Seattle board rejects changing Gas Works Park after teen’s fatal fall

SEATTLE – Seattle’s Landmarks Preservation Board rejected a proposal Wednesday to remove ladders and walkways from structures at Gas Works Park, despite parks officials’ warnings that over a dozen people had been injured or died after falling from them since 2008, including a Ballard High School student this summer.

“Not to put too fine a point on it – a 15-year-old boy died out there,” David Graves, an adviser for Seattle’s parks department, told the board. “The city made an emergency declaration and found money in the budget to make this happen. And so that’s what’s before you today.”

Mattheis Johnson died July 10 after plummeting 50 feet from one of the park’s platforms. Johnson’s was at least the third such death since 2012 at the 19-acre park, which was once the site of a major coal gasification plant on the northern shoreline of Lake Union.

In the last decade, at least 11 other people have been injured in falls after climbing on the park’s structures, some of whom were hospitalized with broken bones or brain damage, the parks department wrote in a September letter to the board.

The city approved an emergency plan after Johnson’s death to remove climbable elements from the park’s structures, which workers once used to operate and maintain the facility. The changes, officials argued, would keep parkgoers safe while leaving the towers’ iconic silhouette mostly intact.

But board members said they did not want to approve making permanent changes to the landmark until the city had looked into alternative options for deterring dangerous climbing, such as an alarm system, security cameras and better lighting.

“I don’t feel that we have enough analysis to justify such a drastic proposal,” board member Ian Macleod said. “These catwalks are fairly small pieces in totality of a landmark park, but they are a very significant part of the character.”