MyNorthwest Q&A: The waterfront visionary behind Seattle’s gondola, Great Wheel

Seattle’s waterfront has come a long way since Hal Griffith first arrived on the scene after serving in the military half a century ago. Since then, he’s worked tirelessly to reshape the area, with a vision that would ultimately help transform it from a rough-and-tumble working waterfront to one of Seattle’s most popular tourist destinations.

But Griffith, who dreamed of Seattle’s Great Wheel 30 years ago, isn’t content to rest on his laurels. The developer is at it again, partnering with two of his sons to launch their newest venture, a gondola stretching from the waterfront to the Washington State Convention Center.

MyNorthwest.com caught up with Griffith after he helped unveil his latest venture to discuss his history on the waterfront and vision for the future.

MyNorthwest.com: How did you first get involved with the waterfront?

Hal Griffith: In the early 60’s I had a little business where I was picking up damaged cargo from the piers in Seattle with the Port of Seattle, and we had other trucking damaged merchandise. I needed a warehouse and I also needed a retail store.

So I first was able to get a little storage area on Pier 66 and I outgrew that and needed larger space. The city had bought Pier 57 and was holding that for a waterfront park as part of a Forward Thrust bond issue. So they allowed me to come for a month-to-month lease. A portion of it leaked whenever it rained but a portion was good and I opened up a little store on the street there called Salvage Mart. I took the damaged merchandise and began selling it, and I’ve been here ever since.

MyNW: How did you end up owning Pier 57?

HG:It was owned first by the Port then it became property of the city of Seattle and eventually through a very complicated story I ended up with the pier in 1989. But I’ve been here since the time there was nothing here but Ivar Haglund and there was Fishing Supply and Seattle Marine supply and fish cutting and warehousing. The waterfront was a total different picture than it is today.

MyNW: Did you always have a vision that it could be what it is?

HG: Absolutely. As time moved on, the city bought the pier we were a tenant on and developed the waterfront park and that became the first development of the waterfront with the idea that it would become more pedestrian oriented. There were some restaurants, from Ivar’s to the Edgewater, but it was pretty laid back.

That was the starting point and I was a part of that during those early years and I’ve always been aggressive in trying to improve what we’re doing and improving the waterfront and becoming a voice for the waterfront in many instances.

MyNW: At one point the city wanted to remove the piers altogether and put up a hard wall and pedestrian path in their place. How did you stop that from happening?

HG: Myself and the other then pier owners and business owners on the waterfront banded together and we formed an association. We lobbied against that and were able to change the city’s thinking and save the piers. If they had moved the businesses under the viaduct, that would have been a disaster as we now know.

MyNW: You’ve said you first envisioned a Great Wheel 30 years ago. What took so long?

HG:Back when the waterfront park went in, after we saw the park wasn’t getting a whole lot of traffic, we felt like we needed some more attraction to bring people down. I proposed a smaller wheel and it was an open gondola and the Parks Department rejected that idea.

I made several approaches over the years to do that, especially as the park became more blighted and became a haven for the homeless and a lot of undesirables. We felt that we needed more activity in the park and they still denied the area. They frankly didn’t think it work.

MyNW: Why didn’t you just give up on the idea after fighting the city so much?

HG: My son Kyle and I started thinking about it again, with all this disruption we’re going to have over the next decade with the construction, the tearing down of the viaduct and all the things that are going to change here, that we needed to have a strong attraction other than restaurants and retail. The aquarium is a good attraction, but we needed more. So we went out and measured at the end of the pier where we could make our own decision and we didn’t have to go through the city and the Parks Department. We got with the engineers and we were able to figure out a way to place the current wheel that we have at the end of the pier.

MyNW: How does it feel knowing you have created something so iconic? It seems like the Great Wheel is now shown in the footage of the city shown during every sporting event.

HG:I have to admit to you that it’s a wonderful feeling to see that and see it on TV, but it really didn’t start out that way, we never even conceived of that. We just thought it would be an attraction that would bring people to the waterfront. But as time has moved on, now we are very pleased and very satisfied with the fact that it is something that is a little bit more than just a simple attraction, people do recognize it as a symbol.

MyNW: Your sons Kyle and Troy both run the Great Wheel with you. It must be very fun and satisfying to work with them?

HG: I can’t express how satisfying that is to have my boys in the business and actively a part of our growth and our ideas. It’s a very wonderful feeling.

MyNW: Now you have proposed a new gondola that would stretch from the waterfront to the Washington State Convention Center. What inspired you?

HG: We had an idea of a gondola that dates back maybe 30 years ago. I owned Pier 62 and 63 at one time and we wanted to do a gondola from the Pike Place Market, from Steinbruck Park to the end of Pier 63 to turn them into an attraction similar to what Pier 57 is. I was a tenant with the city and had no confidence in how long my lease would be honored. It was always shorter term. The city ultimately wanted to swap those for Pier 57 so we never ended up doing that.

But the idea has always been that there isn’t enough easy access to the waterfront on the east-west corridor with the hill and the wall. We just felt that it needed something and cable cars were probably impractical. We’ve never had a good connection to downtown. And the gondola became more realistic in the last three or four years, so we started looking into it.

MyNW: You’ve been doing this for 50 years. Why not just kick back and rest on your laurels?

HG: Well, the fun in life is to constantly be moving forward. You don’t ever want to stand still or move backwards. But through my boys and our business, I enjoy being a part of what we are doing, so I’m active but my son Kyle is kind of the lead on the special projects.

MyNW: Clearly you’ve had a significant impact on the city. What would you hope is your legacy?

HG: I never really have thought about that. I don’t think of that. I think the things we have done are positive and have improved the waterfront. We compliment the waterfront as well as the other people on the waterfront compliment us, so it’s kind of a team effort. I think if there’s any legacy, it’s just that we were a very positive part of the waterfront and hope to be that way. I hope my children will carry that legacy going forward.