Seattle Parks and Recreation (SPR) is excited to work with the community on planning for a new community center in the South Lake Union neighborhood. Please visit the Online Open House from March 11 through March 31, 2021 and join us at the Online Meeting on March 16, 2021 at noon. Both events can be found at slucc.infocommunity.org. Please participate to learn more about this project, meet the design team and provide feedback on the design concepts for the new South Lake Union Community Center.

Located at the corner of Mercer Street and Dexter Ave., the center will be a private-public partnership operated by SPR but located on the ground floor of a private development project. The new center will be a welcoming space for all and visible from the street with easy access for pedestrians, cyclists and people traveling by mass transit.

SPR and the design team from NBBJ created the layout with input gathered from the first Online Open House held earlier this year. Your input will further help the design team create a successful center for all.

Key features of the center include a full-size basketball court, fitness area/multi-purpose room, and childcare. The community will be asked to share additional recreation priorities to help the design team design the look and feel of the spaces within the community center.

For more information please visit www.seattle.gov/parks/about-us/current-projects/south-lake-union-community-center or contact David Graves at david.graves@seattle.gov or 206-684-7048.

Spruce St Mini Park Play Area survey closes on March 14, 2021. Seattle Parks and Recreation(SPR) encourages the neighborhood to participate in the short survey https://seattle.surveymonkey.com/r/sprucestpa to provide input on the final design and play area equipment selection. 

SPR would like to thank everyone who participated in the Online Open House on February 27.  To review the Online Open House please visit https://youtu.be/HuibspZsKt8 and then take the survey.  The Online Open House provides the community an opportunity to learn about the project, hear from the design team and provide input on the preferred schematic design and the three play equipment options.

We wanted to thank you in advance for contributing your thoughts on what is most important to you as we move forward with this project. The design team incorporated previous community input into the play area schematic design, and we are excited to share it with you along with the play equipment options.

As part of the play area renovation project, SPR is partnering with the Office of Arts & Culture and will collaborate with the community on public art. Seattle Parks and Recreation, Seattle Office of Arts & Culture, Planning Artists (Damon Brown & Hasaan Kirkland), and a small team of community members are looking to commission an artist or artist team of two, to collaborate with and install a mural project for the Spruce St Mini Park Play Area Renovation. The selected artist/artist team will be asked to develop an artwork that reflects the history and diversity of the Central Area community. Please watch for information about the Call for Artists coming out next month and contact Jason Huff (jason.huff@seattle.gov) for more information about the art project at Spruce St Park.

Spruce Street Mini Park is located at 160 21st Ave, Seattle, WA 98112  in the Central Area  at the corner of 21st Ave. and E Fir St. For more information on the project, to review the Online Open House and find the survey link please visit http://www.seattle.gov/parks/about-us/current-projects/spruce-street-mini-park-play-area-renovation. If you have any questions about the project please contact Janice Liang at Janice.liang@seattle.gov or 206-507-3058.

By Todd Burley

Seward Park, the largest park in Southeast Seattle at 277 acres, is a rare gem of waterfront wildness in the midst of the Northwest’s largest city. Since it was purchased by the city in 1911, this peninsula in Lake Washington has meant many things to many cultures in our community. And it continues to provide connection to nature and each other.

This regional park has another distinction – a virtual historical tour was created as part of the mitigation work completed by Seattle Public Utilities for the CSO (Combined Sewer Overflow) system installed under the tennis courts. Check out the Seward Park Story Map created by Monica Hall (SPU), Nate Smith (SPR), Patrick Morgan (Seattle IT) and supported by Libby Hudson (SPR). It is a visually stunning experience that uncovers the many layers to this majestic park.

If you want to go even deeper into the history of Seward Park, check out Paul Talbert’s new book Wild Isle in the City.

And for those who really wish they had a naturalist in their pocket when walking through the park, the Seward Park Audubon Center has developed two “Smart Walks” on ferns and evergreens that are accessible via your smart phone at this link.

Enjoy your walk, virtual or in person, at Seward Park!

Seattle Parks and Recreation is happy to announce we awarded the project for the Green Lake Bathhouse Electrical Improvement project to Brink Electric LLC.  This project will increase energy efficiency and will make much needed electrical improvements at the bathhouse building including the aquatics area, theater, and restrooms. Work includes new electrical service from W. Green Lake Drive N. to the bathhouse along the park’s primary path.

Construction will last from March 2021 to September 2021. Construction activities will cause temporary revisions to trail use. Thank you in advance for your patience and cooperation during construction.  We will work with the contractor to minimize trail interruption.

The Green Lake Bathhouse Theatre is located on the northwest side of the lake at 7312 W. Green Lake Dr. N.

More information visit http://www.seattle.gov/parks/find/parks/green-lake-park or contact Seattle Parks and Recreation Project Manager, Katie Bang, at Katie.Bang@seattle.gov or 206-684-9286.

By Todd Burley and Kathleen Conner

The ideal of being able to walk to the grocery store, library, school, barber shop, and park is not just a throwback to the past, but a value that the City of Seattle holds today. Seattle’s Comprehensive Plan, a long-term planning document, seeks to intentionally create just that sort of a community. But how do you measure it?

Real estate companies use Walk Scores to assess this “walkability” access to services from a home. And organizations like the Trust for Public Land (TPL) have developed the 10-Minute Walk to a Park metric for cities across the country.

Seattle is blessed with a great parks and recreation system of over 485 parks encompassing 6,423 acres. According to TPL, 96% of Seattle’s households live within a 10-minute walk to a park, or about a half-mile. Their figure includes all publicly accessible open space, such as Seattle Center or SDOT’s street ends, in addition to Seattle Parks and Recreation’s property. Future figures may be higher, since they will include all public schoolgrounds, which are open to the public outside of school hours.

Seattle Parks and Recreation (SPR) has used a narrower set of requirements to measure walkability. In the adopted 2017 Parks and Open Space Plan, SPR determined that 94% of households in Seattle live within a 10-minute walk to a SPR-owned park or open space. Much of the same considerations as TPL’s figure are included, such as a 10,000 square foot minimum for parks.

To incorporate equity and access into planning decisions, Seattle’s Office of Planning and Community Development (OPCD) created the Outside Citywide interactive map tool. It examines how well different areas of the city are being served by our current system based on the quantity, sizes, types, features, and walking distances of nearby public spaces. Outside Citywide creates a “public space access score” based on six different factors, including SPR’s walkability metric.

In 2020, SPR and OPCD collaborated to align our analyses to create two standard citywide walkability metrics:

1. Walkability to SPR-owned land
   This analysis uses the adopted 2017 Parks and Open Space Plan that identifies a walkability metric to SPR-owned land only. This is currently the data used in the Comprehensive Plan and is what Seattle reports on to Washington State in accordance with the Growth Management Act.
2. Walkability to all public outdoor spaces. Recognizing there are other publicly-owned open spaces not owned by SPR, we are also developing a new citywide walkability metric for the Equitable Development Monitoring Program. This metric will include all publicly-owned, accessible, and free land. OPCD and SPR will refine this metric for the Mayor’s Performance Seattle dashboard and the updates to the Comprehensive Plan and the Parks and Open Spaces Plan in 2023.

The goal of both metrics is not to achieve 100% walkability, but rather to identify where to invest public resources to ensure those in our community that are disproportionately impacted by lack of nearby parks and open space and environmental injustices receive the additional investments that will benefit their health and well-being.

Seattle is dedicated to setting the bar high for equitable access to parks and open spaces in our city. We are committed to reducing disparities in our community, which means we may not get to a 100% walkability figure. However, these maps and tools will allow decision makers in our city to make informed decisions based on equity, and that is our true goal.

Article written by Todd Burley, Sustainability Advisor and Kathleen Conner, Planning Manager.

Go visit the new bears on First Hill!

Seattle Parks and Recreation encourages the neighborhood to go discover the two new bronze bear cubs named Johnnie and Irish at the newly renovated First Hill park. The community-initiated park renovations re-opened in late January 2021. First Hill Park is a .25-acre urban park located along University St. and Minor St. immediately north of the Stimson-Green Mansion in a densely populated residential neighborhood. It features a custom bronze sculpture of an Edwardian chair, ottoman, and two bear cubs.

The new design seeks to create a more open and flexible space allowing for performance and passive activities to occur, while retaining an intimate garden feel, an important characteristic of the First Hill Neighborhood. Seating areas are interspersed among lushly planted beds, and a curvilinear seat step meanders through the park and frames the lawn suited for small events and gatherings. In a nod to the previous brick paving, the new park features permeable pavers laid in a herringbone pattern that also act as a sieve that treats and percolates storm water into the ground below. New barbeque and picnic benches are available for neighbors to enjoy in this dense urban environment.

The bronze sculpture by artist Georgia Gerber sits near the entrance along University and recalls the history of the Stimson Green Mansion family’s adoption and care for the young bears until their transfer to the Woodland Park Zoo. The two black bear cubs were orphaned due to logging in the area in 1906, but they were promptly adopted by 8-year-old Dorothy Stimson, who lived in the Stimson-Green Mansion at the time.

In 2016, the First Hill Improvement Association (FHIA) engaged the community to reimagine and update First Hill Park as a vibrant, welcoming, and safe open space for the neighborhood where people of all ages and abilities can relax and play. FHIA hired the landscape architecture firm, Site Workshop, to guide First Hill neighbors through a community visioning and design process. SPR awarded the construction contract to GreenTech in early 2020. The protective fencing around the grass will be removed once the turf establishes.

“We look forward to celebrating with the community, hopefully, sometime this summer when it will be safer to gather,”  said Doug Holtom, Executive Director of the First Hill Improvement Association. “Thank you to everyone who participated in the public process and provided invaluable input to get us where we are today. A special thanks to the Seattle Parks Department, the Department of Neighborhoods, and Swedish Medical Center. We encourage you to visit the park, take some pictures and hashtag #FirstHillPark. We are thrilled at how the renovation turned out for our neighborhood backyard!”

The project was made possible by funding from the Department of Neighborhoods, Swedish Health Services and the 2008 Parks and Green Spaces Levy. The artwork was funded separately through a FHIA led art committee with the generous contributions of the Peach Foundation, the Committee of 33, the Seattle Parks Foundation, Suzanne Hittman, and Harriet Bullitt.