Westlake Park (Seattle)

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Westlake Park is a small public plaza in downtown Seattle. It covers about 0.1 acres (400 m2) and runs east from Fourth Avenue to a portion of Westlake Avenue between Pike and Pine streets. The park sits across Pine Street from Westlake Center mall and Westlake Station, a major transit hub. The park and the surrounding mall are named after Westlake Avenue, which now ends north of the mall.

The park is known as Seattle’s “town square,” where celebrities and politicians have spoken from the mall’s balcony.

History in brief:
- The city proposed a pedestrian mall in 1959. Westlake Avenue’s southern block was closed in the 1960s to build the original Monorail terminus.
- The current mall and park were proposed in 1968 and opened in October 1988 after 20 years of planning and lawsuits.
- A design flaw caused cracked granite pavers along Pine Street, nicknamed the “Nightmare on Pine Street.” The city won a settlement to cover repairs, finished by 1989.
- After the Downtown Seattle Transit Tunnel opened in 1990, Pine Street was kept closed to through traffic, linking the park to the south side open space. In 1995, residents voted to reopen the street as Nordstrom moved into the nearby Bon Marché site.
- In the mid-1990s, the park was the site of guerrilla art pranks and a bomb scare that closed downtown blocks.

Nearby landmarks:
- The Seaboard Building, a 1909 landmark, is adjacent to the park.
- Diagonally across from the park was Macy’s (the Bon Marché flagship), which closed in February 2020.

Current note:
- Westlake Park closed in October 2025 for a major renovation ahead of the 2026 FIFA World Cup. The plan includes removing the fountain and arch, adding traffic protection bollards, and updating landscaping.