Few words send shudders down the preservationist’s spine quite like “parking.” In the worst cases, it’s the ultimate demise of a historic site.
But there’s a worldwide movement underway to turn surface lots into vibrant, lively public spaces in places where they’re needed.
Outside the Producers Hall.
Photo credit: Pike Place Market PDA.
That’s exactly what the city of Seattle, Washington and the Pike Place Market Preservation and Development Authority (PDA) have teamed up to do at the historic Pike Place Market site. A two-year, $74 million project, architects at the Miller Hull Partnership transformed an expanse of lifeless asphalt into a vibrant new public space that reconnects the city to its waterfront..
Opened in June of 2017, the new Pike Place MarketFront features new vendor space, low-income senior housing, and three public art installations against the backdrop of the city’s changing waterfront.
“We’ve built this enormous front porch to the waterfront that people can now walk to,” says Emily Crawford, Director of Communications and Marketing at Pike Place Market PDA, “and it’s going to be fantastic when our front porch gets to meet their greater park vision.”
Below the pavilion is the MarketFront’s Producers Hall, with on-site production space for four of the vendors. It leads out on to the plaza, which Crawford says has already become enlivened, attracting sightseeing tourists and office workers enjoying the scenery on their lunch breaks.
This is the first addition to the iconic Pike Place Market in over forty years. It replaces an surface parking lot that was left vacant the old Municipal Market burned down in 1974.
Inside the Producers Hall.
Photo credit: Pike Place Market PDA.
New elements include a mix of low-income and senior residential, commercial/retail, office space and underground parking carved into the hillside on the west side of Western Avenue directly below the Market.
MarketFront now creates a critical connection point to the new Seattle waterfront plan that has been designed by landscape architecture firm James Corner Field Operations, which will follow the long-awaited removal (in 2019) of the Alaskan Way Viaduct, a badly-planned urban highway that separated the city from its waterfront for many decades.
Understandably, the opportunity to design for the oldest continuously operated public market in the country brought intense scrutiny and concern for any changes made to one of the city’s most authentic and treasured landmarks. The Market’s overarching goal was to meet the needs of its broad-based stakeholder community of vendors, residents and social service recipients, and to work collaboratively to integrate the addition with pedestrian connections to the soon to be revitalized waterfront.
Technical challenges were many, as the site is located above an active railroad line and 100 year train old tunnel. Design rationale for the final concept followed from extensive community and stakeholder involvement, and significant evaluation and analyses of the physical, zoning code and regulatory constraints, Market Commission Guidelines, primary public views, pedestrian circulation patterns, massing studies, parking feasibility, and economic feasibility.
New features include small retail shops and stalls, restaurant space, and an incredible new public view terrace with outdoor seating.
“People are enjoying the breeziness and the spaciousness of the pavilion,” says Crawford, “and they feel less pressure from people walking behind them and bumping into them. There’s more of a dialogue with the vendors and artists that’s happening. It’s really nice.”
The project was funded the Pike Place Market PDA, the City of Seattle, and the Washington Department of Transportation.
The PDA is a not-for-profit, public corporation chartered by the City of Seattle in 1973 to manage the properties in the nine-acre Market Historic District. The historic district was created in 1971, to protect the historic structure from short-sighted city planners, who wanted to demolish them in the name of “urban renewal”.
The PDA is required to preserve, rehabilitate and protect the Market’s buildings; increase opportunities for farm and food retailing in the Market; incubate and support small and marginal businesses; and provide services for low-income people.
All renderings courtesy of the Miller Hull Partnership.
See NTHP article by Jared Foretek.