SEATTLE — It's another idea to give a boost to downtown Seattle.
This week, the city council and Mayor Jenny Durkan agreed on legislation to speed up the permitting process to fill empty storefronts with other uses besides retail.
The city specifically is looking for art installations, museum and gyms to fill a core that has been blighted by the pandemic.
According to the Downtown Seattle Association, nearly 230 storefronts have yet to be filled since the crisis began in the first quarter of 2020. There are 15,000 fewer jobs in the downtown core and office occupancy is expected to hit 14% by the end of this year.
Veronica Very and husband Hiawatha D may be the template for what the city is trying to accomplish. The couple opened up "WOW Gallery" at the Pacific Place Mall, inside an old 11,000-square-foot Victoria's Secret store.
"The story is important. What you see before you is a historical moment, this is never been done," Hiawatha said on Tuesday, standing in front of the murals he painted to highlight Black history in America Seattle.
"It's a space and place for us to heal as a community," Veronica said about the space which opened on Juneteenth. "I believed owners would be interested in having it occupied and utilized with creation and innovation."
The legislation is for a 12-month period, but all parties agreed that it could be extended depending on the success of the effort.
While the city works to refill its storefronts, recent data shows more people are moving to downtown. More than 98,000 people now live in downtown Seattle, breaking a previous resident record set in 2019, according to the association. The data also shows downtown’s population increased by 38% over the past five years.
More than 6,400 housing units are expected to open by the end of 2021, with nearly 5,600 more opening in 2022.
The future of Seattle will require the resurgence of the downtown area, Jon Scholes, president and CEO of the Downtown Seattle Association, previously said.