These include a three-story adaptive-reuse project being developed by Urban Vil-lages at 115 S. They won’t add signiﬁcant housing stock, but several multifamily projects are underway or well into the planning stage. That’s slowly changing, but the Pioneer Square housing market is constrained by both geography and development restrictions that limit the height of buildings to 120 feet. The neighborhood contains only about 2,500 households and fewer than 4,500 residents, according to the 2019 Community Survey. One signiﬁcant element it lacks is housing. It’s just a beautiful, European-style neighborhood.” “It’s all beautiful, unique, special places. “It’s the opposite of University Village, and I’m perfectly happy going to U Village, but there are no chain stores here,” Anderson says. Pioneer Square still serves as the city’s arts district, with about four dozen galleries large and small and countless funky, locally owned boutiques among its roughly 575 businesses. It gained further acclaim when timber giant Weyerhaeuser moved its corporate headquarters to the neighborhood in 2016. More recently, it’s become a darling of the tech startup community. This is far from the ﬁrst time that Pioneer Square has occupied the spotlight as “the next big thing.” Property developers envisioned it as ripe for urban renewal in the 1960s until the historic designation restricted development. She wonders herself, but she’s confident that developers will “mindfully integrate” their projects into the current infrastructure and maintain what she calls “authenticity.”

Most neighborhood advocates are supportive, though some remain wary that development could threaten the neighborhood’s gritty, quirky reputation as “the Brooklyn of the Paciﬁc Northwest,” as Aaron Barthel, co-owner of Intrigue Chocolate Co., puts it.Īs head of the neighborhood association, it’s a concern Howard hears often. Many were hatched in anticipation of the viaduct coming down. Roughly two dozen development projects, with both public and private investment, are either underway or planned. Today, the $740 million waterfront improvement project and removal of the elevated Alaskan Way Viaduct creates unprecedented opportunities. “It has just been beset by problems for decades.” Katherine Anderson, co-owner of popular restaurant and retail shop London Plane, says Pioneer Square could have resembled Greenwich Village back when it was known as New York City’s counterculture neighborhood. “It’s a small town in the middle of a big city,” says Jane Richlovsky, an artist and co-owner of the Good Arts Building, home to 30 artist studios. It later became the city’s ﬁrst neighborhood to be listed in the National Register of Historic Places. In 1970, the Seattle City Council named 20 square blocks in Pioneer Square an historic district. It was rebuilt with distinct, Romanesque-style buildings after the Great Seattle Fire of 1889 burned down the neighborhood. Pioneer Square, often referred to as Seattle’s “original” neighborhood, has roots dating back to 1853. Clients of the numerous social service agencies in the neighborhood spill into the streets, often creating misleading impressions. “Violent” crime is a bit higher, but not signiﬁcantly. Property crime is actually lower in Pioneer Square than in Fremont or Wallingford, according to Seattle Police Department statistics. Crime is among them, but perceptions often trump reality. Like all neighborhoods, Pioneer Square has its share of challenges. But I also know it as the place where acquaintances on three separate occasions were punched while either leaving work or simply walking around for the time someone asked me if I was “scared of a man with a gun ” and the place where a colleague told me she literally sprinted back to the oﬃce to elude a man chasing her in broad daylight. I remember Pioneer Square for its party atmosphere decades ago and, more recently, its First Thursday Art Walks, funky retail shops and abundance of cutting-edge art galleries. I’m going in with an open mind, though I’m ﬁghting my skepticism.

I’m meeting with Lisa Howard, executive director of the Alliance for Pioneer Square, a nonproﬁt organization dedicated to preserving “what makes Pioneer Square the most authentic, engaging and dynamic neighborhood in Seattle.” As you can imagine, Howard is bullish on the future of one of the city’s oldest and most historic neighborhoods.

Clearly, not everyone with an office here is working from home. My first trip to pioneer square since before the pandemic and I cannot find a parking spot.

Loft space pioneer square