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February 11, 2016

Seattle parks need a little more love

By LYNN PORTER
Journal Staff Reporter

Photo by Keaton Tucker [enlarge]
Parks and Recreation held a Dancing Til Dusk event in Bell Street Park last year.

In downtown Seattle, Freeway Park is hard to find and people camp there. Bell Street Park is in a neighborhood that struggles with crime and disorder and Victor Steinbrueck Park sees a fair amount of inebriated people and drug dealing.

That's according to Victoria Schoenburg, manager of center city parks for Seattle Parks and Recreation. But, she said, these and other downtown Seattle parks are great places.

Freeway is one of the most beautiful and biggest green spaces downtown, she said. The popular Steinbrueck near Pike Place Market has stunning views and pulls in loads of tourists, she said, and Bell Street could be a “neighborhood hearth” for residents and office workers.

The parks just need a little more love, Schoenburg said.

Seattle Parks and Recreation hopes to foster that by partnering with community groups to activate and program select parks downtown. Funding is from a park district approved by the city's voters in 2014.

Groups have until March 4 to provide proposals for one or more of five parks, according to a notice in the Jan. 29 DJC.

They are Bell Street Park at First to Fifth Avenue on Bell Street; Cascade Playground at 333 Pontius Ave. N.; Freeway Park at 700 Seneca St.; Victor Steinbrueck Park at 2001 Western Ave.; and Hing Hay Park at 423 Maynard Ave. S.

Susanne Rockwell, who is on special assignment with Seattle Parks and Recreation, said the organizations may also activate smaller parks near these “lead” parks. For instance, Belltown Cottage Park and/or Tilikum Place with Bell Street; Denny Park with Cascade; or International Children's Garden and Kobe Terrace with Hing Hay.

The city will award $25,000 to $46,000 for each lead park, if it gets the right proposals, Rockwell said.

It wants activation to start by early June, but some groups may just plan this year, she said.

After the first or second year, a multi-year agreement may be negotiated subject to City Council approval and funding, Rockwell said. The city may also add more parks in future years.

Seattle has already requested and received proposals for activation of Westlake Park and Occidental Square, under a five-year agreement.

The city said things like outdoor furniture, chess tournaments, dance lessons, musical performances, gardening classes, seasonal flowers, Ping-Pong, temporary art, information kiosks and children's reading hours could make downtown parks more inviting.

“When you don't have activity, things look barren,” said Rockwell. “Then you're like ‘oh yeah do I want to go there?'”

Downtown Seattle Association has been activating Westlake Park and Occidental Square for a little less than a year under a pilot agreement with the city.

Rockwell said Freeway Park Neighborhood Association has spent years on its activation plan, hosting a concert series, chess games and a park walk with stations where pancakes were served.

Unfortunately, said Schoenburg, downtown parks attract drug and alcohol abuse, prostitution and combative behavior as they are public spaces in well-populated neighborhoods and are easily accessed via transit. Men are more tolerant of risky behavior, but it deters women, she said.

Seattle has worked for years to combat negative activity in its downtown parks, but there's been more drug dealing and aggressive behavior in the last few years, she said.

Schoenburg said the city has not beefed up the police presence in the parks, as there's only so many to go around.

The city created her position in 2006, she said, and gave her a modest budget to develop activation strategies, such as this work with local organizations.

Seattle has done “baseline things,” she said, like putting concierges in parks to help visitors find their way around and paying buskers for short gigs, but there is only so much money.

It needs to leverage that money with these community partnerships, and help the groups by bringing in stages, dance floors, sound equipment and the like, she said.

Across the country, Schoenburg said, community groups are being asked to help address issues in parks, “and it's really serving the cities well.”

Each downtown Seattle park is different, she said. The recently-created Bell Street Park is a boulevard made to be more park-like, but Metro buses travel down Bell. So programming can be a little more difficult, Schoenburg said.

Victor Steinbrueck is heavily used, but can feel unfriendly in the evening, she said. And when Westlake Park was at its worse, some nearby property owners said their tenants didn't feel safe in the park, she said.

Rockwell said the city wants a sustainable partnerships for its downtown parks. “It's just not something where we're giving you a handout and a year later you walk away,” she said.


 


Lynn Porter can be reached by email or by phone at (206) 622-8272.




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