By MARK HIGGINS
SEATTLE POST-INTELLIGENCER REPORTER

It is a high-rise, high-rent neighborhood turned on its ear by an onslaught of investment the likes of which has not been seen since the city rebuilt after Seattle's great fire of 1889. At least that's what Mayor Norm Rice likes to say.

And he's probably right. The Downtown Seattle Association estimates more than $1 billion in new development is under construction or has recently been built, and $1.5 billion more is planned within the area.

More hotels and skyscrapers are coming. The Washington State Convention and Trade Center wants to span Pike Street with a view-altering expansion that has riled the downtown group Allied Arts. Two more apartment towers on First Avenue, just south of the Pike Place Market, are under development. Down below, on the waterfront, the Seattle Aquarium wants to build a world-class facility.

Even City Hall and King County are getting into the act. Major changes are coming to the city's bedraggled government core. As the city relocates its workers into Key Tower in coming years, it will no longer need the Municipal and Public Safety buildings, or the historic Alaska, Arctic and Dexter Horton buildings.

The city may keep the Arctic, but Alaska and Dexter Horton may be sold. A recent community proposal called for converting the Alaska into housing for artists.

So what do these sweeping changes mean to people who live downtown? For those with money, it means housing and entertainment opportunities have never been greater. A whole new comfortable lifestyle is being created.

"No one is pioneering in downtown anymore," says Joseph Olchefske, the Seattle Public Schools' chief financial officer who lives in a condominium near Pike Place Market with his wife and daughter.

Continued:


• Affordable housing in short supply
• Once-seedy area now drawing empty-nesters and families alike