05 Dec Pioneer Square in the News

Alaskan Way Viaduct to be partially closed Monday night (Seattle Pi)
The Alaskan Way Viaduct’s southbound lanes will be closed from Monday night to Tuesday morning between the Battery Street Tunnel and the West Seattle Bridge.

Viaduct project gets its own museum (Seattle Times)
Called Milepost 31, it combines the history of Pioneer Square with the gee-whiz technology of the massive undertaking to dig a tunnel to replace the aging, and now partially gone, Alaskan Way Viaduct.

New late-night taxi stands coming to Fremont, downtown, Capitol Hill (KOMO News)
On Nov. 29, Mayor Mike McGinn announced the locations of the five late-night taxi stands that are part of his eight-point Seattle Nightlife Initiative. The stands, which will restrict curb space to cabs-only between 10 p.m. and 6 a.m. every night, will be located in Pioneer Square, Capitol Hill, Belltown, Pike Place and Fremont.

This is Necessary for the Immediate Preservation of Public Peace (PubliCola)
The south portal of the tunnel would be next to Pioneer Square, and would dump an estimated 59,000 cars—via what one planner called a “linguini-type” system of ramps at yesterday’s meeting—onto streets in that neighborhood. But perhaps more jarring than the extra traffic through Pioneer Square is the size of the operations buildings that will house the tunnel’s emergency systems, batteries and generators, ventilation system, maintenance trucks, and pumps. That building—which will stand about 45 feet above street level, take up 20,000 square feet, and have no street level uses like cafes, shops, or restaurants—will be plopped right in the heart of the dense, mixed-use neighborhood of Pioneer Square.

BuiltBurger Closes in Pioneer Square (Seattle Weekly)
In less upbeat news, Eater Seattle reports that BuiltBurger at 217 James St. in Pioneer Square serves its last patty on Friday, December 2. Its owners are now on the East Coast and have decided to “pause the BuiltBurger brand.”