That said, two points that should be raised when thinking about directing development in this area. First, we are building out the city not only for the present, but the future as well. Think 50 years from now. Or perhaps 100 years from now. Things WILL change. The spaces we are building now will play a role in determining the future use of the spaces, not because its pre-determined, but because how we are building will present opportunities for uses that we do not currently anticipate.

What does this means for us now? We need an attitudinal shift. Spaces can be specifically suited to a single program or spaces can be suited to accommodate several types of program. Think flexibility or capacity to change. Street level spaces do not have to be either commercial or residential–the space requirements for retail and residential are not mutually exclusive.

Which brings me to my second point. We need to be thinking about where we want to eventually be in 50 years as well as where want to be in 5 or 10 years. Couldn’t we focus commercial development on a block by block basis to create desired densities of retail today? And couldn’t street level residential uses elsewhere eventually give way to office and retail uses in the future? Again, I am thinking about how other older cities have grown their commercial districts.

Back to Belltown, Second and Third have moderate car and pedestrian traffic in the northern part of the neighborhood. They’d be good candidates for narrowing and requiring less retail. Actually all streets have less pedestrian traffic in their northern parts for obvious reasons.

I like the streetcar idea currently planned for First. But I’d either extend it to the top of Queen Anne (perhaps with a dual self-powered and hook-powered system?), or make it more like light rail (partially out of ROW) and take it to Ballard. Call it BADASS, or Ballard and Downtown Area Streetcar System. Or maybe do both. In any case, Belltown should be treated like a wing of Greater Downtown with excellent transit. Any future rail route north or northwest should include multiple stations.

But in Belltown the issue is that 1st through 4th are all major arterials. As is, none of these streets will be quiet residential streets so you might as well put some retail on them right? I hope the Bell St. Boulevard sets a good example of how to better utilize some of our expansive ROW areas. Perhaps then we can turn some of these ridiculously large streets into ACTUAL residential areas with gardens, trees, and safe places for children and adults to play.

Also on retail: I think a lot of the random retail through the city helps really solidify neighborhoods here unlike anywhere else. Think about mini retail centers such as Ravenna Third Place, Summit Pub/Top Pot Strip, Targy’s on Queen Anne, Central Cinema/2020 Cycles, Mioposto in Mt. Baker, etc. All of these mini-urban centers give rallying points for sub-neighborhoods which is a very wonderful thing around here.

I guess overall I think we should have main centralized retail areas, preferably around major transit hubs where large groups can concentrate. Then throughout the neighborhoods we should have very small retail centers for convenient, walkable access to groceries, coffee, beer, you know, the essentials

Matt, I’m interested to hear your thoughts on the future of Belltown transit. Would you like to see a rail line in the future? Or even just a concentrated transit street? A streetcar perhaps?

Examples that spring to mind: Broadway (think overall length relative to concentration of commercial, one-sided development along some stretches and urban “voids” such as at SCCC); upper QA (again overall length vs density, lots of single-sided developments, and questionable urbanistic moves (i.e. Safeway); 45th thru Wallingford, auto-centric, length vs. density, et al.

I have been a resident of SF and Boston too. What I’ve taken away is the incredible density in a much shorter length street; streets that are more appropriately scaled to pedestrian activity (whether width of ROW or just the proportions of sidewalk to street) and retail expansion that is more likely to start branching to side streets and eventually to parallel streets rather than extending the commercial strip.Why not focus on creating environments that are more accommodating to pedestrians, e.g. shorter walking distances, opportunities to rest at a public bench or just enjoy taking watching the urban spectacle? An environment that not only gets people out of their cars, but encourages people to leave the car behind is what we really need to seek.

In Seattle, I would actually like to see smaller apartments with better community living design such as semi-private shared facilities and greenspace, such as I’ve read about in Stockholm’s Hammarby Sjöstad. We do need to continually raise our bar for sustainable living by comparing ourselves to working solutions around the world.

If you look at a street like Newbury in Boston or Chestnut in San Francisco you see that the concentration not only makes the streetscape far better (as would be expected for that street) but gives the surrounding neighborhood a more friendly residential feeling.

Belltown by contrast should have wall to wall (door to door?) retail on First ave, but instead gets spread so thin that every street feels like an akward mix of both and thus lacks both residential charm and urban vibrancy.