Pike Place Market supporters want $73M for infrastructure

Pike Place Market is 101 years old, and it's showing its age. A window fell off the Fairley Building and landed on Western Avenue a few weeks ago. When the maintenance crew sends a snake into a clogged drain, the pipes are so thin they break. The boiler recently failed in Stewart House, and its low-income tenants had no hot water for a week.

The heating, the cooling and the plumbing systems have outlived their useful life, said Steve Nelson, the market's director of operations. "It's like a car with 200,000 or 300,000 miles on it. A tuneup just doesn't work anymore."

To upgrade the market's basic infrastructure, market supporters are asking Seattle voters to pass Proposition 1, a $73 million levy for Pike Place Market, on Nov. 4.

Unlike voter-approved bonds that paid for 26 new and renovated libraries, or the Parks for All Levy that added new parks across the city, the market levy would result in few visible changes. The money would go toward a new heating and cooling system, new drain pipes, electrical vaults and meters and seismic improvements.

"These are for basic life-extending improvements," said Gerry Johnson, co-chair of the task force that developed the levy package. "They are no-frills."

If approved, the owner of the average Seattle home, assessed at $479,100 in 2008, would pay about $43 a year beginning in 2009. The levy would cost 9 cents per $1,000 of assessed value, with the rate declining slightly over the six-year life of the levy.

The last major capital investment in the market was made in the early 1970s, after the market was saved from demolition. Voters passed an initiative turning the market into a historic district, and $50 million in federal and local money was invested in renovating the market.

No one then envisioned the market would draw the crowds it does now. The market, now an icon of the city, supports 10 million visitors a year. Johnson said with this investment, the market would last another three decades.

"The only concern that I hear from people is, 'Are you going to be using levy money to change the market?' And the answer is, 'No,' " said Jackson Schmidt, chair of the Pike Place Market Public Development Authority board. "We're not asking for anything that's going to be sexy."

The most obvious benefit of passing the levy would be a new hillclimb stairway connecting the market to Western Avenue, two new sets of restrooms and three new elevators. The existing restrooms on the arcade level would also be renovated and made accessible to people with disabilities.

The rest of the repairs would take place behind walls and under floors. For instance, each building now has its own aged heating and cooling system. If approved, the levy proceeds would fund a new campuswide condenser water-loop system. The system could capture heating generated by, say, a refrigerator, and direct it to areas that need heating, such as the interior of a restaurant.

The money would also be used to replace drain pipes, install grease-catching devices, construct new electrical vaults and meters, and reinforce brick buildings with steel frames to protect the structures in an earthquake.

"We could pay for this ourselves theoretically if we would just raise everyone's rents, but we're not allowed to do that by the historic-district ordinance," Schmidt said. "We wouldn't want to do that because our principal charge is preserving and protecting the traditions of the market."

Most of the tenants pay rents below market rate, he said, compared to the buildings around Pike Place, making it difficult to pay for major repairs. The Pike Place Market Public Development Authority does not receive city funding. The levy package was developed based on a comprehensive study the PDA commissioned in 2006 and a series of meetings.

There is no active campaign against the levy at this time. Citizens For Pike Place, the campaign in favor of the levy, has raised $309,607, and more than half donated by the Market's foundation. Levy supporters plan to conduct a direct-mail campaign.

Sharon Pian Chan: 206-464-2958 or schan@seattletimes.com