18 Apr Pioneer Square in the News

NEWS

Vacant Seattle storefronts being brought to life (PSBJ)
Here’s a surprise: Despite the slow recovery in retailing, a slew of new boutiques have opened recently in Seattle’s Pioneer Square and International District, two neighborhoods hard hit by closures during the recession.

Taller buildings for Pioneer Square (DJC – subscription only)
Yesterday, the Seattle City Council’s Committee on the Built Environment voted to allow taller buildings in Pioneer Square. This was one of the last issues to be tackled in the city’s proposal to update land use and zoning rules for South Downtown.

‘America’s Most Wanted’ filming segment in Seattle (Seattle Times)
Walsh and his crew spent Tuesday filming in Pioneer Square and at Kerry Park in Seattle’s Queen Anne neighborhood. The unsolved homicide of Assistant U.S. Attorney Thomas Wales, who was fatally shot by a gunman who fired through the window of Wales’ Seattle home in October 2001, will be profiled on the program.

Is the ‘Seattle Underground’ the key to solving Pioneer Square’s Internet woes? (GeekWire)
The solution to Pioneer Square’s Internet connectivity problems may be found in a cavernous, mid-19th century underworld. The City of Seattle is currently engaged in a plan to bring high-speed Internet to buildings in a four block area along First Avenue South, using the subterranean passageways in the neighborhood’s famous underground to string fiber optic cable to bandwidth-starved technology companies. Bill Schrier, chief technology officer for the City of Seattle, laid out the proposal in an interview with GeekWire this week.

And because there are so many articles, it gets its own category:

ZYNGA NEWS

Zynga rolls out valet parking, Alcatraz crab cakes, craft beers to woo potential employees (TechFlash)
The action took place in a second-story space in the historic Washington Shoe Building, amidst exposed brick walls that felt more closed in than normal because of the throng of invited guests. There, Zynga executives and a handful of workers mingled and talked up the attributes of working at the fast-growing social game developer behind such hits as FarmVille, Mafia Wars and CityVille.

Seattle’s hottest tech neighborhood offers crappy Internet service, drug dealers (GeekWire)
KING 5 takes a deeper look at what’s going on, noting that despite cruddy Internet service and a “lingering reputation as a haven for drug dealers” the neighborhood continues to attract high-tech tenants.

Q&A: Zynga founder talks about Seattle hiring spree, Amazon, Facebook (Seattle Times)
The line was out the door Tuesday night at the new Seattle office of Zynga, the red hot San Francisco social games company. About 175 engineers and game developers crammed into the space in the Washington Shoe Building in Pioneer Square.

Zynga Seattle to open just minutes from PopCap, Nintendo, Microsoft (Games)
Zynga knows where the game’s at. KING5 news reports that Zynga is running recruitment phases for its studio in Seattle’s Pioneer Square. The building is still under construction, but the video above gives a tiny glimpse of what a Zynga studio looks like. Considering how close the FarmVille creator now is to three of the biggest players in the industry, this could be the company’s most strategic studio opening yet.

BLOGS

P-I archive: A forgotten Pioneer Square bar that’s now a park (Big Blog)
The building was located on the south side of South Washington Street between Occidental and First Avenue South. That, a neighboring hotel and other buildings have been demolished, and the site is now home to Occidental Park.

It’s been 70 years since Seattle replaced streetcars (HistoryLink) (PI – Transportation)
While streetcars are making a comeback in this town, Wednesday marks the 70th anniversary of the day that trackless trolleys and buses replaced Seattle’s first streetcar system, according to HistoryLink.org.

Does Seattle need ‘open air’ urinals? (Big Blog)
But it begs the questions: How would Seattle do with open-air urinals? Business owners in Pioneer Square have decried the availability of public restrooms lately, saying tourists and homeless people alike don’t have many options for relieving themselves in the city’s oldest neighborhood.