Seattle's Westlake Park makeover rushed ahead of World Cup, some say

AT JUST HALF AN ACRE, Seattle's Westlake Park occupies less than a city block. But despite its small footprint - a paved triangle wedged between downtown department stores and transit stations - the plaza looms large in Seattle's civic identity.

Here, at Fourth Avenue and Pine Street, people have long gathered to celebrate Super Bowl wins and Olympic victories, grieve those lost to violence or, frequently, express outrage and dissent: A hub of the 1999 WTO protests, Westlake has been Seattle's traditional assembly point for political rallies for decades, with organizers leading chants from beneath a 24-foot granite arch as crowds spilled into the streets.

The park was envisioned in the 1980s as Seattle's "civic center" by Seattle artist Robert Maki in collaboration with Philadelphia-based landscape architects Robert Hanna and Laurie Olin. Since then, it has served as the backdrop for rushing commuters, lunching tourists, shoppers carrying Nordstrom bags, skateboarders sliding over the arch's bottom steps, and kids splashing in the corridor-like fountain separating the park from Fourth Avenue.

Today, the arch is gone. So are the park's decommissioned fountain and the seven pink granite plinths symbolizing Seattle's hills. In the ramp-up to the FIFA Men's Soccer World Cup, the downtown landmarks were removed by the Seattle Parks and Recreation department and the nonprofit Seattle Parks Foundation in a $4 million effort to "renovate and repurpose" Westlake.

In their stead are tall new light fixtures, string lights, wooden benches and native plants meant to give the park a more welcoming, friendlier face.

Not everyone is happy about it - or about how the process unfolded.

Previously unreported documents, interviews, historical files and other public records reveal a rift between the city and downtown boosters and the artist - not just over what should happen to the plaza's artist-designed architectural elements, but also, perhaps, how to deal with the past as the old Westlake makes space for a sparkly new vision of downtown.

Others have also expressed concerns. Some members of Seattle's advisory Design Commission worried about permanent design decisions being rushed for FIFA. Activists see the stage and arch removal as a way to limit public protest. Seattle's Office of Arts & Culture says it felt pressured by Seattle Parks to remove Maki's sculptures.

"They want to turn it into another milk toast [sic] location," Andrea Maki, his daughter, wrote in a public letter last year, upon learning the structures would potentially be removed. The Makis hired lawyers, arguing the artist's copyright was being violated, eventually settling with the city. The dismantled granite pieces now sit in an undisclosed storage location.

The groups driving the change as well as nearby property owners and residents say the park was dated and in need of a facelift as downtown's residential population grows amid record office vacancies and struggling retail. The Parks Department says the renovation was intended to preserve Westlake's role as a gathering place while addressing aging infrastructure and accessibility challenges, including electrical issues, deteriorated paving and concerns about tree health.

The dispute and its still-unfolding outcomes raise important questions: As our city changes, who decides how it should change? Who are we welcoming? What do we keep?

A history of controversies

With their rigid lines and hard edges, Westlake's monuments felt modern, but Maki - a longtime Seattle artist - always intended them to evoke the location's history.

"It was a creek bed (Native Americans) used to get to the lake and a narrow gauge railroad was placed there for transporting coal to the waterfront," Maki is quoted as saying in the 2018 book "Art in Seattle's Public Places" by James Rupp.

"The columns on the north end refer to the past, things vertical like the trees that used to stand there. The waterfall refers to the important presence of water on the site. The southern element (the granite column) is a point of origin … where the water that flowed to Lake Union began." (Maki, now 87, declined to be interviewed for this story via his daughter, Andrea Maki.)

Westlake remained a transit hub in the 20th century, first as the southern terminus for the streetcar and later for the Monorail, which hovered above vendors selling fruit on the sidewalk below.

But by the 1960s, the central business district was struggling, and local boosters wanted to reinvigorate it with a mall and park.

Years of controversy and lawsuits ensued before the city eventually condemned and acquired the small Westlake parcel for the construction of a park in the 1980s. It then hired Maki to work with Seattle-raised landscape architect and University of Washington grad Robert Hanna (1936-2003) and fellow UW grad Laurie Olin, who ran a Philadelphia-based firm together. (Olin's office did not respond to a request for comment.)

The park's design process was fraught, too; records show Hanna/Olin and Maki clashed at times. Still, there was some cohesion to their design. Red and gray granite echoed throughout: in the red granite obelisks and cuboids that were meant as both art and seating, in basket weave pavers, in 15-inch steps that matched the 15-inch base of the "waterwall" fountain, and in carved red granite friezes on the arch and fountain referencing nearby art deco buildings.

Geometric and modern, these designs recast the obelisks, arches and columns of Ancient Rome and Greece in a contemporary light, suggesting a vision for Westlake as an Agora or Forum for Seattle - in essence, our town square.

When it opened in 1988, Westlake Park was, by scale, the largest project realized through the 1% for Art program, which sets aside a percentage of public construction budgets for art commissions.

Called "one of the most widely debated and difficult public projects in the city's history," the major public investment had taken 20 years to build.

"A little kick"

Four decades later, officials moved swiftly.

For years, the City had been planning to pursue its downtown revitalization goals and address the park's longstanding issues.

The fountain stopped working sometime around 2022, requiring a workaround that created a major safety concern. Its electrical boxes were also failing and often shorted when equipment was plugged into the park's electrical system, including the Christmas tree. The ground in the tree grove was buckling and the trees were at risk of dying.

By mid-2024, the World Cup's Local Organizing Committee had identified Westlake as Seattle's "front porch" for the fans who were expected to flood into the city via public transit, Seattle Parks' Andrew McConnico said in a public meeting last year.

More broadly, too, "it really is the doorstep, the front door where people come into our city," said Rebecca Baer, president and CEO of the Seattle Parks Foundation in another meeting, "and (where) they experience the first impression - and we want that first impression to be fantastic."

So while the need for improvements at Westlake Park predated FIFA, the 2026 World Cup provided a proverbial kick in the pants, says the designer of the recent renovation, Andy Mitton of design firm Berger Partnership.

"Had FIFA not come along, would anything have happened in Westlake Park?" Mitton asks. "Because up until this opportunity came, there was nothing on the horizon to upgrade the electrical system. There was nothing on the horizon to fix the pavement.

The "Reimagine Westlake" project team - consisting of Seattle Parks, the Parks Foundation and the Downtown Seattle Association, a nonprofit that manages Westlake through an agreement with the city - stress that FIFA wasn't the only reason for the changes. Downtown is different now, they say, with different needs as its residential population grows and commercial real estate struggles.

As part of the Downtown Activation Plan - former Seattle Mayor Bruce Harrell's suite of strategies to revive downtown - the city set aside about $3.7 million in Real Estate Excise Tax proceeds for the Westlake overhaul.

The city, meanwhile, wants to transform the area into a vibrant, livable "mixed-use neighborhood destination" with cultural programming, housing and an "active and safe pedestrian experience," and a regional transportation hub that should be "economic catalyst for the retail core."

To those ends, the project team wanted to "soften" the park and make it more cohesive, Mitton says. The reasons he gave: The park was difficult to walk through. Downtown residents who participated in surveys and meetings craved more green space. Business owners wanted a livelier plaza.

Project and parks officials gave additional reasons for the overhaul, saying that high costs made repairing and bringing the fountain up to code infeasible, and the stage wasn't ADA accessible and was too small for performances. For its part, the Downtown Seattle Association hoped food trucks without loud generators and more space for stages would make the park a nicer place to hang out.

Another major goal of the park makeover? "Deterring criminal activity," as Mitton puts it, citing a design concept called "Crime Prevention Through Environmental Design," which includes "promoting the ability to see and be seen" by opening up sight lines and adding lighting, according to the Seattle Police Department.

During a March 2025 presentation in front of Seattle's Design Commission, a public advisory board made up of professionals from the architecture and design world, Mitton said the Seven Hills pieces at the south end of the park were surrounded by challenges, including a "drug den" of people gathering to smoke.

"They're not quite the right height for seating, but you can get up onto them," he said. "They make great platforms for tents."

Criticism and concerns

The Design Commission presentation was largely just a courtesy, Mitton says (it wasn't required) and construction was about to start.

Commission members were taken aback by how far the project had evolved before they heard about it. They say they would have preferred for Seattle to engage in a larger conversation about Westlake - a place central to the city's identity - without rushing any irreversible design decisions for the World Cup.

"FIFA will come and go, and this park will not," says Michael Jenkins, executive director of the design commission.

In a public letter released soon after the spring 2025 presentations, the design commission expressed concern that changes to Westlake would permanently redefine its role without sufficient community vetting. They questioned whether enough of the community had been included in the public outreach about the park's future.

Seattle Parks officials and foundation leaders insist community engagement was extensive, including, "stakeholder meetings," public meetings and pop-ups in the park (advertised through mailed notices to 3,000 neighbors), and a public survey promoted via QR-coded signage, postcards and flyers throughout 2025.

Many of the 110 survey respondents - about equal thirds residents, businesses and passers-through - and public meeting attendees said they wanted to feel safer. They requested better maintenance of the space and urged Seattle Parks to add amenities that encouraged people to linger in the park, as well as lighting and greenery. Several advocated for public restrooms, seating for transit users and prioritizing pedestrian use of Pine Street; and while many agreed that a new, more accessible stage was needed and some were OK with a fountain redo or removal, few actively advocated for removing the fountain or the arch.

Many calls to eliminate the artist-designed elements seem to have come largely during two private, invite-only stakeholder meetings in 2024. While there are no sign-in sheets from those gatherings, invite lists include city officials; about 13 local residents, including a representative for the Downtown Community Council; and 14 representatives for real estate firms and property management companies; plus two Amazon reps and several from nonprofits.

The Parks Foundation, which managed the project's design and construction, raised about $170,000 in private funds and $10,000 from Seattle Parks and Recreation for the community engagement and concept design work in 2024. Seattle Parks subsequently funded the broader public engagement process beginning in January 2025. (The foundation declined to disclose the funders, as nonprofits don't usually disclose those.)

By the time the designers brought their concept to the design commission in March 2025, the arch and fountain had disappeared from the renderings.

"The scale of the arch is welcoming, defines the edge of the space, and is an ode to public free speech," design commissioners wrote in response to the plans. "Its loss would undermine the design vision of the space as well as the character and identity of Westlake Park."

Instead of major structural changes, the commission advocated for a "light touch," focusing on safety, accessibility and utility upgrades rather than the wholesale removal of iconic features.

Their effort was in vain.

Settlement and removal

Because artworks like Maki's "Westlake Axis/Seven Hills" are commissioned with taxpayer dollars, Seattle's Office of Arts & Culture - like many other municipalities - has strict criteria for permanently removing an object from a public art collection, including serious deterioration and design faults, safety or environmental hazards, or alterations that render the site unable to accommodate the artwork. This process is called "deaccessioning."

Here's what typically happens: A panel vote of visual arts professionals and community representatives approves the decision after discussion during a public meeting. This "conscientious" review process, the Office of Arts & Culture's deaccession policy reads, is designed to "avoid reacting to the pressures of a particular moment or circumstance" and "avoid loss by fluctuations of taste and premature removal of an artwork."

These reviews do sometimes lead to removals. Last year, for example, Office of Arts & Culture deaccessioned an artwork that was a safety hazard due to wood degradation: "Paragon," artist Donald Fels' large wood and steel sculpture on the Duwamish River in West Seattle. Doing so took two public meetings by two commissions, multiple meetings with the artist over a period of six months, and a vote.

That didn't happen with the Westlake works.

For reasons that are unclear even to city officials, the ownership and management of the Westlake works is fractured. The Office of Arts & Culture only has purview over the Seven Hills plinths and paving, not the fountain or arch. Those pieces are owned by Parks, which says they're not art at all.

Seattle Parks seemed to want the art they weren't in charge of gone, too, according to Jason Huff, public art division director for the Office of Arts & Culture. He said that Seattle Parks first reached out, informally, around May 2024 about the possibility of the arts office deaccessioning the Seven Hills sculptures. The office maintained a firm position that artworks should remain in place unless absolutely necessary. Deaccessioning, Huff says, is always the last resort.

"Obviously, cities change. Parks are redesigned or redeveloped, buildings are removed, and that we totally understand," he said. "But for places where sites remain fairly unchanged or untouched, where the artwork is not being impacted, our stance is that the artwork should remain in place."

Huff said the Office of Arts & Culture held firm, despite "pressure that was being put upon us" by the Westlake project team. Meanwhile, the team had decided that the arch and fountain, which fell under Seattle Parks' purview, had to go.

In September 2025, lawyers representing Maki filed a formal objection to the proposed removal of the fountain and arch, arguing, among other things, that these elements constituted a single, unified work titled "Westlake Star Axis/Seven Hills," could not be separated and that the "mutilation" of the piece violated his rights under the Visual Artists Rights Act and U.S. copyright law.

Seattle Parks responded by saying that the arch and fountain were "utilitarian" features, not art, and thus not protected by copyright. It also said the Visual Artists Rights Act did not apply because the city obtained full title to the works long before the act's effective date of June 1, 1991.

To avoid litigation, both parties signed a settlement. It requires that all pieces - including the sculptures, the fountain and the arch - be kept together and reinstalled in another "prominent location" within the city's parks system (a move that will likely cost an additional $1 million to $1.3 million, city council records show), to be determined in collaboration with the artist.

And so, because Seattle Parks insisted on eliminating Westlake's fountain and arch, all the pieces - including the plinths - were cleared.

Seattle Parks declined to comment on legal matters but said that staff have been working with the Office of Arts & Culture to update and revise their artwork removal and deaccession policies, and Seattle Parks Deputy Superintendent Andy Scheffer says the department maintains a "really collaborative relationship with the artist."

Moral geography

The renewed park opened with much fanfare in late May. Native shrubs in planters now grow where the fountain stood. A wider podium, about 21 feet wide and about 10- to 14-inches high (the original stage was 6 feet wide, 4½ feet high, with no ramp) is accessible for wheelchair users and was constructed from salvaged granite. Eight red granite reliefs from the fountain are sprinkled throughout the site as relics of a former Westlake. The basket weave pavers have been restored and expanded.

The park feels lush, refreshed and much more spacious. The Downtown Seattle Association says the new design allows for electricity-powered food trucks (no more noisy, stinky generators), bigger concert stages, a seasonal ice rink and other programming, including a mobile art gallery at the south end of the park. While FIFA is in town, the downtown association is organizing free watch parties for major soccer and other local sports games, plus a food and drink kiosk and a VIP area with special seating for Nordstrom cardholders.

Setha M. Low, a professor of environmental psychology and the director of the Public Space Research Group at the City University of New York says cities often use major sporting events as "pretext for giving cities makeovers that often end up displacing populations that like to hang out in the park.

"More and more, there's kind of a stranglehold on what a place needs to look like, be like: clean, safe, to assuage fears," says Low, a former friend and colleague of landscape architect Hanna, speaking generally.

"The other piece is purely economic," she adds. Lack of municipal funding means cities, reliant on property and sales taxes and looking to boost their downtowns, are reshaping urban public space. And that, she says, often means excluding certain populations while catering to those who can afford expensive amenities; the kind of people who will buy the rutabaga at the farmers markets, attend the lunchtime concerts and pop in to Uniqlo - and increase the city's tax revenue.

"It's a kind of financialization of geography," she says. "I call it a new kind of moral geography of who's supposed to be there and not."

Seattle Parks maintains the Westlake project was "grounded in extensive community engagement," says Christina Hirsch, the agency's public affairs manager, and addressed longstanding infrastructure, accessibility and maintenance challenges while ensuring the park remains an inclusive civic space for "residents, workers, visitors, transit riders, event organizers, advocates, performers and community groups."

More changes are still to come to Westlake. This overhaul is merely "Phase 1."

Sound Transit has identified the area for an expanded underground light rail station and is looking at acquiring the building(s) to the east of Westlake Park to potentially build housing (though that could be 10 years out). Monorail upgrades are also likely.

"Public space, it's complicated," Huff, of the Office of Arts & Culture, says. "There's so many factors that go in, so many things that change over time - physically, but also just culture."

Huff hopes that as Westlake - and the city at large - continues to change, we can also keep our history in mind.

"Often we hear, ‘that artwork is dated.' Well, it's like, ‘so is that building,' but we keep the building. Why is that different?

"I think being dated is a good thing because it speaks to a different time, It's a time capsule. It's something that captures who we were at that moment and what our vision was for the future."

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