One small section of abused and neglected shoreline along Seattle’s Lake Union was just restored into a beautiful waterfront green space. The site is Waterway 18 or Northlake Beach, just east of Gas Works Park. Restoring it is a quadruple-win for Seattle. How? The people win, the fish win, habitat wins and the Wallingford/Fremont neighborhoods win. It took about five years to make this happen, which is lightning fast in Seattle.
When I first started working on this project for the Seattle Parks Foundation, Waterway 18 was not a friendly place. Among other things, it was afflicted by drug dealing, garbage dumping, invasive plants, fish-hostile rip-rap walls, rocky rubble strewn about and a threadbare appearance (top photo). Now it has been completely transformed. (bottom photo)
Kudos to Scott Woodcock, Windrose Landscape Architecture, for a great design, and for working effectively with the community to refine it; to Lisa Carroll for capably building neighborhood support and raising funds; to the Washington Department of Natural Resources, Seattle Departments of Neighborhoods and Transportation, the Sea Scouts and Outrigger Canoe club for being good partners; and to the Seattle Parks Foundation for seeing the project through. Good can and does happen.
