Everyone loves Beacon Hill. We love our community and its incredible diversity. We love the views from our neighborhood, which is close to Seattle's urban core. But we're in danger of becoming a place people want to get through on their way to someplace else.
We're an intersection of arterial roads, bordered by superhighways, with no real town center. In this difficulty may lay our opportunity. If we want people to spend their hard-earned money in our community, we have to get them out of their cars. If we want to see more successful merchants up here on the hill, then experience around the world has shown that pedestrian oriented development is the key.
Beacon Hill, long neglected, now has a chance to influence the direction of development at the center of our neighborhood. We can build the open space the community needs, surround it with retail opportunities and create an active town center for Beacon Hill, if we are willing to use one block of Lander Street for something other than auto traffic.
Our opportunity lies behind the Big Blue Wall, and in the street that has been enclosed within it. For a year the wall has been there, partially hiding the huge cranes and keeping down the dust and noise while Sound Transit digs the tunnel and station area under Beacon Hill. Whatever one thinks of the light rail, there's no question that its impact on our neighborhood will be huge.
Right now the wall seems almost familiar, even comforting. But not long from now the wall will come down, and that's when Beacon Hill will begin to change very quickly. We can be more than mere observers to that change, if we hold and promote a united vision and work together to enact it.
The vision is this: a pedestrian plaza on Lander Street aimed at becoming Beacon Hill's new town center.
Located right at the top of the hill, with the new light rail station holding down one corner and featuring views to the city and beyond, this is the cultural and economic heart of Beacon Hill. A plaza there would be large enough to hold everyone in our community together at the same time, but small enough to feel intimate. Also, it would connect the El Centro de la Raza building with the station and the neighborhood.
Around the perimeter of the plaza there would be buildings with shops and cafes boasting outdoor seating. People could meet and relax on benches or stroll through the area on their way to or from work.
A gazebo, a playground and a basketball court nearby would draw families and youth to the plaza for exercise and group activity. Strollers and wheelchairs could move about safely and easily.
On Saturday mornings, the plaza could fill with stalls and shoppers for a newly established farmers market. On summer evenings, concerts hosted in the plaza's gazebo would play as handsome streetlights glow. A stroll down alleyways and side streets would reveal more shops and restaurants: family places running on small budgets.
Above and around these establishments could be constructed every type of apartment: from studios to three bedrooms. With this vision, there would be people living, working and playing there: a real place with original and genuine establishments.
This plaza is only genuinely possible if Lander Street is restricted in its automobile access, as it has been for the past year. Emergency and service vehicles, and even transit vans, can be easily and safely accommodated.
The Beacon Hill Pedestrian Task Force has been lobbying the city and Sound Transit to look closely at the many options for Lander Street, and to give us something more than the lowest common denominator.
Many community groups, businesses and neighbors are asking the same: join us. We can create a seamless open area, a Beacon Village that will fill with far more economic and social activity than a street ever will. We can ask for enhanced architectural design, public spaces and art, pedestrian friendly features and specific types of retail.
Do we want the center of our neighborhood to be just a drop off point for commuters, the metro stop between the stadiums and Columbia City? Or could we actually be a destination, a place people might linger in and even return to?
True transit oriented development means making the space for other activities besides driving. Careful design, thorough planning, detailed architecture, community input - these are the essential ingredients to the successful development of our new town center.
[[In-content Ad]]
