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Comment by troydavis | Hacker News Reader

This, many times over. Yes, Seattle's South Lake Union now looks a lot like downtown San Jose. It's a completely different world from 10 years ago, though, and so much better.

We missed out on a chance to have a giant urban park ("Seattle Commons": http://www.historylink.org/index.cfm?DisplayPage=output.cfm&...), but credit to Paul Allen for executing an unbelievable plan B.

[Bloomberg's article focuses more on Amazon's new HQ in downtown Seattle, but Amazon's impact today is mostly in South Lake Union. Background: http://www.seattletimes.com/business/real-estate/amazon-will...]

(Source: Born in Seattle and have lived within ~0.5 miles for 10+ years)

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Wasn't a biotech hub plan B originally? That never panned out.

For reference I've worked in SLU for the better part of a decade, first at Rosetta Biosoftware (ISB is in that building now) and at AWS for the last 8 years.

There is quite a bit of biotech in the area, isn't there? UW Medicine and Novonordisk, as well as Fred Hutch etc.

There were plans for a lot more commercial biotech back in the day. Some of it has rebounded, but Seattle never really became a competitor to Cambridge (MA), San Diego, or the Bay Area. The non-profit side is pretty good.

I dunno, a giant green park within the city like SF's golden gate park or NYC's central park sounds really incredible.

It would have been, but voters rejected that idea. As my comment noted, by the time Amazon came along, a park wasn't one of the options.

Didn't Amazon start off in that weird decrepit hospital near Beacon Hill? I mean, SODO could very well have been Seattle's tech hub in an alternate timeline. Though if I get your gist, the point is that the decision was made before any big tech revival.

I remember SLU in the 90's, it was shady and dying. But when I think about SLU today, and how close it is geographically to the heart of the city, it seems like such a lost opportunity that it's now just a sprawling office towers instead of something more vibrant. After 7pm, the whole area from Denny to Capitol Hill just shuts down.

You don't like Discovery Park, Washington Park, Volunteer Park, Golden Gardens, Carkeek Park, or Lincoln Park?

They're all lovely parks, but none are within walking distance of downtown.

We may have different definitions of walking distance from downtown because I think that both Volunteer and Washington Park fall in that range, although I understand that they are farther than a hypothetical South Lake Union park. On the other hand, I would note that neither Golden Gate Park nor Central Park are near their respective downtowns.

I don't really disagree, but it's a 50 minute (uphill) walk from Pike Place to Volunteer Park, whereas it's 15 minutes to the edge of SLU. I don't really mind walking an hour, but many people do.

Golden Gate is a little out of the way, Central Park is super accessible by subway.

That's fair. Alternatively, it's a 35-minute bus ride.

Carkeek is nearly 100 blocks from downtown...

Sorry for my ignorance, but what's Paul Allen's "plan B"?

Paul Allen was pushing for the Seattle Commons concept. When it didn't pass, he wound up owning a bunch of land that had no likely tenants. What South Lake Union has become is his "Plan B" because it's his property development company (Vulcan) that has done the lion's share of the building.

To prove that the Seattle Commons park could actually be built, Paul Allen acquired, or acquired rights to, a ton of land in South Lake Union. When voters rejected the property tax levy, he sat on it (as http://www.vulcanrealestate.com/). Between 2005-2012, he built what became Amazon's headquarters (http://www.seattletimes.com/business/amazon-to-make-giant-mo...) and a lot of Amazon's growth.

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