The Civic Works Series

The projects we intend to see built. Each file is a buildable proposal with a site, a program, and a path to execution; MEMBERS files are visible to intelligence subscribers.

• ⚖ The Federal Property Series SUBSERIES Every federal holding in Seattle, who has it, and what happens to it next. Fort Lawton, the Ford plant on the Duwamish, the Jackson Building, 909 First Avenue, the Nakamura Courthouse, Sand Point, Pier 36, Beacon Hill and the Locks. The list is public and the files are for members.
• ✑ The Seattle Grand Prix MOTORSPORT Formula 1 turned Miami and Las Vegas into the biggest civic events in America and put street circuits on the global map. Seattle has the stadium district, the light rail, and a waterfront backdrop no American circuit can match. A SoDo and stadium-district street race puts Seattle on the calendar next to Monaco and Singapore.
• ✑ MEMBERS A Washington for Washington MONUMENT The Lenin at the Fremont intersection has been for sale for thirty years; the removal everyone argues about was only ever missing a buyer with a better idea for the metal. In 1776 the Republic melted a king into musket balls. Seven tons of bronze, the state that carries the name, and the 250th year.
• ✑ MEMBERS Lake City Corridor MIXED-USE Mixed-use development along NE 125th in 10 phases.
• ✑ Second Fremont Bridge Proposal BRIDGES The most-opened drawbridge in America carries a million bike rides a year on six-foot sidewalks, and the only idea on the table is rationing it. Build its twin instead: a bike and pedestrian bascule on the east side of the Fremont Bridge, same 1917 style, same blue and orange.
• ✑ The Elliott Bay Fishing Pier WATERFRONT Expedia built a 40-acre campus on Elliott Bay at Smith Cove and opened its shoreline to the public, the best stretch of working-waterfront beach downtown. The old Port fishing pier a half mile south proves what is missing: a place to walk out over the water and cast a line. Build a proper public fishing and gathering pier next to the one good place on the water, in the civic style.
• ✑ MEMBERS The Century Gate Lid LID Freeway Park was Seattle's Bicentennial lid over I-5, and for fifty years it has been the only one. The city's 2020 study says a lid from Madison to Denny is buildable and prices it from $966 million; the 2026 visioning starts this fall with no design standard in it. Build it to one, with the Century Gate a mile west at the far end of Denny Way. Century Gate 1a is the arch. Century Gate 1b is the lid.
• ✑ MEMBERS The Fort Lawton Trust FEDERAL LAND The Army left the Presidio in 1994, the Park Service could not afford it, and Congress chartered a trust that paid for itself eight years early. Seattle has held a first option on 34 acres at Fort Lawton since 2005 and built zero of its 500 homes. A Presidio-style trust for Fort Lawton, Federal Center South and the Sand Point archives, with the city as a tenant on a build-by date.