By Ryan Packer

On Sunday, Freeway Park turned 45 years old. Seattle’s often overlooked lid over I-5, and the first city park anywhere that was constructed over an existing freeway, always seems to be in a race against time. The Brutalist fountain still carries a heavy air of a different era, thanks largely in part to the fact that maintenance hasn’t quite kept up with need. The nooks and crannies these days are only for the most curious. But the latest attempt to give Freeway Park a new sparkle is moving forward.

The improvements are planned after a cash infusion coming from the expansion of the Washington State Convention Center blocks away. Out of the $10 million coming as part of a public benefits package, only $6 million will be available for construction of physical improvements to the park. The rest will mostly go toward “design and project management, permitting, sales tax and contingencies”, with a $750,000 slice set aside for park activation. A master plan of an estimated $23 million in improvements has been narrowed down to fit inside the $6 million budget.

Earlier this year, the Seattle Design Commission got an update on what those improvements are going to look like and gave a unanimous go-ahead to proceed with the project. But since 2019 Freeway Park has been on the National Register of Historic Places, adding another layer of hoops for the project to jump through. That might make major changes like the removal of segments of park walls harder to get approved.

Through a public outreach process, the team has narrowed down the improvements to six major categories: entrances, lighting, signage/wayfinding, seating, plantings/irrigation, and drainage.

The entrance improvements are one of the biggest aspects of the plan. But Capitol Hill’s main entrance to Freeway Park, from Pike Street and Hubbell Place, won’t receive much attention from the upcoming improvements. The long corridor with a glass wall looking down on Hubbell is actually on Convention Center property, and not technically part of the park itself. Instead the three entrances that will see enhancements to make the park more inviting will be the one from the 8th Ave overpass, and the two entrances along Seneca Street, at 6th Ave and close to Hubbell Place.

At 8th Ave, some of the most significant proposed changes to the park’s walls are proposed. The entire planter at the top of the stairway is planned to be converted to a platform that you will be able to enter, with a transparent panel installed in place of a segment of wall that overlooks the park. It’s unclear if this will be tempered glass at this point or another material, but is intended to show visitors entering from 8th Ave what the park actually looks like, currently hidden behind a wall. The stairway will also be rerouted to directly connect with the main Freeway Park corridor. It’s worth noting the large amount of investment in this specific entrance, which is not accessible to people who use wheelchairs or other mobility devices.

The other entrance changes are more subtle. The north entrance along Seneca will see an additional pathway created that fulfills a natural connection to the street, in part to better facilitate access for Seattle Parks maintenance vehicles. A potential crosswalk across Seneca in a spot where it’s currently not encouraged is being studied here.

At the southern entrance on Seneca, the changes will be even less significant. That entrance will be opened up a bit to improve sightlines into the park but will remain essentially the same.

As for lighting improvements, existing lighting fixtures throughout the park will be replaced, and new ones added everywhere as well. Lighting is envisioned at the pedestrian level, above the park to provide more illumination, and on the landscape level to expand the park’s visible boundary. The unpleasant 8th Ave underpass is planned to receive a special lighting treatment that matches art and function.

Seating improvements are planned in every corner of the park, mostly a refurbishing of the existing benches with new seats and metal arm rests in place of the current wood. Of course, the metal arm rests discourage people from fully reclining on the benches.

The wayfinding improvements will consist of a new set of signs and maps intended to guide people through an infamously confusing park. Custom maps that simplify the park’s pathways should significantly improve navigability.

As far as plantings go, the current plan to thin out what is seen as an overgrown park includes the removal of 106 trees and large shrubs, around 20% of the canopy in Freeway Park overall. Only 24 new trees are planned to be added, with a two-for-one replacement of other removed trees elsewhere in the city.

Opportunities left on the table
Quite a few other ideas have not made it into the final proposal. A $7 million pedestrian bridge on the winding Pigott Corridor entrance from the north that would have bypassed the current meandering path was deemed out of scope. Project planners decided to prioritize other entrances over the Pigott Corridor with the justification that this park entrance is used primarily by First Hill commuters who already know where they’re going, which seems like an argument that casual visitors to the park don’t even know it exists.

Improvements to the box garden segment of the park — the most disconnected segment of Freeway Park- across Seneca Street with an I-5 ramp running through it — were mostly left by the wayside as well, including a proposal to create an off-leash dog park there or a skateboarding feature.

Plans have been drawn up for additional buildings to be added to the main Seneca plaza section of the park: a parks storage building, a park concierge office, and two additional public restrooms would be included here. But unless the cost for the other items moving forward comes down considerably from estimates, these new buildings won’t be happening either. The two gendered restrooms that already exist in Freeway park will be refurbished and turned into two single-stall unisex bathrooms, though.

The current plan is to construct the improvements that made the cut starting in 2022. These renovations follow earlier attempts over a decade ago to spruce up the park, including a $2.5 million allocation from the city in 2007.

The Convention Center expansion was probably the biggest opportunity for the park to see a real comprehensive improvement plan become reality, and only one-quarter of the improvements envisioned are moving forward, in part because of incredibly high overhead costs.

But any improvements will surely be welcome in this unique park that is increasingly showing its age. For a pioneer in the freeway lidding space, a topic in which interest has exploded in recent years with increased awareness of how highways have decimated communities and destroyed neighborhoods, Seattle owes it to Freeway Park and to the people who enjoy it to make sure the park is ready for its next decades.

You can find updates on the project as it moves toward construction here.

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