The Area Around Safeco Could Stop Sucking In The Future

If you're like me, you've noticed that the area around Safeco and Qwest Field is pretty bad. It's not like it's completely devoid of destinations. There's Pyramid and Jimmy's on First across the street. There's Elysian a little further down. Collins Pub is solid and not too far to walk. And so on. There are some things to do. But there are not enough things to do, and much of the area is dull or even uninviting. I know that, personally, many of my activities before and after baseball games take place in other neighborhoods.

Well now some people want to change that, and other things too. From Ballpark Digest:

So the public bodies overseeing the sports facilities, Washington State Major League Baseball Stadium Public Facilities District and Washington State Public Stadium Authority, have put together a draft report on how the area around the facilities can be enhanced with better access, new destinations next to the facilities (like a new parking ramp with a green park on the roof) and attempts to draw more investments to the area for housing and retail.

You can read a copy of the report here. The report is 70 pages long, so in case you don't have time to go through the whole thing, allow me to summarize:

• The area around the stadiums is not that good
• By making changes, we can make it more good!

I don't have time to go through the whole thing either so maybe I shouldn't be the one providing the summary. I just wanted to make sure to drop the link for those of you who are interested. This is just a draft report, so nothing is imminent, but it's nice to see that people are thinking about making a change, and I'm sure some of you who live in Seattle have pretty strong opinions about this kind of thing. Which you can share in the comments! Wow!