Seattle picks design firm for its post-viaduct waterfront

To redesign Seattle's waterfront, the city hired a firm that's famously transforming a former New York City railway viaduct into a refuge of paths and flora.

James Corner Field Operations and its team won a $6 million, two-year contract Tuesday from the city, prevailing over three other finalists.

The team will design a post-viaduct waterfront, making use of nine new acres of public space to be created when the 1953-vintage elevated highway is demolished, six years from now.

The city government would spend $123 million on waterfront park space, and has yet to propose a funding source, said transportation spokesman Rick Sheridan. Seattle taxpayers are expected to pay another half-billion dollars for a new sea wall and utility lines.

Corner's marquee project is the High Line, an elevated, 1 ½-mile park near the west shore of Manhattan that features waterfront views and benches for rest or lunching.

The firm also designed a Philadelphia pier park that lets people descend to the Delaware River.

James Corner showed few preconceptions about Seattle — and he says he's never seen the ubiquitous placeholder images by the State Department of Transportation that depict expanses of red paving stones.

"My impression is we have been given a free slate to design this, how we think it should be," he said by phone from New York.

As a general theme, Corner hopes to integrate the future tree-lined surface roadway with parkland and Elliott Bay, while keeping a relationship with the working harbor to the south and bringing visitors down to the water line.

"You don't feel that close to the waterfront, particularly," he said. "You feel distant. And the piers sort of frame it, and reduce the space."

Mini-beaches, where the shoreline is nothing but bulkheads now, would be one option to help people reach the water. Just to the north, the new Olympic Sculpture Park provides a small shore where young families enjoy stepping over logs to dip feet into the water.

Nine waterfront acres is not especially huge — about the same as the sculpture park. However, Corner predicts there will be much more active space, because of sidewalks, landscaping and bike trails in the new surface street.

Additional land will be freed upland near Belltown, noted Cary Moon, co-founder of the People's Waterfront Coalition.

Good design would make the area feel bigger, Corner said. In other cities, he's inserted terraces, creating more places to tarry.

Corner's team in Seattle includes local firms Mithun, The Berger Partnership, Herrera Environmental Consultants, and Jason Toft.

The state and Port of Seattle have pledged a total $3.1 billion for a deep-bore highway tunnel, Sodo interchange and new surface boulevard.

Moon hailed the selection of Corner, whom she called a pioneer in merging landscape architecture, public space and ecology.

The team and city plan to hold many public forums leading to a conceptual design in 2012, followed by a final design in 2015 and construction by 2018.

"That's the No. 1 risk, we could kill this with excessive process, and excessive demands of individual interests," Moon said.

Another risk is a budget shortage. City Councilmember Nick Licata has sought state guarantees that in the event of tunnel cost overruns, the state will not shortchange the surface boulevard, where it has promised to install bike trails, street trees and sidewalks that complement the park.

Residents have wondered what sort of private building boom might ensue if the viaduct is gone, and bay views improve, or what kind of windfall would enrich nearby landowners.

City Councilmember Sally Bagshaw, a longtime backer of waterfront renewal, said she would oppose any tall condominiums or hotels that block access. "It's not a waterfront for the rich," she said. "It's a waterfront for all of us."

Bagshaw envisions access points where people could wade or launch a canoe, along with restaurants, music venues and a possible amphitheater. The whole thing can be tied together by a waterfront trail that will continue for miles, connecting the Sound to Lake Union, she said.

"This is going to completely re-energize the city and the region," she said.

Staff reporter Emily Heffter contributed to this report. Mike Lindblom: 206-515-5631 or mlindblom@seattletimes.com