Nature's Bounty of Belltown Road Projects

Spring is here! You can tell because that's when Belltown's larger street projects begin. Your 4th Avenue is having all kinds of stuff done to it, most noticeable of which is its closure at Pine Street. Although most of the action is taking place around Stewart Street, some pretty serious work is happening all the way to Wall Street. I'm pretty sure this has something to do with the new Escala at 4th & Virginia. It's a very big building that probably requires more city services than the parking lot that stood there previously. So they're coming in, busting up the asphalt, digging down two feet, then filling it in. Observe:

Here's 4th & Virginia. The Escala is just off to the right, across Virginia and not in the picture. You'll see that two lanes are blocked off.

You can tell they're serious. They've brought in the heavy stuff. This is from 4th & Lenora. The fabulous Cinerama Theater stands in the background.

More heaviness dappled by the righteous Sunday morning sunshine between Lenora & Blanchard.

Look, look! Blanchard Street gets the honey bucket! Score!

A little minor action at 4th & Bell.

And on it goes down to Wall.

But wait! There's more. We've also got stuff going on at 2nd & Bell.

First off, there's this giant hole in the sidewalk covered up with steel plates.

This seems like too much equipment for that size of a hole.

There's even more on the other side of the street. And look! They've got their own honey bucket. Class!

OK, so the work on 4th seems to be going quickly, especially considering how massive it is. The 2nd & Bell stuff? Who knows? About a year ago they were doing similar work just a block away at 3rd & Bell and that lasted over six months. We shall see..