People are flocking to Seattle’s new waterfront. Almost 7.5 million people visited last year, 13% more than in 2023 and an all-time high.

“It shows that the vision we defined in 2009 to bury Seattle’s traffic in a tunnel and open a new 20-acre park on the waterfront is working,” says Bob Donegan, president of Ivar’s seafood restaurant chain and a board member of the Seattle Historic Waterfront Association. “We are always busy in the summer, but local visitors are filling in the winter and shoulder seasons.”

The $806 million renovation created Waterfront Park from Belltown to Pioneer Square. It also connects downtown Seattle to the waterfront and includes playgrounds, bike lanes, and thousands of native plantings. 

It also features the Seattle Aquarium’s new Ocean Pavilion, which houses 3,500 sustainably sourced tropical fish, invertebrates, and plants representing more than 100 species. The reef features five windows and a public facing oculus, where passers-by can see leopard sharks, spotted eagle rays, and reef fish. Attendance at the aquarium has risen more than 90% since the Pavilion opened late last August.

Overlook Walk, which opened last October, features 360-degree views of downtown Seattle, Elliott Bay, the Olympic mountains and Mount Rainier.

“It’s a resilient crowd among the merchants down here,” Donegan notes. “We’ve survived 15 years of construction disruption.”