September 16, 2010

Four teams outline ideas for Central Waterfront Project

Last night, the city of Seattle held public presentations with each of the four teams that are shortlisted for lead designer of the central waterfront. The chosen team will be responsible for a legacy that will impact the city's downtown for decades.

Presentations were made to a packed crowd of 1,200 at Benaroya Hall. The event was a unique opportunity for audience members to hear each potential project team describe their experience and vision.

In order of appearance, project team leaders were Philadelphia-based Wallace Roberts & Todd, New York City-based James Corner Field Operations, Brooklyn-based Michael Van Valkenburgh Associates and Seattle-based Gustafson Guthrie Nichol.

Over the past two days, a city selection panel held interviews with each team. The public presentation was held to give the city a chance to see how teams interacted with Seattle citizens and answered questions.

A team will be chosen in the next week. The lead design team will help the city choose a lead engineering team by the end of the month.

Design will begin in October and run until 2015. Construction is scheduled to start in 2016 and be completed in 2018.

The budget for phase one design work, which will stretch over two years, is expected to be about $6 million.

The estimated budget for planning and design of the entire project is between $50 and $70 million.

There were similarities in each presentation. Each team highlighted project experiences and put forth a general outline for the waterfront work.

But there were differences too: some subtle, some not. In a phrase, Wallace, Roberts and Todd were tested and experienced; James Corner was cutting edge; MVVA was strategic and thorough; and GGN were local experts.

Here is a short overview of each presentation:

Wallace, Roberts and Todd referenced their long history with similar work. They said this project would be centered on connecting Seattle to the water and on creating an urban heart for the city. The team had a number of specific ideas to connect people to the project such as including walls where people could write whatever they wanted, adding concerts back on the piers, leaving a portion of the viaduct in place for use as public space and recycling parts of the viaduct into reefs for wildlife. It also had a specific plan and timeline for engaging Seattle citizens in the process. A representative for team member Atelier Dreiseitl of Portland and Germany said this project could be similar to a park space that replaced the Berlin Wall in Germany, breathing life into the area and creating huge potential.

Though James Corner Field Operations had a number of team members on stage, James Corner dominated his team’s presentation. Corner emphasized his knowledge of the Seattle waterfront by explaining how its history, unique geography and climate would affect his team's design. His team would be careful to retain the waterfront's working character, he said, and not "anesthetize" it to make it look like every other waterfront. Corner's goal is to create different places for the "theater of civic life," similar to his work on the High Line in New York City. He also said he did not want to wait 15 years and would work soon, if awarded the project, to add elements that signify change is coming. His team conducted a video interview with people on the waterfront to see what changes they wanted to see.

Michael Van Valkenburgh’s presentation outlined the strategic way his team would approach the waterfront project. He emphasized a number of areas other teams did not, such as a significant grade change from one end of the waterfront to the other and the sustainability and cost of maintaining park space. For example, he said the capital cost of the MVVA-designed 85-acre Brooklyn Bridge Park was $350 million but the annual maintenance is $16 million. Valkenburgh said his team knows how to consider operations cost in planning, and to develop creative solutions, both in design and engineering. The team discussed its large scale stormwater management experience and said it would turn nearby streets into "urban assets." He said MVVA's design would respect Seattle's "grit" and the decade of planning that went into the waterfront project.

Gustafson Guthrie Nichol’s presentation was led by Shannon Nichol. Nicol quickly demonstrated her team knew Seattle intimately by highlighting the character of Seattleites, the importance of nature and a number of dualities the city faces such as wanting to be both global and local. Public places here, she said, have a way of seeming informal and all these things need to be combined to create the waterfront. For GGN, the waterfront's purpose would be promoting health of people and ecology. It would be our Central Park, connecting all neighborhoods that touch it and streets that intersect it. GGN wanted to be careful not to “over-green the waterfront” by simply adding trees and calling the project good. Team members reminded the audience they live here and would be in Seattle every day. GGN’s presentation incorporated video and an interesting seating arrangement.