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Northgate Urban Center...Are We There Yet?
By Jan Brucker
Apr 25, 2002 -- Who hasn't heard the familiar query of children on a long journey: "Are we there yet?" Some city officials, and even some of my fellow citizens, seem to be flagging, as if the small public investments currently contemplated for Northgate should be enough. The Library Board has voted to take steps to acquire the Bon Tire property in conjunction with the Parks Department. The Planning Commission urged some wider sidewalks and street trees along Fifth Avenue. They want us to answer "Yes" to the question "Are we there yet?"Pretend you're looking out the car window with just those changes in view. Does Northgate look like an urban center to you? If you see what I see, there is still a vast ocean of featureless parking lot in front of a faded shopping mall. Concentration of limited public dollars on an isolated site and a few street trees doesn't create the dramatic transformation we've all agreed is necessary.
"Northgate Yesterday" is the place where a suburban-style mall is the central focus of the area. No one ever suggested the trip from there to "Northgate Tomorrow"-- a bustling, pedestrian-friendly mix of retail, offices, housing and public amenities, with refreshing and welcoming open space in the mix--would be a quick, or even pleasant trip. And yet, the destination of "Northgate Urban Center" is just where we need to be going, and going, until we get there. It's worth the trip.
Communities all around us are catching the revitalization bandwagon. Renton, Bremerton, Tacoma, and even Bellevue to name a few, are learning that public-private partnerships are the key to achieving the biggest gain in the shortest period of time. They are using the tools now available to reshape their tired business districts, creating new and dynamic streetscapes, and public open spaces. In Chattanooga, Tennessee, city officials and the owners of the old Eastgate mall have worked together with the community to craft a dramatic new design for their town center. They are planning to actually remove half of the existing linear mall and replace it with a mix of offices, residential buildings and retail organized around courtyards. They are putting in streets and sidewalks where the oceans of mall parking were before. And they are getting help from outside sources, some federal monies, and creating public-private partnerships to get the job done.
Seattle needs to take the trip from "Northgate Yesterday" to "Northgate Tomorrow," and put energy into the kinds of public-private partnerships that will get us all the way to a true urban center. We need to demand that our leaders work with us to acquire the South Parking Lot at Northgate and create a truly exciting town center with public open space and a daylighted Thornton Creek at its heart. We can find the tools to build new retail, housing and services. We can have a dramatic library next to a new creek and pond, which will demonstrate that environmental values and urban development can not only coexist, but will also be the centerpiece of a new, and enviably livable, Northgate.
Jan Brucker is a member of Citizens for a Liveable Northgate.
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