(Image: Downtown Seattle Association)

Seattle Mayor Bruce Harrell has rolled out the next phase in efforts to revitalize the city’s downtown that could define his administration — and coin a new term.

The new efforts will also ripple up Pike and Pine where some of the initiatives will add new resources like more services to help address the city’s addiction crisis while also possibly displacing some of the street disorder problems of Seattle’s core more fully up the Hill.

Calling for innovative, “Space Needle thinking,” the Seattle mayor Monday laid out his plan to bring more people back into downtown and better address the problems of addiction, mental health, and street disorder that have accompanied a shift in daytime workers out of the city’s core.

“We are showing you our work in progress and acting now because downtown is too important to wait. These steps today will be followed by the kind of Space Needle Thinking and long-term transformational enhancements necessary to redefine what a downtown can be,” Harrell said in the announcement.

Monday’s announcement comes one year after a first push of “hot spot” policing and emphasis patrols were pushed forward by Harrell and Seattle Police Chief Adrian Diaz in operations centered around the 3rd Ave transit corridor.

Policing will be core in the next phase, too.

Harrell’s newly issued executive order will “direct the Seattle Police Department to prioritize efforts to disrupt the distribution and sale of narcotics in concert with other law enforcement partners, furthering enhanced collaboration between the Seattle City Attorney’s Office, King County Prosecuting Attorney’s Office, the United States Attorney for the Western District of Washington, the DEA, FBI, and Department of Homeland Security,” his office says. Under the plan, Harrell is also directing the Seattle Fire Department’s Health One program to staff “an overdose response unit” and says the city will “expand access to treatment services and overdose reversal medications” in “high-overdose locations.”

Under Harrell’s direction, the city will also test “research-based drug abatement program” technique contingency management “to encourage individuals with substance use disorder to accept treatment services by providing incentives — in this case, “low dollar gift cards.”

“The 12-week program rewards individuals with substance addiction for abstinence and, in a novel approach, is administered where people live instead of in a medical clinic,” the mayor’s office said.

Harrell is also calling on the city to “site, explore funding for, and work with public health partners” to create “a post-overdose diversion facility” where people can be brought after non-fatal overdoses to recover, get stabilized on medications, and access resources.

The mayor’s “downtown activation plan” also includes new initiatives to reactivate the downtown area:

• Fill up to 20 vacant storefronts by early summer through the Seattle Restored program, a special City government effort to help small businesses, entrepreneurs, and local artists.
• Reopen City Hall Park on June 15, 2023, with new programming, safety, and lighting enhancements, 24/7 security every day of the week, and activities designed to draw people to the park, including movie days, jumbo chess board, concerts, food trucks, and more.
• Increase the number of Metropolitan Improvement District ambassadors who help keep downtown streets clean, safe, and welcoming for everyone. Additionally, earlier this month, Mayor Harrell proposed legislation granting a 10-year renewal of the MID with expanded service boundaries to include part of the stadium area south of Pioneer Square.
• Encourage more frequent closings of downtown streets for special events, such as on-street Pickleball competitions, the First Thursday Art Walks in Pioneer Square, street festivals and music concerts.
• Increase opportunities for food truck operators and pop-up food vendors to establish a presence downtown by waiving street-use permit fees.

• Request the Washington State Liquor and Cannabis Board to issue “Sip ‘n Stroll” permits for First Thursday Art Walks so patrons can carry a beverage as they walk from gallery to gallery.
• Improve street and sidewalk lighting in areas of downtown where crime and disorder is concentrated.
• Increase trash and litter removal and expand graffiti abatement, focusing on the Chinatown-International District.

The Harrell administrations is also beginning a much longer term process to create more housing near downtown — but not on Capitol Hill. Harrell says an update of the city’s land use policy could create “30,000 jobs and more housing units in neighborhoods adjacent to downtown and activate the stadium area south of Pioneer Square by allowing more hotels, restaurants, bars, and entertainment centers.” The city has also launched an initiative to come up with ideas on how to transform hundreds of thousands of square feet of unwanted downtown office space into housing and more useful real estate.

Another component for Harrell’s plan is the growth of the Downtown Seattle Association and the Metropolitan Improvement District that collects around $15.5 million a year from residential and commercial property owners to fund “daily cleaning of downtown streets and sidewalks, graffiti removal, security patrols, hospitality and concierge services, connecting unsheltered residents with services, parks programming, and more.” CHS reported here on the expansion of the MID with new borders stretching into Pioneer Square and new spending on initiatives including increased private security.

Capitol Hill, meanwhile, is seeing its main physical connections with downtown transformed as the Seattle Convention Center’s $2 billion “Summit” expansion debuted along Pine in January and a project that will reshape Pike and Pine into one-way, transit, bike, and pedestrian friendlier streets between downtown and Capitol Hill will take shape by 2024.

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