The Waterfront Seattle project is a major new civic project, replacing a dangerously obsolete viaduct highway with waterfront park spaces, pedestrian promenades, and re-engineered surface streets, as well as a separate bored-tunnel highway. One important civic benefit will be to remove the noise, darkness, underlying industrial space, and oppressive overhead concrete that currently acts as a barrier between downtown and the waterfront.
Project image from WaterfrontSeattle.org
It is also a one-of-a-kind opportunity to implement reconciliation ecology on a broad scale with high visibility and long-term benefits.
Habitat enhancement research, Elliott Bay Seawall project
The primary design team, james corner field operations (flash-animated website), has put together other innovative wildlife-friendly urban parks, such as the High Line in New York City or the Woodland Discovery Playground at Shelby Farms Park in Memphis, TN.
Stated design goals of the project would be supported by maximal native plantings and urban wildlife habitat:
- Put the shoreline and innovative, sustainable design at the forefront.
- Reconnect the city to its waterfront.
- Embrace and celebrate Seattle’s past, present and future.
The nearby Elliott Bay Seawall project is already committed to native-plant landscaping for the sake of our salmon. This downtown & industrial waterfront is vital habitat to juvenile salmon.
page last modified April 2012
Public input into Elliott Bay Seawall plan
Seattle Urban Habitat 