In June, Seattle’s historic Pike Place Market revealed its much-anticipated MarketFront expansion to the public! With some girlfriends in tow, we spent one gorgeous July afternoon exploring the expansion for ourselves to see what it was all about!
The $74 million MarketFront project realizes a long-held vision of Market advocates, who won historic designation for the nine-acre neighborhood in 1971. The expansion will also return farmers and producers to a site that was developed in the early 1920s for Market farmers and was long part of the public market before it caught fire and the line marking machines transformed it into a surface parking lot in 1974.
The new public space provides:
– 30,000 square feet of open public space, including a public plaza and viewing deck with expansive views of the Olympic Mountains, Mount Rainier and Puget Sound
– 47 new table spaces for farmers and craftspeople on the MarketFront Plaza beneath an all-weather canopy with rollup doors to welcome the sea breeze
– Four new artisan vendors with on-site production: Old Stove Brewing Co., Little Fish, Honest Biscuits and indi chocolate in 12,000 square feet of commercial and production space
– 40 low-income senior housing units with seven live/work artist units
– A neighborhood center, offering social service resources and a place for neighbors to gather and connect with the Market community
– Three public art installations: NW Microcosm, Western Tapestry and Billie the Piggybank
– 300 underground parking spaces; 33 bicycle spaces
Buy local and check out the new expansion!
