Build condos away from the waterfront

To the Editor - The Olympian, March 19, 2008

Your Olylujah! piece praising the new OLY 2012 group seems either badly misinformed or flatly misleading about the recent history of downtown. I suppose Bob Jacobs, Olympia's former mayor, must count as one of the leaders of the widespread opposition to having more ninety foot high rises on the isthmus and right next to the rest of the waterfront. He was also one of the leaders in the creation of Heritage Park, where about 1,000 people a day now come downtown to walk. He and the many other people who don't want condos on the isthmus are not nay-sayers flatly opposed to transforming downtown. Quite the opposite. They just have a vision of what will make living downtown more attractive to most of the people of the city, now and in the future, that doesn't include high rises right there.

Why doesn't The Olympian support building luxury condos somewhat back from the water? Handing over everybody's daily pleasure in the way that part of the city opens to the Sound, the mountains and the lake, and turning that into the private possession of a few hundred people who can afford the apartments will make being downtown less pleasant for most people. Living downtown will be more desirable in 2012 if the city buys the one ugly high rise there now, tears it down, and adds the land to the park than if it changes the zoning to let a developer put up a bunch of other buildings like it.

Thad Curtz, Olympia