Seattle Press on Line - City Unveils Arboretum Lite

City Unveils Arboretum Lite

Jan 11, 2001 -- There will be no fences and no admission charges at Seattle's Washington Park Arboretum, according to the new Master Plan and Environmental Impact Statement unveiled January 4 by the Seattle Department of Parks and Recreation.

The Arboretum is an Olmstead-designed, 230-acre "special purpose park" that is both an urban refuge and a place where trees and other plants are cultivated in the interest of conservation, and for scientific and educational purposes.

A quick browse through the 500-page plan reveals a scheme considerably scaled back from the initial proposals released in 1998, which some critics said would have "Disneyfied" the park.

Read It For Yourself:

The Master Plan and Environmental Impact Statement is available for review at the Seattle Department of Parks and Recreation, 100 Dexter Ave. N. or on the web at www.cityofseattle.net/parks.

Proposed changes include:

* a new 2,500-square-foot educational and visitor services building near the Japanese Garden in the southern part of the park;

* an expansion of the existing maintenance and operations buildings from 4,700 to 10,000 square feet;

* two additions to the existing 6,700-square-foot Graham Visitors Center: a 3,000-square-foot education facility and a 3,000-square-foot curation building to accommodate a horticulture staff that would be more than doubled in size, from 17.4 to 42 full-time positions;

* several existing small parking lots, with a total of 377 slots, would be consolidated into fewer larger lots, for a net gain of one additional car space and 8 bus stalls;

* renovation of 30 existing plant exhibits and creation of 21 new exhibits, and reorientation of some pedestrian trails;

* revisions to Lake Washington Boulevard to accommodate a bike trail alongside, and a new pedestrian and bicycle overpass near the Japanese Garden.

An additional 4,000 square feet of office and administrative space would be leased outside the park. One possible site is the building currently occupied by the Museum of History and Industry, which is moving its exhibits to the expanded Washington Convention and Trade Center later this year.

Taken together, the proposed changes seem aimed at increasing public access to the collections, strengthening the options for educational activities, and providing working space for more staff. Would the existing bucolic character of the park be threatened by the new Master Plan? Joe Marshall, a park neighbor who recently filed for landmark status protection for the Arboretum, thinks so.

"The Arboretum itself is the classroom," Marshall said. "We shouldn't be putting up buildings there. We should stick to Olmstead's plan and vision."

Marshall said the revised plan shows that park officials listened to the public and scaled back the original proposals considerably. "But it still goes too far, and it's unacceptable," he said.

The Arboretum Park Preservation Coalition, which has been critical of plans for development of the Arboretum, met on January 8, too late for coverage in this issue.

The Arboretum is owned by the City of Seattle and is jointly administered with the University of Washington, which owns the plant collections. No change will be made in these arrangements.

The plan now goes before the Seattle City Council for action.

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