Big changes planned in tiny area

By MARK HIGGINS
SEATTLE POST-INTELLIGENCER REPORTER

WHO COULD HAVE predicted even two years ago that Seattle would build not one but two new sports stadiums in Pioneer Square's back yard?

Or that its biggest landlord, the Samis Land Co., would get serious about redeveloping 14 historic Pioneer Square buildings, including the venerable Smith Tower?

Even the public sector is expected to play a role in Pioneer Square's evolution: Washington State Ferries is looking to expand its facility at Colman Dock; King County will break ground in December on an eight-story office tower at Second Avenue South and South Jackson Street; and King Street Station and its neighboring Union Station are targeted for redevelopment.

"The area has had its ups and downs," says architect Ralph Anderson, who maintains an office in Pioneer Square. "But it's going pretty well now."

All this change is happening to a neighborhood less than one-quarter of a square mile. It is a tiny place with a 1990 population of less than 1,500 residents.

The year the 1990 census was taken, Pioneer Square had just 12 school-age children. Residents say even fewer kids live there today.

Continued:

• A new ballgame for artist lofts and flophouses, tourism and nightlife
• Pioneer Square forms its own home team of defensive specialists
• Artists fear their low rents and high ceilings will fly, fly away
• From Smith Tower to lesser lights, Samis plans to upgrade its buildings
• Out of smoking desolation, blocks of high Victorian Romanesque style