Parking

Parking is a critical issue for every neighborhood. Currently there is little off-street parking and a lot of on-street parking in the area because the 100-foot wide street right-of-way is used as an unrestricted, unorganized parking lot. The proposed Green Street Design will exchange some of this publicly available parking for the green landscaped areas, pedestrian walkways and shoreline protection elements.

The Wards Cove project will include a private off-street parking area for the project’s offices, houseboats and marina. The town houses will be providing their own individual parking spaces for that portion of the project. On-street parking will provide additional spaces for the public along the new Green Street.

Since free unrestricted on-street parking will continue to attract many people who park there and then walk or take transit to other locations, it is not possible to gauge future actual on-street demand. However, given the current use of parking on Fairview Avenue, the proposed on-street parking can be expected to be well used. There are ways to control such usage, for example, by limiting the durations allowed for on-street parking. Wards Cove will explore these options with the neighborhood and the City of Seattle.