Perhaps no other action by the City of Tacoma has caused so much long term damage to the downtown streetscape as much as the construction of the North and South Plaza Parking garages.
Touted as “urban renewal” and as a solution to Tacoma’s perceived lack of parking downtown, several blocks of Tacoma’s historical buildings on Pacific Avenue were razed in the 1960s with great fanfare. In their place, the city constructed brutish cement slab parking garages which Mayor Baarsma has accurately described as “tombstones.”
Where retail storefronts once invitingly greeted pedestrians, visitors are now faced with garage entrances and exits, frequent curb cuts, blank walls and empty caverns, all foreboding to street life. Worse, much of the North Park Plaza Parking garage is simply a foreboding darkened cavern of sorts and a frequent site of “unintended uses.” It is difficult to image a more repulsive visitors and residents alike are forced to endure who walk by the North Parking Garage. Not surprisingly, the area is avoided whenever possible.
The few retails spaces under the parking garages are recessed back under the garage itself resulting in dark storefronts. The escalators through the parking garage failed years ago leaving only a walkway and a tunnel with blind corners creating a dangerous environment which is perceived as such.
The north wall of the Northern Parking garage is presents a large blank cement wall against a small grass area on the corner of 9th and Commerce which facilitates that area to being haven for criminal activity, fights and bizarre behavior and consuming much of the resources of the police.
Not surprisingly, much of the retail underneath the parking garages has failed. The Tacoma Daily Index has labeled the area under the South Parking Garage “The Dead Zone.”
Perhaps one of the most prudent acts of the Tacoma City Council in recent memory has been to start the renovation and expansion of the South Parking Garage. The plans are to add an additional floor of parking and topped with 2 floors of Class A office space. The front of the retail spaces will be extended out so that they are appropriately flush with the building. Restoring the South Parking Garage will restore an entire block of the streetscape in downtown Tacoma.
Yet the North Park Plaza is even more foreboding and repugnant to any sort of street life than the South parking garage. The dark and cavernous garage covering half a block presents one of the most repellant streetscapes one could imagine. Understandably, most people avoid the area. The City of Tacoma should promptly work to replace or restore the North Park Plaza parking garage as soon as possible. Because the North Park Plaza parking garage is a public facility, it is incumbent on the city restore the building.
Tacoma’s elected leaders and citizens alike have expressed a desire to attract a large employer to Tacoma preferably locating in the downtown area. Tacoma’s success at doing so will be greatly related to how attractive of a city we have which would want an employer to move here.
Here’s what a streetscape should look like.
The Tacoma Sun 