’t file a permit application, the decision couldn’t have been a quasi-judicial land use decision, and instead is a mere “development regulation.”

Want the legalese version of all this? Check out the city’s full motion here.