Category All Art Classes Classical Music Concerts DANCE Etc Exhibits Families Farmers Markets Film Happenings Holiday Holiday Lectures Music (non-classical) Theater

Submit events

PHOTO BY JOHN LARSON

VIEWPOINT. People walking along Dock Street underneath Murray Morgan Bridge may not have this view of downtown in the future with Don Meyer’s vision for Thea Foss Waterway.

Meyer offers bold idea for waterway parking crunch

By John Larson

Don Meyer has to be something of a visionary in his job. This week he offered an update on developments along Thea Foss Waterway as well as some thoughts on plans for the future.

Meyer, executive director of Foss Waterway Development Authority, gave a presentation during the July 22 meeting of Tacoma City Council’s Economic Development Committee.

Meyer showed the committee a picture of the harbor in Vancouver, B.C. It depicts railroad tracks running between the water and the buildings of the adjacent downtown. The tracks abruptly disappear from sight under a large concrete pavilion.

Meyer envisions a similar structure between Dock Street and A Street. It would be wide platforms running parallel to Murray Morgan Bridge, along each side of the bridge, which is currently closed to vehicle traffic due to safety issues.

The platforms would hide the tracks to a certain extent from those looking down from downtown, similar to Vancouver. They could also provide parking – a key concern for Meyer as he oversees ongoing development along the waterway.

“That is the way to do our waterfront,” he said. “It is a natural, my friend. It is the right thing to do.”

Such an idea has been discussed in the past, but Meyer feels the timing is better now. It would require negotiating for the air rights above the tracks with Burlington Northern Santa Fe, the railroad that owns and operates the tracks.

The city and Burlington Northern have been negotiating on other issues recently, including plans for the railroad to sell its property in south Tacoma to a Denver company that wants to transform it into a distribution center, and a request by the railroad to close a section of ‘A’ Street where it feeds into Dock Street.

Mayor Bill Baarsma noted the city and Burlington Northern have been in discussions over having Tacoma Rail take over switching services for the railroads trains. “We have leverage points with the railroad,” Baarsma said.

Meyer said finding an appropriate, long-term solution to the problem of limited parking along the waterfront is important as he and his staff market vacant parcels to developers.

One example of this has to do with The Esplanade, a condominium building that will soon welcome occupants to its residential units. The developer of the project wants to put a restaurant in the ground floor, and there are concerns how to accommodate the parking needs of residents, employees and customers. Such concerns will only increase in the future, he told the committee members.

Creating parking parallel with the bridge will help, as would another idea to put parking stalls under the Interstate 705 spur. Meyer has been discussing the latter with Washington State Department of Transportation. He said his bargaining position will be much stronger if he can show developers a plan for addressing parking needs. “Otherwise, our sites will be restricted,” he said.

While there is some on-street parking on Dock Street farther south along the waterfront, such as in front of Museum of Glass, farther north the corridor becomes too narrow for this. Meyer wants to limit the amount of cars along Dock Street and create a more pedestrian-friendly waterway.

“Cars are something we are trying to minimize as far as where you see them.”

He wants a strategy for planning the long-term future of the 11th Street corridor as it heads across the waterway. “Now is the time to define it,” he said. “We need to act now.”

Meyer also tossed out another idea he considered at one point in the past, then put on the back burner – a gondola that would move people from Dock Street to somewhere near the old Elks Building.

“I have put it back into my mind,” he remarked.

Story Tools