Family venues raise concerns about Olympia’s downtown: ‘We’re just in a really bad spot’

Leaders at downtown Olympia venues that cater to families say conditions on the streets are making it harder to bring in visitors.

In a letter to the City Council this week, the board of directors at the Puget Sound Estuarium said vandalism, drug use and other problems threaten “the viability of maintaining our family/child-centered services in our current location.”

The nonprofit moved to 309 Stave Ave. NE four years ago. In recent weeks, a growing number of people have started camping in city-owned parking lots across the street.

The Estuarium hosts hundreds of fourth- and fifth-graders every October for field trips that include a walking tour of downtown. According to the letter, last year a student picked up a used syringe during the tour; now students are now escorted at all times and walking routes had to be changed to avoid the tents.

A few blocks away, officials at the WET Science Center and Hands On Children’s Museum say they are also concerned about the area.

In their own letter to the City Council in August, board members at the LOTT Clean Water Alliance, which runs the WET Science Center, detailed security run-ins in recent months, including an incident in which a man with a sheathed machete wandered into a water treatment plant and then into WET.

“We have also been told by numerous students that their parents were reluctant to sign their permission slips to attend the WET Center field trip because they feared for their children’s safety downtown,” the letter stated.

Diana Larsen-Mills, an Estuarium board member, said the number of visitors to the Estuarium this year is down compared with last year.

“We’re just in a really bad spot…,” she said. “There’s a perception that it’s not safe downtown. Well, it’s not safe downtown.”

This story was originally published October 19, 2018 at 5:15 PM.