♪♪
-Okay, everybody. Welcome,
and thank you all so much for joining us today.
My name is Angie Brady. I am the director of the city’s
Office of the Waterfront and Civic Projects,
and we are in charge of leading the design and construction
of the overall waterfront program,
which includes building a world-class waterfront park
for this beautiful city of ours.
It was just a few short years ago that right behind me
stood a looming gigantic double-decker concrete freeway
that formed a solid barrier
between this neighborhood and the waterfront.
The Alaskan Way Viaduct’s removal in 2019
has provided us with this incredible opportunity
to reconnect our downtown to our waterfront,
and that is exactly why we are here today --
to celebrate the start of construction
of the Pioneer Square Streets Improvements Project,
one of many improvements to east-west connection streets
in downtown that are included as part of the waterfront program.
In close collaboration with our partners at the Alliance
for Pioneer Square with us here today,
this project aims to improve accessibility
for people of all ages and abilities
and provide safe and convenient pedestrian
connections between our historic Pioneer Square District
and the new waterfront.
Today, we will hear remarks from Mayor Bruce Harrell,
Lisa Howard of the Alliance for Pioneer Square,
Valerie Segrest with the Muckleshoot Indian tribe,
and Joy Shigaki, our partner at Friends of Waterfront Seattle.
The work on this project includes improvements
on four streets within Pioneer Square --
South King Street, South Main Street,
which we’re standing on today,
South Washington Streets, and Yesler Way.
Some of the improvements we plan to make
with this project include the current
one-way configurations between Alaskan Way
and First Avenue on South Main and South Washington streets
will be extended to Second Avenue South,
and each street will be made curbless
with a priority on pedestrian access.
Our project will move vehicles away
from vulnerable underground, historic areaways
and add more landscaping and greenery to the area.
Our pedestrian improvements will include storytelling elements
that reflect and honor indigenous histories
within and near Pioneer Square based on collaboration
and feedback from members of local tribes.
For example, we are incorporating native plants
and will be adding interpretive panels
and ground-level etchings
depicting uses of indigenous people in the area.
Another storytelling piece that I am super excited
about are pavement markings
that will show the historic Elliott Bay shoreline
from the mid to late 19th century,
prior to the settlement of this area.
Construction of this project is expected to be
substantially complete by the end of this year,
and I wanted to quickly highlight
that these improvements will enhance the connections
to Pioneer Square Habitat Beach
on the waterfront, which opened last July to the public
and has welcomed many visitors ever since.
The Pioneer Square Habitat Beach,
located at the end of Washington Street,
was built to support marine habitat
while providing people with a relaxing place to sit
and watch the ferries and other boat traffic go by.
The waterfront program has also restored
the historic Washington Street boat Landing,
which will reopen and host a concessionaire this summer
thanks to our partners at Friends of Waterfront Seattle
and the Alliance for Pioneer Square.
The landmark boat landing has been a piece of Seattle’s
waterfront since the early 20th century,
and its restoration it will once again provide a symbolic gateway
from Puget Sound to Seattle. A couple of quick thank yous,
and I’ll hand it off to the mayor.
I’d like to sincerely thank the Alliance for Pioneer Square,
the Pioneer Square community, and especially the members
of the Pioneer Square Sounding Board
for their instrumental input and guidance
and support and patience throughout our design process,
that started in earnest in 2019, when we held our very first
open house right here in Pioneer Square.
Thank you for spending your valuable time with us
to ensure these improvements best reflect
what you really wanted to see happen in your neighborhood.
I want to thank my entire waterfront
Seattle team, particularly Jessica Murphy,
our construction program manager --
raise your hand, our senior project manager lead,
Barbara Lee, our project manager,
Therese Casper, our art and wayfinding lead,
Ruri Yampolsky, and our lead project engineer,
Amy Yamabe. These ladies are the best in the business.
I love you all.
Thank you to our design team at MIG
SVR, and thanks to our contractor, Gary Merlino
Construction, for their expertise
and hard work to get this project built for us.
And thank you also to HNTB Jacobs
for supporting our construction management services.
I need to thank our funders
with whom we would not be standing here today.
Thank you to the Local Improvement District
Ratepayers and to Friends of Waterfront Seattle
who are raising $200 million in philanthropic funding
to help pay for all of these amazing improvements,
as well as to provide amazing programming
in Waterfront Park for years to come.
We rely on these dollars coupled with city
funding to make all of this happen.
I also want to recognize
that some of our newest council members
are with us today to help us celebrate.
Councilmember Hollingsworth is with us
and Councilmember Saka,
thank you so much for being here.
And last but not least, I’d like to thank
Deputy Mayor Adiam
Emery, who tirelessly supports us
on our journey toward building an incredible new waterfront.
We look forward to Pioneer Square
becoming more integrated into the new
Waterfront Park through this set of improvements.
And without further ado,
I would like to present to you, Mayor Bruce Harrell.
Thank you. -Thank you, Angie.
Thank you.
Thank you, Angela. And she gave a lot of thanks.
And I won’t name everybody,
but I will give a special shout-out to the project team
for designing a beautiful and welcoming space for us all.
Councilmember Joy Hollingsworth did not read the fine print
when she signed up for this job
that you have to wear these construction hats
on occasion for press conferences.
It was written in there but in very small print.
We are building a world-class waterfront,
and Angela did an outstanding job as describing the what --
wider sidewalks, green space, acres of parkland, vibrancy,
an activation plan. She described the what.
I’ll talk a little bit about the why.
The why is because we are intentionally building
a great city, that if you look at how
Seattle got to where it is today with signs falling,
the intentionality of who we are
were because civic leaders, philanthropic leaders,
business leaders, community activists,
teachers, educators,
politicians all had a vision some time ago
for what we could be, and that is who we are.
But we are going through a rebirth
with the election of a new city council,
with the election of new politicians,
with election of people around this state,
we are all realizing these tough times
and we are coming out of right now
through the pandemic and through social strife
that this is our time to redefine our country
and indeed our city. That is the why.
And the other piece of the why is
when we look at these shovels, they symbolize --
what am I got bad sign like today or something?
Can someone put this -- let’s put this one back up.
[ Laughter ]
-That didn’t break my rhythm at all.
Just one sec here.
[ Laughter ]
Re-reimagining our public space
is central and core component of our downtown activation plan,
and that’s what this project is doing.
You’ve heard me say on other occasions
there’s no substitution for hard work.
These shovels symbolize the hard work that our laborers,
our employees, our contractors are doing to rebuild this city.
And when we hear words from Valerie
and people from our native community,
how we define love, respect, and our commitment to, okay,
someone is gonna have to hold these signs up.
Just stay with them.
We help one another in a one Seattle approach.
Thank you, Carissa.
How we love and treasure our native community
defines how we love and respect and cherish everyone around us.
it symbolizes rather than a token acknowledgement.
It symbolizes that this city of Seattle
will be led by compassion, love, and respect.
That’s the why. So, as we build our future,
a future where there is more neighborhood activation,
increased foot traffic, beautified green spaces,
thriving businesses,
neighborhoods who love their neighborhood
and who feel safe in their neighborhood --
that is the Seattle we are becoming.
We are very excited about this project.
And we have a lot of activity coming to the city,
as you well know. The FIFA games as one example.
We have a lot of activity that is coming here.
This gives us an excuse to energize ourselves
and inspire ourselves to be better and do better.
Last, in closing, the city employees thank you again.
Joy -- we got two joys up here, by the way.
This Joy thank you for your leadership
and keeping the spirit alive.
Philanthropic members, thank you for your generosity
and your commitment to the city.
As mayor, I cannot do this alone.
So, this is a great day in Seattle sunshine,
a great groundbreaking day,
and I stand energized to keep it going.
And with that, I’m going to introduce
one of our strongest partners in this work,
Lisa Howard from the Alliance for Pioneer Square. Lisa?
[ Applause ]
-Thank you.
Vibrant communities can exist
when they work for all members of the community.
With the East-West Pedestrian Project,
we continue our efforts to ensure Pioneer Square
is a vibrant, welcoming place for all.
This day has been decades in the making.
With the removal of the Alaskan Way Viaduct,
our community was reconnected to the water,
and this year we’ll be able to see this project come to life,
ensuring a direct connection of Pioneer Square
as a waterfront community.
This project is about connection,
but more importantly it’s about the people
that will steward and use those spaces far into the future
from our small businesses on the ground
to visitors from all over the world.
On behalf of Pioneer Square, I want to reiterate a thank you
to the sounding board for all of the work
that you put in through the last decade,
as well as the big thank you to Mayor Harrell
and the Office of the Waterfront
for all of their efforts in making today possible.
And to wrap up, please be sure to join us for a reception
at OHSUN Banchan directly after this press conference.
And I’m going to -- very honored
to be able to pass it over to Valerie with Muckleshoot.
[ Applause ]
-Hutsulhail, Valerie Segrest Seedsta,
[speaks native language] Good morning.
My name is Valerie Segrest,
and I’m a member of the Muckleshoot tribe.
I come from the Wilbur and Purcell families.
That ties me to the Suquamish, the Swinomish,
the Tulalip, the Snoqualmie tribes.
And that’s telling, really, of this space,
because before this was the city of Seattle
and before it was known as the Pioneer Square,
this was a part of a village called Dzidzilalich.
And right where we’re standing was an intertidal lagoon
that specialized in certain types of seafoods
like starry flounder. And so, you could look out here
and see my ancestors spearing flounder
using certain types of plant materials.
My background is in traditional foods
and medicines of my people.
I’ve dedicated my nutrition practice
to revitalizing indigenous food ways,
not just for Muckleshoot, but for the ripple effect
of a movement that’s happening across this country
that’s trying desperately to get people, humankind,
reconnected to the source of our food.
And in order to do that, we have to be able to have
a deep understanding of the lands that we stand on.
And for too long, the effects of colonization
have removed us from that --
not just Muckleshoot people, but all of us.
All of humankind has never been in human history
this far disconnected from the land.
And so right now, for the last several years,
we’ve been hearing this movement of land acknowledgements
rising up in organizations and city governments,
and they’ve become taglines on emails.
And our firm, the firm I represent, Tahoma Peak
Solutions, really specializes in focusing on getting people
to make actions behind those land acknowledgments,
and I can’t think of a better example of that
than this project here today.
I descend from the village of Dzidzilalich
that used to stand here,
and when I was called to ask to submit my perspective
on what kind of plants should be involved in this project.
I knew that I had to answer that call
because this is part of our healing story.
This is part of what we mean when we say
we need to decolonize land.
We’re not trying to make this a flounder lagoon,
although there could be some really cool events
around starry flounder, right, in the future here.
But we are trying to help acknowledge
a past that knew how to manage these lands very well
and also uplift and create visibility
for my people who have maintained these lands
since time immemorial, since a glacier was here.
If you can imagine, 10,000 years ago,
a mile and a half above our head would be a glacier that high.
This land has always changed shape over time,
and to bring indigenous perspective with us
into the future is part of successful planning.
It’s part of maintaining a healing story.
It’s part of decolonizing land,
and it’s part of making land acknowledgments action steps
that truly help us all reconnect to the lands that we walk on
and to help promote visibility.
And so, I’m proud to be a part of this project.
I am so grateful.
I think it’s really telling of our time.
I think maybe 15 years ago
people wouldn’t be that interested in this.
Maybe 50 years ago, you wouldn’t even know that we were here.
Maybe a hundred years ago, I might be put in jail
for speaking here today like this.
So, it is telling of our time
that this city is on a healing journey,
and that you’re bringing us along with it
because that is going to be the success or demise of our future.
And so, I appreciate it.
And I could talk about land and plants all day.
I’m going to tell you, though,
that part of the design work here
with the plants is really to uplift
the traditional technologies that came out of that.
So, you’re going to see native plantings
that represent how we make cordage,
how we make spears, that plants are our greatest teachers
and that they teach us --
they shape our world that we live in,
and they always have, and they always will.
And so there are beautiful cherry barks.
And I tried to get stinging nettles here,
but they won’t let me put nettles in the city.
But I totally understand. But what we use to make cordage,
what we might use to make a fish spear.
So, I could talk about plants all day long,
and I won’t because we don’t have enough time.
But I just want to invite Joy
to come up and say a few words to you.
Thank you for having me. Thank you.
[ Applause ]
-Thanks, Valerie.
So much around what we are doing around Waterfront Park
is creating story
and how we ground ourselves in memory in place,
and how this will become a place for our cities.
What we know is parks make extraordinary cities,
and they connect us to nature and to one another.
This was and continues to be an audacious vision
following the 2001 Nisqually earthquake
that damaged that double-decker highway
that once stood behind us
to ask what would be possible at the heart of Seattle
and the connection to the Salish Sea.
Waterfront Park is over 15 years
in the making with commitments and dedications of leaders
in the city, many standing behind me,
but also civic residents and leaders,
10,000 people who gave vision to this new waterfront park.
It will be a 20-acre extraordinary park
in the heart of our city, running from Soto to the south,
north to Belltown opening in 2025.
It represents a grand vision,
the vision that the mayor reminded us of,
of the beauty of this city,
the richness and capacity of this place,
and reimagining our waterfront
and the footprint of the former viaduct,
a 1950s infrastructure, and reclaiming it,
and reconnecting it to our neighborhoods
and to downtown and to bring us connected to the water.
The work of the Pioneer Square Expansion
is an incredible example of this.
The connections of Waterfront Park
and Pioneer Square is vital.
It invites the public to easily make their way
into the neighborhood and back into the park
with improved accessibility and safe passage
with beautiful plantings that Valerie talked about,
grounded in our indigenous stories
and sense of place and honor
of the first people that lived here,
it will create a dynamic visitor experience
to take advantage of the amazing restaurants
and cafes, bars, and galleries, historic tours
and parks that make this neighborhood so unique
and honoring the indigenous history and culture
and stories of this place
is really drilling down on the values
that this city really holds up.
Alongside with the city of Seattle,
our partners with the office of the waterfront,
the team who is creating this amazing place
in our communities. Friends of Waterfront Park
is the nonprofit is working in partnership
with all of these entities to make sure
that we can create that sense of belonging and joy
and wonder of this new place that will be in our city
and be in the heartbeat of our city for generations to come.
And it’s through a public-private partnership
with the city friends
that we will care and fundraise and program
and activate this place and steward it now
and into the future. As Angie mentioned,
we’re leading $170 million comprehensive campaign
to contribute towards the build of the park
for our activation, our programming,
our public safety partnership with Seattle Center.
And we’re 85% of the way to the goal.
We want to welcome all of you
to be park partners and champions of this work.
And again, say many thanks to our partners, to the city,
to the Office of the Waterfront and civic partnerships,
to our partnerships and neighborhoods
and our community partners running programs.
We can’t do this without a deep commitment to the city,
and we invite you to spread the word
about this new kind of civic space
that is coming to our city in less than a year --
Waterfront park. Thank you.
[ Applause ]
-All right. -You ready to get dirty?
-Bruce Harrell: Yes. -All right.
We’re gonna do the ceremony shoveling here.
So, come on up, everybody.
I think there’s enough.
I’m right behind you.
-Oh. We gotta do it before our signs fall.
-Yeah. And you do the countdown.
-All right.
-Lift with your knees. Three -- Three, two, one.
You know my mantra is "Three, two, one."
Counting is my job.
Three, two, one, Seattle.
[ Applause ]