No future in sight for disused Artesian Commons in downtown Olympia
Note: This story was updated on Jan. 3, 2022 to include the detail that the city has spent more than $5,000 on chain-link fencing to keep the park closed, a fact The Olympian learned through a public records request.
It’s been more than three years since Olympia’s parks department closed a downtown public plaza known for its popular artesian well — and for its troubling history of illegal behavior.
Artesian Commons — named for the famously fresh water well on the site — was a gathering spot for the street community. But after the city purchased the lot and subsequently opened it as a public plaza in 2014, it quickly developed a reputation as a rowdy hub for people with nowhere else to go, elevating the visibility of homelessness.
That reputation has stuck with the space, so much so that some business owners would rather it remain vacant. The city has turned down several proposals to use the property, most recently from an enterprise of homeless wreath-makers, and has no plans to re-activate it.
“After expending significant time and resources we have concluded that this space does not work as a park,” wrote Paul Simmons, the city’s parks and recreation director, in an email. “It is not listed in any of our plans or on our current park inventory maps.”
Complaints about drug dealing and fights were a unique challenge for the parks department, which tried putting in lighting, fencing, security cameras, basketball hoops, and hiring a “well host” and park ranger to address violence in the narrow 0.2 acre park. Police received 421 calls to the park in 2014, The Olympian previously reported, although that number decreased to 195 in 2016.
What ultimately led them to pull the plug in 2018 was unspecified threats against parks employees, Simmons said at the time.
“I think it just absolutely exhausted the city,” said city council member Renata Rollins, who was working as a downtown ambassador when the park opened in 2014. When the city council considered closing the park less than a year later, Rollins organized a campaign called “well wishers,” rallying street youth for whom the park was one of precious few accessible public spaces.
The problem, in Rollins’ view, was divergent visions for what the park should be — and who it should serve. On the one hand, Rollins witnessed plenty of fights break out. On the other, she also recalled concerts hosted by the Bridge Music Project, dinners hosted by Interfaith Works meant to connect housed and unhoused people, and informal tarot card readings shared by “well witches.”
“I thought of it like the water cooler at work or something. You’ve got the well right there and why can’t it be a place where people can connect across differences?” Rollins said. “Like homelessness itself, the main problem people have is when they see it.”
One month after it was shuttered in 2018, protesters took down the fence and occupied the park before police used chemical weapons to chase them out; three people were ultimately arrested.
Three years later, the plaza remains encased in chain-link fencing, which has cost the city more than $5,000 since 2018, according to expense reports obtained by The Olympian through a public records request. Although the well itself remains accessible, as does a public toilet, the shuttered space remains a bizarre feature of the downtown landscape — a cage with nothing inside in the heart of the city. It’s a stark reminder of Olympia’s struggle to maintain public safety downtown amidst a ballooning homelessness crisis.
In the years since it closed, proposals to develop the property commercially have not been pursued by the city. In 2019, the Olympia Downtown Alliance floated the idea of hosting a night market. That did not materialize, according to Downtown Alliance director Todd Cutts, who declined to elaborate further on why, or whether he detected interest among business owners or residents in using the space.
Some downtown business owners feel the plaza’s history is so fraught that it’s better off locked up.
Eric Smith, co-owner of a pet store that shares a wall with the plaza, said the city “didn’t have any other choice” but to close the park in 2018. He is not eager to see the space opened back up and said the best thing he could envision there is a parking lot — which it was before it was a park.
“They put money into it, they put resources, they did everything they could to try and make it something they could be proud of,” Smith said. “We just don’t have the social climate in place to be able to have a public gathering place that isn’t going to be trashed and used for drugs.”
Opposite the now-empty park from the pet store is Cryptatropa, a dive bar with eclectic live music that skews towards punk and metal.
Co-owner Maeve Short agrees with Smith that the plaza as it existed before was unsafe. But she blamed the lack of amenities and events programming at the park, which she described as an empty lot devoid of activities, save for some plants, picnic tables and a “crappy-ish” basketball court.
“The answer was not to shut it down,” said Short, who finds the idea that the space is somehow intrinsically prone to crime to be ridiculous and “archaic.”
“Of course it shouldn’t be the way that it was before. Duh. But why not do something else with it?” Short said. “It’s not cursed land, no gasoline leaked there and made it uninhabitable. There’s nothing wrong with it.”
In early November, the city council received an open letter from Walker Stephens, who runs a seasonal outreach project that employs unhoused people to make and sell Christmas wreaths under the whimsical moniker “Hohohobos.”
Stephens, who has traditionally set up the wreath-making enterprise at Percival Landing boardwalk and sold there in addition to various downtown street corners, asked the city for permission to use the Artesian Commons to make and sell wreaths and store tree brush during the day.
During the group’s brainstorm, the Artesian Commons emerged as an ideal fit: a centrally located spot in a vacant public space.
“We weren’t choosing it to be provocative,” Stephens said. “It is a spot that’s known very well by the street community as well as known very well by the larger community. ... It’s just a cool location.”
Three council members — Dani Madrone, Renata Rollins, and Clark Gilman — advocated on Hohohobos’ behalf. City staff met twice with Stephens at the Artesian Commons, told him that they were figuring out the details and if he could obtain insurance through a formal 501(c)3 nonprofit, they could move forward.
Stephens reached out to Interfaith Works, who prepared some paperwork. They were prepared to open on Black Friday.
But after those promising conversations, Stephens got an email on Nov. 22 from Mike Reid, the city’s economic development director, saying that the Artesian Commons wouldn’t work after all.
Stephens asked why the city didn’t want to “see a positive community project take place there.” Reid wrote that after talking to city staff it was “made very clear” that they are not ready to reopen the plaza.
“Activation of the Commons would need to be done with clear planning, outreach, and an appropriate amount of time to execute successfully,” Reid wrote. “At this time, we simply do not have the time or available staff resources to undertake that work and ensure that re-opening the space can be done successfully.”
Reid did offer an alternative location: a city-owned parking lot between the bus station and Billy Frank Jr. Apartments, which previously hosted a homeless encampment known as the Smart Lot. Stephens turned down the Smart Lot option, which he described as inferior and too close to the homeless mitigation site to attract holiday shoppers.
He said they tried setting up there in 2018, and it was not a good location.
Stephens acknowledged that the violence that occurred at the Artesian Commons park has cast a shadow over the space. But he is puzzled by the city’s reluctance to reopen the plaza. From his vantage point, a short-term, holiday-oriented wreath selling enterprise seems like a low-commitment way to use a blighted part of downtown.
“I don’t understand why that public asset is just rotting away,” Stephens said. “The city almost treats it like it’s haunted or something.”
This story was originally published December 13, 2021 at 5:00 AM.
.jpg)