Nickels to reveal waterfront vision today

Imagine Seattle's waterfront lined by a 70-foot-wide promenade with sculptures, tidal pools and playgrounds. Run-down piers are cleaned up, and the area sports storefronts.


		Stephanie Bower, Architectural Illustration
	Artist's rendering of Mayor Nickels' plan for the Seattle waterfront from Sodo to Myrtle Edwards Park.

If you like that vision, you'd best also imagine yourself supporting Mayor Greg Nickels' campaign for a waterfront tunnel -- because you won't get one without the other.

Today, Nickels plans to submit to the City Council his dream for the waterfront, as articulated in a "concept plan." Several years in the making, the 91-page document is meant to offer basic principles for improving the shoreline between Sodo and Myrtle Edwards Park.

The public release of the plan is well-timed for Nickels' parallel big idea: the tunnel.

Nickels' waterfront brainchild assumes the decaying, double-decker Alaskan Way Viaduct is replaced with a lidded tunnel. The lid provides critical space for viewpoints, sidewalks and other envisioned improvements.

Much of that can't be built, Nickels' office says, if the City Council pushes through alternatives preferred by some politicians, such as repairing the viaduct or replacing it with another elevated highway.

"If there's a new overhead highway, this plan would need to be completely rethought," John Rahaim, Seattle's planning director, said.

That's why some on the City Council want to settle the highway question before investing more money into Nickels' what-if planning.

Councilman Peter Steinbrueck, who heads the council's planning committee, said further design work would be premature, even though he "very much" supports the plan's goals for public spaces, activities and attractions -- designed with considerable help from community volunteers.

"I really am spiritually there with these goals," he said. "But we have some major decisions that have yet to be made about the future of the waterfront and how it's planned out, and the council's reluctant to spend money at this point on designs that we're uncertain about."

The waterfront hypothesis is still sketchy, and planners haven't begun to look at the costs.

The plan assumes the state and federal governments will approve the inherent ecological effects and that the City Council will approve some regulatory changes.

Many of those details could be worked out in about a year, if the council signs off on the plan and releases $250,000 for the next stage of planning, Rahaim said.

Within about a year, city planners could nail down some specifics, including general cost estimates, Rahaim said. It would take them another year to produce a detailed master plan and environmental impact study, he said.

Nickels' planning department gave the council a draft of the plan about two months ago and has briefed members several times since then, Rahaim said.

Even if the tunnel were a done deal, some council members have concerns about the actual plan.

For example, it doesn't provide much-needed transit connections, especially at the Colman Dock ferry terminal, Steinbrueck said.

Port of Seattle officials also worry about freight mobility, Steinbrueck said. Nickels' plan would turn Alaskan Way into a four-lane surface road with sky bridges. The waterfront trolley would share one lane in each direction with cars.

"They're very concerned about the ability to move traffic on the surface through there that can't go through the (proposed) tunnel," Steinbrueck said.

GET INVOLVED

Mayor Greg Nickels plans to release the Waterfront Concept Plan at 10 a.m. today at the Waterfront Park at 1301 Alaskan Way. You can get a copy of it from the city's planning department at www.seattle.gov/DPD/Planning/Central_Waterfront/Overview or by calling 206-684-8600

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