Seattle board rejects Gas Works tower changes after fatal fall
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Gas Works Park. Photo: Wolfgang Kaehler/LightRocket via Getty Images
Seattle's landmarks board blocked a plan Wednesday to remove ladders and catwalks from the towers at Gas Works Park — a change that park officials argued could have reduced dangerous climbing.
The big picture: The proposal came after 15-year-old Mattheis Johnson died in July after climbing one of the preserved gasification towers and falling 50 feet.
- Park officials cited more than a dozen instances where people have fallen from the towers or attached structures since 2008. Those falls resulted in several serious injuries and three deaths, including Johnson's.
Catch up quick: The towers were built in the early 1900s as part of a plant that turned coal into gas.
- They were later incorporated into the design of the park, a nod to the city's industrial history.
State of play: Approval by the city's Landmarks Preservation Board would have greenlit the removal of many of the gas towers' attached pedestrian walkways, platforms and other support structures.
- The work might have also have removed a section of piping that extends beyond the perimeter fence — although parks officials said they would have tried to avoid that.
Yes, but: Even after the parks department's proposal was scaled back, members of the landmarks board said Wednesday that they first wanted to consider other options for improving safety, such as adding video cameras and improving lighting.
- That came as a relief to opponents of the plan, who had argued that removing the ladders and other elements would take away from the gas towers' historic character.
What they're saying: "Aesthetically, it's really, really different — and it's definitely not preserved" if the changes take place, Greenwood resident Anton Jackson told Axios about the proposal.
- The piping, catwalks and ladders create a "visual reminder of how complicated and manual and analog the process of getting our energy was 100 years ago," said Jackson, who grew up in Seattle.
People who are motivated enough to climb the current barbed wire-topped fence to spray graffiti or perform unsafe stunts may find a way to do so even with the planned changes, he added.
- "You can't mitigate all risk," Jackson said. "Do we make it impossible to climb a tree? Because it's fundamentally the same thing."
Park officials, meanwhile, said their goal was to preserve the silhouettes of the gas towers, along with some of the support structures that are higher up and difficult to reach.
- The idea is "really just removing those elements that enable folks to climb up on the towers, whether it's for graffiti or for other purposes," David Graves, a strategic advisor for the parks department, told the Landmarks Preservation Board on Wednesday.
What's next: The board's motion rejecting the plan requested more information, such as a structural report and "an overall master plan for this structure within the park."
- Had the landmarks board approved the changes to the towers, the project was expected to cost $1.8 million.
- The parks department still could appeal the decision, or come back with a revised plan at a later date.