Project Details
- Project Name
- Pike Place MarketFront
- Architect
- The Miller Hull Partnership
- Client/Owner
- Pike Place Market Preservation and Development Authority (PDA)
- Project Types
- Planning
- Project Scope
- Addition/Expansion
- Size
- 210,000 sq. feet
- Year Completed
- 2017
- Shared by
- Hanley Wood
- Project Status
- Built
From the May 2019 Issue of ARCHITECT:
A new mixed-use complex connects Seattle’s Pike Place with adjacent Elliott Bay.
Every great city deserves a great marketplace: Barcelona has its public Boqueria, Tokyo its Tsukiji fish mart, and Seattle has Pike Place, a 20-odd block agglomeration of food and beverage vendors including seafood mongers, produce hawkers, and coffee dealers. (Most notably, it’s the flagship location of a certain coffee brand with a green mermaid logo.) Teaming up with a host of engineers and consultants, local practice the Miller Hull Partnership has fashioned a new armature to serve the market district while increasing its accessibility to Seattleites and tourists alike.
On a long narrow wedge of a lot in the dead center of the market district, the new Pike Place MarketFront is a kind of neighborhood-within-the-neighborhood, a multi-use hub that features commercial facilities, public space, and even housing within a single rambling structure of steel and concrete. The primary urbanistic objective of the facility is to mediate between the bustling shopping corridor and the nearby Elliott Bay waterfront, which has been long cut off from the city proper by the Alaskan Way Viaduct, a large elevated auto route that closed this year and is presently undergoing demolition.
Just to the east of the defunct freeway, the complex straddles a steep grade, level with Pike Place on its upper tier and then descending toward the shore via a sequence of outdoor and indoor ramps and staircases. As visitors tramp downward, they pass dozens of new stalls and other public amenities, including open terraces with sweeping views of the mountain-ringed bay. Not content just to reconnect the celebrated neighborhood with its western perimeter, the Miller Hull Partnership has succeeded in reshaping the very character of Pike Place by adding affordable housing to the terraced complex aimed at older residents, ensuring that the city’s best-known retail zone will also be a diverse 24-hour community—a place not just to shop but to live.
Project Credits
Project: Pike Place MarketFront, Seattle
Client: Pike Place Market Preservation and Development Authority
Architect: The Miller Hull Partnership, Seattle . Sian Roberts, FAIA (partner-in-charge); David Miller, FAIA, Brian Court, AIA (lead designers); Steve Doub, AIA, Wojtek Szczerba (project managers); Becky Roberts, AIA, Peipei Sun, Sean Waldron, AIA, Eugene Lau, AIA, Casey Riske, AIA, Ryan Drake, Cory Mattheis, AIA, Rohit Eustace, AIA, Grace Leong, David Cinamon, Janet Bean, Ryan Rideout (project team)
Structural/Civil Engineer: Magnusson Klemencic Associates
M/E/P Engineer: Arup
Construction Manager: Garrett Condell; Sellen Construction
General Contractor: Sellen Construction
Landscape Architect: Berger Partnership
Lighting Designer: Dark | Light Design
Acoustical Engineer: The Greenbusch Group
Building Envelope Consultant: Wetherholt and Associates
Door Hardware Consultant: Adams Consulting and Estimating
Elevator Consultant: Elevator Consulting Services
ADA Consultant: Karen Braitmayer, FAIA
Code Consultant: Tom Kinsman
Archaeological Services: ESA
Wayfinding: RMB Vivid
Traffic Consultant: Heffron Transportation
Mass Excavation: Ceccanti
Piling: Malcolm Drilling Co.
Shoring: Condon Johnson
Utilities: Gary Merlino Construction
Mechanical/Plumbing Consultant: Auburn Mechanical
Landscape Consultant: T Yorozu Gardening Co.
Size: 39,600 square feet (site area); 210,000 square feet (project area)
Cost: Withheld
Materials and Sources
Structural System: Bojarsky (glue-laminated framing)
Exterior Cladding: Kawneer (curtainwall); AEP Span (metal panels); Swiss Pearl (cement panels); Olympian Precast (precast concrete); Tyvek (moisture barrier); Evonik (water-repellent and anti-graffiti coatings)
Sealants: Dow Corning; Pecora
Insulation: Knauf; Owens Corning; Thermafiber
Waterproofing: Cetco (below-grade and protected membrane systems)
Roofing: Soprema (multi-ply); AEP Span (metal)
Windows: VPI (vinyl frame)
Glazing: Guardian Doors: Stanley (automatic sliding entrances); Ceco Door Products (metal doors); Lynden Doors (wood doors); Crawford (fire-control doors); Cookson (security grilles); Wayne Dalton (sectional doors)
Hardware: Sargent (locksets); Norton (closers); Sargent (exit devices)
Interior Finishes: Custom Interiors (residential cabinetwork); Rodda Paint (interior paints); Tnemec (exterior paints); Basix Surfaces (solid surfacing); Dal Tile (floor and wall tile); Patcraft (resilient flooring); Milliken (Carpet, Ghost Artist and Landscape)
Lighting: WAC Lighting, Lithonia, Eureka, Prudential (interior); Bega, Lumascape, Wagner, Elliptipar, B-K, Bock, Vision 3, Hi-Lite Manufacturing, WE-EF (exterior); Eaton (dimming system or other lighting controls)
Elevators: Otis
Facility Chutes: Wilkinson Hi-Rise
Plumbing: Delta (residential faucets); Elkay, Kohler (residential sinks); American Standard (residential toilets); FiberFab (residential showers and tubs)
Energy: Johnson Controls (energy management or building automation system)
This project won a 2019 AIA Institute Honor Award in Regional & Urban Design
Reclaiming a former municipal building site, Pike Place MarketFront is the first addition to Seattle’s cherished farmer’s market in nearly 40 years. The final piece in a long-anticipated vision for a 9-acre neighborhood turned historic district, the project delivers nearly 40,000 square feet of public space and creates a new gateway from the city’s downtown area to its waterfront.
Pike Place MarketFront sits in a highly compact neighborhood that embodies true urbanism. Its buildings are humanly scaled, its streets are filled with pedestrians from all walks of life, and small business are the rule rather than the exception. The project provides a critical connection point to essential goods and services, many of which are available by a brief walk or easily accessed by public transit. In the near future, Pike Place MarketFront will connect directly to Overlook Walk, a section of Seattle’s waterfront revitalization plan currently in the design stage.
The design team sought to open the landmark with grand public spaces framed by a contemporary lightness and transparency. Finding inspiration in the market’s iconic utilitarian charm, Pike Place MarketFront echoes a certain Pacific Northwest toughness in its cast-in-place concrete and engineered timber base. It is capped by an open-air structural steel–framed pavilion and features large expanses of glazing, adding to the industrial undertones.
In addition to extending the market through 50 additional vendor stalls, public restrooms, and enclosed retail space, the project added 40 new low-income senior housing units to the neighborhood’s current stock. A neighborhood service center also increases the availability of social services for the vulnerable families the market supports every year.
Like the existing market, Pike Place MarketFront is a highly active public space that was built to serve the surrounding community and the nearly 40,000 people from across the world who visit the market each day. The project’s programmatic complexity, coupled with its prominence, demanded significant involvement from a number of stakeholders, chief among them the market’s stall merchants. Over the course of two years, the team participated in and facilitated hundreds of public meetings where valuable input on design direction and development has led to a new urban space that tantalizes visitors and longstanding residents alike.
Project Description
FROM THE ARCHITECTS:
This first addition to iconic Pike Place Market in over 40 years replaces an existing surface parking lot left vacant since a building burned down decades ago. New elements include a mix of low-income and senior residential, commercial/retail, office space and underground parking carved into the hillside on the west side of Western Avenue directly below the Market. Known as MarketFront, the location will be a critical connection point to the new Seattle waterfront plan by landscape architecture firm James Corner Field Operations to be developed following removal of the Alaskan Way Viaduct in 2019.
Understandably, the opportunity to design for the oldest continuously operated public market in the country brought intense scrutiny and concern for any changes made to one of the city’s most authentic and treasured landmarks. The Market’s overarching goal was to meet the needs of its broad-based stakeholder community of vendors, residents and social service recipients, and to work collaboratively to integrate the addition with pedestrian connections to the soon to be revitalized waterfront. Technical challenges were many, as the site is located above an active railroad line and 100 year train old tunnel. Design rationale for the final concept followed from extensive community and stakeholder involvement, and significant evaluation and analyses of the physical, zoning code and regulatory constraints, Market Commission Guidelines, primary public views, pedestrian circulation patterns, massing studies, parking feasibility, and economic feasibility. New features include small retail shops and stalls, restaurant space, and an incredible new public view terrace with outdoor seating.
The responsibility of creating a prominently placed mixed-use building that respects the unique history and character of one of Seattle’s most familiar and beloved city icons was both daunting and exhilarating. Currently under construction and slated for completion in 2017, this long-time-coming addition links tradition and modernity to provide both locals and visitors with more of the culture and spirit of the Market they know and love.
