Alaskan Way Viaduct project: Waterfront demolition today

(Photo by Cliff DesPeaux)
If you drive the Alaskan Way Viaduct or its parallel surface street – or if you ride the King County Water Taxi – you might have noticed this already today, or else you’ll see it on the way home: Crews have begun to demolish Pier 48 on the downtown waterfront, just south of the Water Taxi’s dock at Pier 50 (and the neighboring Washington State Ferries terminal). We remember it best as the dock for the Princess Marguerite car ferry between Seattle and Victoria, which shut down several years back. It’ll be a staging area for some of the Viaduct work. Photojournalist Cliff DesPeaux is there for WSB, and we’ll have more from him later in the day (click here to see a video snippet he tweeted); the entire demolition project, WSDOT says, could last up to four months. (added later – more video – the voice you hear is WSDOT’s Matt Preedy, a West Seattleite, explaining what’s happening)

ADDED 10:17 AM: Here’s a new WSDOT summary of the work that started today:

Crews have started demolishing a 120,000-square-foot warehouse at Pier 48 on Seattle’s waterfront to make room for equipment and supplies during construction and replacement of the Alaskan Way Viaduct.

“Space in this area is very constrained,” said Ron Paananen, WSDOT’s Alaskan Way Viaduct and Seawall Replacement Program Administrator. “Demolishing this warehouse will provide much needed room to stage construction for both the south end and central waterfront projects.”

The $460,000 demolition project, which is more than 35 percent below WSDOT’s estimate of $750,000, is expected to take approximately four months to complete.

The pier sits on wood piles severely damaged by time, weather and marine organisms. The warehouse is unsafe and prohibitively expensive to maintain.

The contractor, R.W. Rhine, Inc. of Tacoma, will recycle approximately 50 percent of the demolished building. Recyclable materials include wood, metal siding and roofing.

WSDOT purchased the pier from the Port of Seattle in 2008.

Crews working for Skanska USA Civil, the contractor selected to replace the southern mile of the viaduct between S. Holgate Street and S. King Street, will be the first to use the new staging area.

Crews will stage equipment on the “upland” portion of the pier – the area on dry land east of the warehouse.

Carson July 28, 2010 (9:01 am)

I am willing to wager a cold beer this becomes like the old Denny’s in Ballard, you remember, the one that was a staging place/transit stop for the Monorail….in 2 years, it will just be another eyesore.

LB July 28, 2010 (9:17 am)

WSF at one time did have plans on expanding Colman Dock down to pier 48. I don’t know if that is still in any long range plans or not.

The west wall still had an advertisement for the Seattle-Victoria car ferry (which shut down in September 1999) the last time I checked (which was a month or so ago).

Dale July 28, 2010 (10:09 am)

Those are some pretty massive timbers on the ground. The website says that the pilings are too expensive to replace and are badly deteriorated.

Alki Area July 28, 2010 (11:15 am)

Last I read this pier IS a target for expansion for the Colman dock whenever that happens in the future, but it’s being used for a construction staging area for now. That’s a really good use for this. I mean where else downtown DO you put the equipment for this project? There’s not a lot of open space.

It’s an abandoned eye soar now. No biggie tearing it down. It’s not a historic important or even attractive building…just a generic nondescript pier.

Forest July 28, 2010 (11:40 am)

FWIW, Pier 48 has been effectively condemned since the mid-1990s, at which time the annual Northwest Bookfest was required to find a less atmospheric venue due to safety and liability concerns about the pier’s building and rotted pilings. WSDOT bought it with plans for eventual ferry terminal expansion, with or without interim use as a dedicated staging area for viaduct work.

buddsmom July 28, 2010 (12:27 pm)

Any ideas on what will happen to the pedestrian overpass from 1st Ave to Colman dock when the viaduct comes down?

Donn July 28, 2010 (2:40 pm)

I hope they are recycling any possible materials that come out of the demolition so it all doesn’t live in a land fill somewhere.

Tony S July 28, 2010 (3:32 pm)

@Donn – you can bet those timbers are being sold for top dollar (you can see the ‘demolisher’ grabbing one and setting it aside in the video). They are like lost pieces of history and are highly sought after in the architectural market…