Stop, activate, and listen. After months of hints, Seattle Mayor Bruce Harrell released his full Downtown Activation Plan yesterday — along with a flashy new website — that’s intended to help bring Seattleites back to the heart of the city.
The mayor’s proposal consists of several short-term and long-term goals, along with what he’s calling “Space Needle-level” ideas. They all attempt to address main strategies for making downtown somewhere we all want to hang like increasing safety, letting the arts flourish, enticing tourists, and being caretakers for the environment.
Plans for the future
The plan goes into the most detail about current downtown revitalization projects, but here are some others the city said would be coming down the pipeline:
- Giving a one-time grant to the Downtown Seattle Association for cleaning this summer
- Creating a Crisis Care Center and opioid overdose recovery center
- Creating affordable housing through rezoning and converting old office space into residential space
- Hiring a new Director of Citywide Special Events and a Creative Economy Manager
- Building a Tribal Interpretive Center on the waterfront
- Installing navigation kiosks throughout the area for tourists
In addition, the Mayor’s “Space Needle-level” ideas add some big ticket items to his wish list, like:
- Completing a new streetcar line
- Building “vertical neighborhoods” with more mixed-use buildings
- Planting an urban forest
- Introducing a new market specifically for BIPOC communities
- Creating a “makerspace” facility for students, entrepreneurs, and educators to network and work on projects together
What’s next
Now that the plan is out there for everyone to look at, the City is hoping to get feedback from Seatteites and other people within the larger metro area.