[CPEO-BIF] Brownfields to Art Parks - Seattle and Los Angeles

[Lenny Siegel <lsiegel@cpeo.org>]

Brownfields to Art Parks

Trust for Public Land
January 1, 2006

When is a brownfield not a brownfield? When it's transformed by 
artworks, as in two U.S. cities. One art installation is opening next 
year and will be permanent; the other was temporary while officials 
worked out final plans for a park on the site. Both examples show that 
wonderful things can happen when a formerly contaminated industrial site 
is cleaned up and rededicated to public use.

Sculpture in Seattle

For decades, squat oil tanks dominated a six-acre site wedged between 
downtown Seattle and Elliott Bay. But by 1998, Union Oil of California 
had largely finished a decade-long cleanup of the land-three separate 
parcels divided by a four-lane highway and a railway corridor-and was 
ready to sell.

With the city's real estate market red hot at the height of the dot-com 
boom, there was no lack of potential buyers. (One developer had 
completed preliminary designs for a hotel, 800 housing units, and 
250,000 square feet of office space.) But others believed that the 
land's best use was as a much-needed park linking downtown to the 
waterfront. At the same time, the Seattle Art Museum was looking for an 
outdoor space downtown in which to display sculpture.
...

For the entire article, see
http://www.tpl.org/tier3_cd.cfm?content_item_id=20651&folder_id=705

--


Lenny Siegel
Director, Center for Public Environmental Oversight
c/o PSC, 278-A Hope St., Mountain View, CA 94041
Voice: 650/961-8918 or 650/969-1545
Fax: 650/961-8918
<lsiegel@cpeo.org>
http://www.cpeo.org


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