The waterfront area of Seattle has undergone a huge makeover—it’s not only easier to access but also has a beautiful new park and pedestrian Overlook Walk leading city-goers and tourists directly to Pike Place Market. It’s now a lot easier to navigate, giving foot traffic a leg up in moseying through the city.
“It was a big disconnect between downtown [and the water],” says Amy Barr, a seasonal vendor in Pike Place. “It was always really weird and awkward to tell people who are asking how to get down to the waterfront, how to get down…now it’s easy to go out there and follow where everybody else is going, and it’s beautiful. It makes the city feel more connected to the water.”
Photograph by Tristyn MacDonald
She thinks this space is something the city needed. However, since vendors and businesses in the area depend on the flow of people traveling through where construction would be happening, there was concern at first about the project’s timeline.
Scott Chang, a flower vendor in the Pike Place strip, says, “The biggest thing we worried about is how long it was going to take, because it being closed blocked off a huge chunk of the market.”
But Chang agrees that it used to be “kind of a nightmare to access [the waterfront].”
Photograph by Tristyn MacDonald
The construction took slightly more than two years, and Overlook Walk opened on Oct. 4, 2024. Its opening caught the tail end of tourist season, and business owners are excited to see how the new area will make this part of downtown bloom heading into the warmer months.
Photograph by Tristyn MacDonald
After making your way down to the waterfront from the market, you’ll find tons of open seating, a faux soccer field, and some yard games. Then you can watch an ocean-side sunset near the fire pit where they occasionally hold fire pit socials. Additionally, an elevator was built in for accessibility.
“As if Seattle didn’t need some other thing that was absolutely amazing and beautiful to look at? I mean, they just added it to the top of the list,” says Erica Alonzo, an employee at Truffle Queen. “We get a lot of feedback from visitors and tourists that come up here, even Seattleites themselves.”
Photograph by Tristyn MacDonald
This revamping gets even more exciting thanks to its collaboration with the Seattle Aquarium. The aquarium’s new attraction, the Ocean Pavillion, directly supports part of the overlook. There is a new multi-level habitat to explore with stingrays and leopard sharks, a 360-degree interactive ocean experience in the middle of a kelp forest, and more.
Photograph by Tristyn MacDonald
If you don’t feel like going on a full aquarium excursion, no worries! A no-cost tourist experience sits right outside the front doors at the bottom of the pavilion. Directly above your head, you can watch the various sea creatures inhabiting part of the extension swimming about.
All this construction has brought some life back to Seattle in the eyes of tourists and locals. The next time you find yourself in Seattle be sure to check out the market, grab a bite to eat, and spend some quality time enjoying the newfound beauty this attraction brings to downtown.
