The historic Seattle market that almost wasn't: When Pike Place nearly became a parking garage

Hot and crowded in the summer, brimming with fresh flowers and aromatic produce, and the occasional fish whizzing past as a ready fisherman snatches it from the air, it's hard to imagine Seattle without the iconic Pike Place Market.

But that would have become a reality if the Seattle City Council of 1969 got its way.

Fifty years ago today, the council unanimously approved a plan for the urban renewal of the market. Based on the plan, just a small piece of Pike would have remained while the rest was demolished. In its place, the plan called for a seven-story parking garage, as well as multiple high-rise apartments, office buildings and a hotel.

It was not an overnight decision. By the 1960s, the market was deteriorating. Then-Mayor Dorm Braman called it "a decadent, somnolent firetrap."

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The plan was first introduced to the council in 1963. The following year, the "Pike Plaza Redevelopment Project" appeared on the city's application for federal urban renewal funds.

"We have a need in the Pike Plaza area," Braman said in a recording taken in March 1969, three months before the council's vote on the urban renewal plan. "What we're trying to do here is respond to what is a national concern ... of the exodus of people living in the heart, in the core, of our cities.

"We have here a spectacular piece of property, very underdeveloped, containing very little ... that is worth preserving."

But many disagreed, and talks of razing the market sparked a grassroots movement to save it.

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In 1964, attorney Robert Ashley and architect Victor Steinbrueck gathered 60 activists to defend what architect Fred Bassetti called "an honest place in a phony time." The group became the founders of the Friends of the Market organization, which still exists today.

The Friends convinced the city's new Advisory Council on Historic Preservation to create a 17-acre Pike Place Market Historical District, which prevented the use of federal funds to demolish the market.

But the fight to preserve Pike wasn't over. In May 1971, the advisory council shrank the Historical District to 1.7 acres, and the city slated the market for urban renewal.

The Friends began gathering the 25,000 signatures needed for an expansion of the Historical District to appear on the November ballot. They succeeded in three weeks time, and the subsequent initiative won with 76,369 votes, or 58.9% approval.

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Less than two years later, the Pike Place Market Preservation and Development Authority was created by the City of Seattle. The following year, $135 million was spent on the market's renovation, including $60 million in federal funds.

Those renovations have turned it into a tourist destination beloved by visitors and locals alike -- though it's probably best to go on a weekday morning, if you can, to avoid crowds.

Though it has been preserved, Pike Place has undergone some changes. Two years ago, the MarketFront expansion facing Puget Sound held its grand opening. Now, as the Alaskan Way Viaduct comes down, the market is preparing for more changes; a clearer view and large park are among the plans for the coming years.

Unless otherwise indicated, historical information was sourced from HistoryLink.org essays, the Seattle municipal archives and Pike Place's history page.

Producer Natalie Guevara can be contacted at natalie.guevara@seattlepi.com. Follow her on Twitter. Find more from Natalie on her author page.