Pike Place Market Master Plan

A Master Plan is a long-range strategy document designed to help communities set forth a vision and direction for a sustainable future. Master Plans help guide decisions on the preservation, development and use of assets.  The master planning process usually begins with a study of existing conditions – things the community has power to control, as well as larger environmental situations it must adapt to or work to change. Master Plans also help ensure near-term decisions support the community’s best interests and long-term goals. Public engagement is a crucial part of effective plan development. We envision Pike Place Market 50 years from now as a supportive, diverse community and a thriving center of Pacific Northwest food, commerce, and culture. Staying true to our Charter, the Market will maintain its purpose and authentic character as a public space where the people of Seattle gather and trade with farmers and local entrepreneurs. It will provide vital social services, play an active role in shaping decisions affecting the city and region, and operate with a strong commitment to diversity, equity, and inclusion.

The Master Plan is a roadmap for achieving our vision and goals for the Market over the next 50 years. It is a commitment to regularly revisit strategies and actions, and adapt to changing conditions. It is the product of broad, inclusive public engagement. It reflects input from Market tenants, residents, neighbors and other stakeholders; thousands of Seattle-area survey respondents; hundreds of emails; and over 20 public Council meetings. The Plan assesses significant challenges: operating costs outpacing revenues, declining local patronage, aging infrastructure, a distressed downtown, fast-changing retail conditions, and existential threats to local family farming. It also describes opportunities equal to these challenges, all rooted in the power of the Market’s historic purpose and authentic character.

The Plan’s three Goals and four corresponding Strategies aim to capitalize on these opportunities and ensure the Market continues to be a supportive, diverse community and a thriving center of Pacific Northwest food, commerce, and culture for generations to come.

Three Foundational Goals:

1. Ensure long-term financial sustainability
2. Increase local patronage
3. Advance a diverse, equitable, and inclusive Market

Supported by Four Integrated Strategies:

1. Pacific Northwest Food Life to re-attract locals and reenergize the Market’s farmer program

• Support farmers’ financial sustainability and increase their presence at the Market.
• Curate commercial tenants and programming to embrace Pacific Northwest Food Life.

2. Business supports to promote local entrepreneurship and craftspeople

• Support all Market small businesses to advance wealth building and enable greater financial sustainability.
• Strengthen and grow the Market’s handmade craft community.

3. Sustainable physical investments to maintain and adapt the Market

• Support the Market’s physical environment includes targeted capital investments in three priority areas that have distinct characters, potentials, and needs: Pike Place, First Avenue, and Western Avenue.

4. Partnerships to amplify the Market as the Soul of Seattle

• Strengthen external relationships and advocacy to ensure a “seat at the table” on local policy issues.

The Market faces a range of challenges, both significant operational pressures and rapidly changing external forces, including: operating costs outpacing revenues, declining local patronage, aging infrastructure, a distressed downtown, fast-changing retail conditions, existential threats to local family farming, and sustainability demands brought by the growing climate crisis. We are clear-eyed about these many challenges and see a corresponding set of emerging opportunities to ensure the Market’s long-term success, all rounded in the power of its historic purpose and authentic character.

A Master Plan will facilitate broad public conversation and input, which will enable leaders to consider how best to sustain all aspects of the Market environment — its mission, history, community, operations, structures, relation to City government, role in the regional economy, etc. It will enable the Market to create long-term goals, management plans and compatible sources of revenue, operate efficiently, and adapt and remain relevant within rapidly changing retail, social, environmental and economic realities.

The PDA Council established the parameters of the Master Plan at its November 2022 retreat. In keeping with the Council’s intent, the scope for the Master Plan is broad. It allows for holistic consideration of the Market’s business operations, physical plant, civic engagement, financing models, and governance. The plan aims to develop a 10-year active planning horizon and a 50-year vision horizon: Given the Market’s size, complexity and importance, we want to address both the Market’s nearer-term success and its value to future generations.   Click here to read the complete Scope of Work.

No. The Pike Place Market Master Plan will not replace the PDA Charter. The Charter was created as a result of a successful initiative by the people of Seattle to save the Market from redevelopment more than 50 years ago. The Master Plan aims to ensure the Market is sustainable for another 50 years.

Established on June 23, 1973, the Charter of the Pike Place Market PDA ensures the Market is preserved in a manner consistent with providing opportunities for Public Market farmers, merchants, residents, shoppers, and visitors to carry on their tradition and Market activities. The 32-page document requires the Pike Place Market PDA to:

• Increase opportunities for farm and food retailing in the Market
• Act as a business incubator and support small and marginal businesses
• Provide services for low-income people and
• Preserve, rehabilitate and protect the Market’s historic buildings

Staying true to our Charter, as we look at the Master Plan we envision a Market that maintains its purpose and authentic character as a public space where the people of Seattle gather and trade with farmers and local entrepreneurs. It will provide vital social services, play an active role shaping decisions affecting the city and region, and operate with a strong commitment to diversity, equity, and inclusion.

This Plan reflects the insights and perspectives of a diverse range of groups and individuals. A Public Engagement Plan provided the structure for a set of listening and sharing activities of unprecedented range and depth and ensured the development process remained transparent. A detailed summary of our public outreach is included in the Appendix of the Master Plan. Input included:

• 2,365 responses from the External Community Survey – open to King County residents and out-of-town visitors
• 372 responses from the Internal Market Community Survey – open to Market tenants, craftspeople, farmers, buskers, daystall agents, business employees, and residents
• 54 interviews with neighboring institutions, non-profit organizations, tenants at the Market, and other stakeholders
• 35+ people engaged at the April Open House event introducing the Master Plan process
• 25 tenants engaged at Coffee and Donuts Event for Tenants
• 50 residents engaged over two Summer BBQs for Market Residents
• 3 discussions with Friends of the Market, Pike Place Market Constituency, Pike Place Market Foundation, and the Legacy Partners.
• 2 conversations with the Market Historical Commission
• 45+ comments from the PDA Listening Sessions on the Master Plan Draft #1 and Draft #2
• 150+ messages via the PDA website and email on the Master Plan process and drafts
• 110+ public comments recorded across 21 PDA Council Meetings

Yes. The Council approved the hiring of HR&A Advisors, a consulting firm with significant experience developing Master Plans around the U.S. for entities similar in complexity to the Pike Place Market. HR&A Advisors is an industry leader in economic development, real estate, and public policy consulting, and is equipped with a unique understanding of the intersection of public and private sectors. In addition, HR&A Advisors has assembled a project team that includes:

BERK Consulting, Inc., a Seattle-based interdisciplinary consultancy group, will lead the plan’s community and stakeholder engagement. BERK will be responsible for designing and managing processes to convene community and stakeholder groups and develop the strategic implications from these meetings for the Master Plan.

Mithun, a Seattle-based firm, will lead on the assessment of the Market’s physical status and needs.  Mithun is a national leader in urban planning, design and architecture. It will identify opportunities for the Market to adapt to the future in ways that capitalize on its unique character.

MRA International a Florida-based development consultancy, will lead on retail strategies. MRA specializes in the conception, strategy and execution of destination developments worldwide. It will analyze rapidly changing local and national trends and their impacts on the Market’s economic vitality.

Creation of a Pike Place Market Master Plan is an intensive project that required expertise in a range of disciplines beyond the scope of the day-to-day operations and management. Hiring a consulting team with professional knowledge was essential to ensuring that the strategies and best practices, relevant to addressing the retail, social, and economic environments that the Market operates within are comprehensive and sustainable.

A competitive Request for Qualification process was initiated in the spring of 2022. The project was advertised on our website, in local trade publications, and was promoted through a press release that garnered international attention. In the end, ten proposals were received from firms based in Seattle, and across the U.S., Canada, and Europe. Each proposal was evaluated using a scoring sheet, and four were selected for interviews. During the interviews, members of the selection team assessed each candidate based on a series of pre-selected questions. The result was a thorough and deliberate process that culminated in the selection of HR&A Advisors.

The Pike Place Market PDA Executive Director and staff will manage the day-to-day work associated with the Master Plan and will be responsible for working directly with the project team.

The PDA Council authorized the PDA to enter into a contract with HR&A Advisors in the amount of $785,000 at its January 2023 meeting (Resolution 23-04). Additional funds were approved in November 2023 (Resolution 23-60) bringing the total contract amount to $910,340. These funds cover all scheduled consulting fees and hard costs associated with the delivery of the Master Plan. Other attendant costs, e.g., PDA staff time, overhead, etc., are covered in PDA’s 2023 operating budget.

Pike Place, the street, has always been a flexible public space that adapts to the changing needs of Market functions. Surveys of regional visitors, Seattle residents, and the Market community all indicate a desire to manage the street more effectively. We hope to partner with the City to assign the PDA responsibility for managing Pike Place, to enhance the visitor experience while maintaining critical functions for Market businesses. We will create a comprehensive street management program to respond to functional needs, adapt to time-of-day and seasonal use patterns, and create more public seating. And we will continue to coordinate with the City on key issues such as critical safety access, deliveries, parking, temporary closures, and streetscape improvements.

When the Overlook Walk opens in 2024-2025, the Market will be a destination connector between the waterfront and downtown. We can amplify and capture the impacts of future increased foot traffic by investing in Western Avenue and the DownUnder to improve connections, increase foot traffic, and create more rentable and programmable space for mission-driven and revenue-driving activities that attract locals.

We can create a second “front door” to the Market by enhancing the pedestrian connection between the Overlook Walk and Western Avenue and highlighting the western façade of the Main arcade. We can create a stronger ground-level experience on both sides of Western Avenue. We can redevelop Heritage House to include new public and tenant spaces anchored by Pacific Northwest Food Life, additional senior housing, new location for the Food Bank, and other mission-driven uses. We can reconfigure spaces within the DownUnder to create zones for Pacific Northwest Food Life and the arts, improve accessibility and wayfinding, and enhance the sense of surprise and discovery. We can also activate the Pike Street HillClimb balcony to invite more foot traffic.

This Master Plan is a roadmap to achieving our vision and goals over the next 50 years, but with the commitment to regularly revising strategies and adapting to changing conditions. The following phasing plan includes next steps for implementing the Master Plan over the next 10 years, including steps to prepare for a potential levy in 2028. The actions listed below are not finalized and will require continued study, discussion, and planning – which will all be done with robust public input. We will revisit the Master Plan against its goals, metrics, and timelines every five years to ensure that the investments to the Market remain relevant and can be successfully executed within the set timeframe. For the full timelines of phases and metrics please visit page 63 – page 68 of the Master Plan.