A wave breaks? In downtown Seattle, crime is now falling

Mayor Bruce Harrell sounded like the gung-ho football player he once was when he kicked off the holiday shopping season last week in struggling downtown Seattle.

“Seattle is back!” he cheered.

Is it? Unlike the mayor, I’m not known in these parts for aggressive positivity. But this time, the mayor may be onto something.

If you spend a few hours down there, you can see that some of the things that are good are finally going up (like new stores), and some of the things that are bad are finally coming down (like old plywood).

For starters the Japanese clothing retailer Uniqlo opened a bright new store in the perpetual gloom of the shopping district around Westlake Center a few weeks ago.

This is the type of happening we would have ignored back when we were all tech-boomy and smug. But given its location — in the shuttered national landmark building at Fourth and Pine, where Macy’s and the Bon Marché once roamed, across the street from a Starbucks that was so addled by crime it closed last summer — well, Uniqlo’s presence is symbolically as potent as the Christmas star lit up on the building’s facade.

On Monday the Puget Sound Business Journal asked the CEO of Uniqlo why in the world he would pick that spot, across the street from the infamous drug market also known as the Third and Pine McDonald’s, to give it a go in Seattle.

“We’re always asking ourselves how we are going to contribute to societies, to connect the people in the community,” the CEO said. “I hope other retailers will come back to the downtown cities to connect with their customers. That is our responsibility. … That’s very important.”

I realize that’s some Grade A corporate schmoozola right there, but … for once I don’t mind. Seattle desperately needed somebody to take the plunge. So I like it.

As Seattle Met magazine wrote: “Seattle is dying, and all we got was this surprisingly cute, locally inspired, $20 graphic tee? We’ll take it.”

Another perverse sign of hope: that McDonald’s has finally emerged from its hardened plywood shell. The corner it sits on has been so under siege from the drug and stolen goods bazaar outside that they felt forced to sell Big Macs through a dark hole cut in the plywood. It was like a scene from a medieval back alley, playing out in the heart of a modern city.

Now you can see inside the joint again. Small steps, but in the right direction.

I know this next statement may not last past the ink drying on the words, but Mayor Harrell appears to have succeeded in quelling the worst of the out-of-control petty and violent crime in that corridor.

I’ve been sounding the alarm loudly about Seattle crime escalating these past two years. But it’s just as important to say when it goes in the other direction.

Last summer I wrote about Seattle’s smallest police beat, known as “Mary Three,” which covers these central downtown blocks. (It’s roughly Pine to Seneca and Second Avenue to Eighth.) At the time, in August, it was experiencing more than 150 crimes per month. That’s in a zone just four blocks wide by six blocks long.

“My employees are reluctant to come to our offices … they are afraid to take public transportation,” the HomeStreet Bank CEO told me, adding the firm might move after a century downtown.

Well the news is that reported crimes have plummeted. They’ve been cut in half, from 166 in August to 82 in October, police data shows.

Some of that decline is probably seasonal, as street crime usually peaks in the summer. It also could be a data artifact of the cop emphasis patrols earlier this year, as having more cops about means they will spot, and then report, more crime.

But October had the lowest monthly total for this troubled corridor since March 2021 — 19 months ago. November is promising to be relatively low as well.

How did this happen? More cops plus private guards plus charity “navigators” to help the homeless all likely helped. Sometimes crime waves also just crest on their own.

One provocative data point: This year so far police have issued 197 narcotic violations in the Mary Three zone, versus only 26 in all of last year. Was that huge shift in emphasis what it took? Given that state lawmakers are about to debate drug possession laws, it’s a question that cries out for more study.

I also don’t want to get too sugarplum for the season: Tuesday there were groups of fentanyl smokers clustered around the Ross Dress For Less store, and along Pike Street, as usual. There’s also a bit of a police state feel. Security guards were everywhere around and inside the new Uniqlo store, with a Seattle police van parked just outside.

Even the communal Christmas tree at Westlake Center is flanked with barricades and signs warning: “No soliciting, loitering, trespassing.” Happy holidays!

Last year at this time, though, these same streets were lined with people hawking “blues” as well as stuff stolen from Target and other stores. That “street retail” chaos seems dissipated, as does — knock on old plywood — some of the street violence.

So is Seattle’s downtown back? The office workers sure aren’t, so that’s too strong. But I’d say there’s growing evidence that downtown may have finally bounced up off the pandemic bottom.

After all it’s been through, as the Uniqlo fans would say, we’ll take it.