Matt Fiske has a neat piece on density in, of all places, Crosscut. He argues that the land currently occupied by the soon-to-be-closed T.T. Minor elementary would make a great urban neighborhood in the Amsterdam mold.
Trouble is,The problem with the article is that the Seattle School District has no intention of selling or demolishing the school (which is probably a good thing, as someday the demographics of the neighborhood will change to make it useful again).
Be careful with suggesting that school lands just be sold. Land, once sold, can never be reclaimed or only at great expense. Demographic shifts come in waves and what was the old part of town today might be the up and coming family zone tomorrow. This is exactly what is happening in my neighbourhood.
Thanks for the comment, Corey. I didn’t intend to suggest that at all. I live a few blocks from T.T. Minor and hope to send my kids there one day.
I probably should have been more clear: the trouble with the Crosscut article is that the site is not going to be sold. I’ve updated the post.
Actually, the problem with the Crosscut piece is that it starts with the idea “Hey, look! Free land!” and daydreams from there on out. When I was young I did that with a few boats, and it wasn’t pretty.
For starters, if megablock structures are such failures, why not wave the magic wand of new cityism over one of those? Pedestrian streets, also known as arcades or atriums, would not be that hard to create. In reality, of course, Fiske wants school land because even in a fierce recession inner-city Seattle has a pretty strong pulse and commands a pretty good price.
When we get to specific suggestions, Fiske is even worse. Narrow the streets, but have twice as many of them. Ground floor parking. These ideas work against each other to produce a result that could easily be attained in some other way.
Make it last? You mean, like the balloon-frame wood house I had in Seattle that was going on 100 when I sold it? The structural assessment for that sale estimated an additional 80 years of service life for that structure. Even my houseboat was still standing after 60 years, not bad for a building with a flexible foundation that continuously passed the waves of the lake to the building structure.
Ensure diversity? Well, that’s exactly why we have public schools- so students of diverse backgrounds can share a common education, and parents of diverse backgrounds can be assured their children will be educated. There is no better guarantor of diversity than a strong and bias-free public school system.
Now, I have seen some of Seattle’s narrow-house and three-on-a-lot construction, and it would be laughably easy to take a block with some of this on it and go straight ahead to a walkable block with mixed income and use. So I am not only suspicious but also a little cross when the suggestion is made to take school land.
And it can help to be a little cross when you evaluate an idea, instead of just chugging it down like some New Urbanism smoothie and then saying “That was good- I wonder what was in it?” If nothing else, the hard-eyed look can save you the effort of believing ten impossible things before breakfast.
This may come as a bit of a surprise to you, but after spending a day in the classroom, most teachers want to go- someplace, any place, just get the hell out of here.
Shocking stuff, to be sure.
I think Fisk probably thought of T.T. Minor because it’s one of the schools to be closed. Personally I think would be a great idea to redevelop the site in cooperation with the school district. It’s not going to be used right now anyway.
They could retain ownership of the land and get a new school building as part of the project and maybe some other nifty things like teacher housing.
Are you kidding? They’re grading papers all night!
I think the school district should look at doing something with the property other than leave it vacant. One, vacant buildings tend to decay faster than if they’re in use. Lack of heat and ventilation lead to mold. Lack of attention leads to leaks in the structure that go unnoticed and cause rot. Lack of purpose leads to vandalism and the area becoming an attractive nuisance.
It seems there are a lot of possible uses that could involve few or minor changes. Maybe a Boys & Girls club or YMCA would take over part of it. Perhaps small businesses would rent space; a day care, college extension classes, maybe office space, a medical clinic. The bottom line is the school district is closing schools because it can’t afford to keep them open. That makes hanging on to property that may never be needed or be unsuitable for future needs a drag on the rest of the system. If it can become a performing asset that still has the potential to be used in the future then wouldn’t that be better than either boarding it up or selling it off?
The district has a list of ‘pre-approved’ agencies (child care, community clinic, pre-school etc) that can move in and use the properties without any long process. They’re looking for tenants on that list, or others who might fit the criteria, because they don’t want to leave the buildings empty.
Article in one of the Seattle dailies about that yesterday.