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Downtown’s first play area opens to kids Friday

From Friday’s opening via Mayor McGinn’s Instagram account

While Capitol Hill has a plethora of play areas for kids, downtown is getting its first one Friday at Westlake Park.

Formally a concrete space with a couple benches, trees and statues, the space will now include various play structures, according to the Downtown Seattle Association:

The play area will be encircled by attractive low barriers and benches for guardians to relax on. There will be two exciting play elements inside.  The first is called a Mini Geode, which is a climbing structure with a combination of rounded and linear beams forming the outside sphere and a complex inner structure of play ropes.


The second structure is a grouping of three rolling climber domes made of stainless steel.  The surfacing will be a forgiving rubberized material that rests directly on top of the existing pavers allowing it to be removed without much disruption. 

The two-year pilot program aims to create a safe, fun place for children to play, including the 3,000 kids who live downtown.

“You can’t really have a neighborhood without families, and young families deserve easily accessible play spaces,” said DSA President & CEO Kate Joncas, in a press release. “Attracting and retaining families is a top priority for making Downtown a diverse and healthy neighborhood and the new play area certainly helps.”

There will be a ribbon cutting ceremony Friday, complete with free musical performances, face painting and treats:

Photo: DSA

 

When: Friday, March 1

11:30 a.m. with remarks beginning at Noon

Where: Westlake Park (401 Pine Street)

Who:  Kate Joncas, President & CEO, Downtown Seattle Association

Mike McGinn, Mayor, City of Seattle

Sally Bagshaw, Councilmember, Seattle City Council

Christopher Williams, Superintendent, Seattle Parks & Recreation

James Hendricks, PhD, President, Seattle Children’s Research Institute

The ceremony will include a ribbon cutting, a performance by the Spruce Street School Marimba Band, face painting courtesy of Seattle Children’s Research Institute, and hot chocolate, coffee and treats provided by Starbucks.

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Not a grinch
11 years ago

I am all for kids having a place to play in downtown, but this is a terrible location. Westlake is already becoming a magnet for homeless and/or street youth and you can bet this new place to “sit” will attract them. On the other hand, perhaps activating the space with playing children will help clear that element, but I doubt it.

Another reason this is a bad idea is that Westlake, for better or for worse, serves as the only central “gathering” place in Seattle. Most cities have some kind of civic plaza or gathering area, but after the foolish decision (thank you Nordstrom) to re-open Pine Street to traffic between 5th and 4th Avenues, we lost any sense of that at Westlake. I’m not sure a children’s play area will make it any easier to have civic events here.

I guess my complaint has less to do with the play space and more to do with the fact that Westlake has been let deteriorate into a pretty uninviting space, unless you happen to be a homeless person or the occasional tourist.

caphill parent
11 years ago

This is not a replacement for a playground or park serving downtown families. At best, this is an amenity for shoppers akin to the play area atop Bellevue Square. Its design is constrained by space and the inability to anchor anything into the ground.

The lack of parks sucks, but the real reason there are so few families downtown is simply that there’s no meaningful 2br+ housing inventory. (Not that there’s much on the hill, either!)

When 95+% of housing stock in the neighborhood is studio or 1BR, and the only 2BR units are condos going for $500k+ at the low end (forget rentals,) you’re not going to attract or retain families.

(Posted as a parent who has lived downtown and now Capitol Hill.)

Quail
Quail
11 years ago

Better than a homeless park, although the homeless will sleep on the benches

Pitbulls and Parolees
11 years ago

It’s never too soon for young children to marinate in weed and cig smoke and ask their parents why the mean looking dogs on chains look so sad as their owners lay passed out from whatever they have taken. There are teaching moments abound at this park!

You are so old
11 years ago

Pine was closed to traffic? How long ago was that?

parents should talk to their kids

Why is a child’s question the worst thing in the world for parents

R-dizzle
11 years ago

It reopened in 1998. Some of us in our 20’s grew up in the area and remember going to Westlake when Pine was closed. Ever wonder why that section of Pine is paved with bricks?

Older and wiser
11 years ago

You crack me up. Older, perhaps, but it wasn’t all that long ago. Pine was closed to traffic in the 90s. The exact years escape me. But Nordstrom pretty much forced the city to re-open that one block, refusing to commit to ancoring the downtown revitalization project pushed by former Mayor Norm Rice by taking over the old Frederick and Nelson building (NOW you’re talking old…), claiming it was “vital” to their business. This pretty much killed what had turned Westlake into a nice pedestrian area in the middle of downtown. If you look at the bricks on the ground, they demarcate what used to be a pedestrian-only area.

ERF
ERF
11 years ago

The mall had the grand opening in 1988 or 1989 and everyone at the time as I recall complained about the street being closed. It backed up traffic quite a bit. The bus tunnel opened into Nordie’s on the South side of Pine (it’s sealed off now).