Sketched Dec. 15 and 17, 2015
Can you imagine putting a lid over downtown Interstate 5 and building a park on top?
I can. Especially after taking in the views from the Pine Street and Boren Avenue overpass. Covering up the lanes like at Freeway Park and the Convention Center seems such a relatively low-cost no brainer, how come it hasn’t happened yet?
Local architect Christopher Patano says the idea of capping I-5 has been talked about for years, but nobody did anything about it because Seattle wasn’t as dense. Now, with skyscrapers going up left and right, the city really needs the breathing room it never got when the South Lake Union “Seattle Commons” park project failed in the ’90s.
Thinking the time is ripe, Patano spent some pro bono time creating detailed conceptual renderings of what the I-5 lid park would look like. It encompasses two miles of green space from Lakeview Boulevard East all the way to Freeway Park. (You can learn more about it at seattlecapproject.com/)
Seattle has experience removing hills and cutting canals, said Patano, now is the time to put the topography back together and reconnect the neighborhoods severed by I-5’s concrete canyon.
This illustrated column was originally published in The Seattle Times on Nov. 15, 2020.