As Seattle Center’s Operations team transitioned from construction to a fully operational urban park, managing its diverse assets and infrastructure posed new challenges. Learn how the city streamlined park operations and asset management with the support of Consultation Manager.
Overview of the Redevelopment
Seattle’s central waterfront has undergone a remarkable transformation, turning a once fractured and inaccessible stretch of shoreline into a vibrant, connected, and inclusive public park.
This multi-decade redevelopment effort was sparked by the 2001 Nisqually earthquake, which rendered the city’s double-decker highway, the Alaskan Way Viaduct, structurally unstable.
“It started with the Nisqually earthquake,” said Tiffani Melake, Waterfront Operations Manager at the City of Seattle. “We had a double-decker highway that ran through the waterfront, and it made it unstable. It broke the city apart and disconnected the central downtown from the waterfront.”
Determined to reconnect the city to its shoreline, Seattle made a bold decision: remove the aging viaduct, build a tunnel to reroute traffic underground, and completely reimagine the waterfront as an inclusive and vibrant public destination.
In 2012, the city launched a comprehensive waterfront redevelopment program made up of 12 interconnected capital projects spanning more than 20 acres along the central waterfront. The initiative focused not only on infrastructure improvements, but also on restoring public access, enhancing green spaces, supporting ecological health, and creating cultural and recreational amenities. Its ultimate goal was to deliver a world-class public asset that reflects Seattle’s diverse communities and long-term vision for a more accessible, connected, and sustainable public realm.
From the outset, the city has placed a strong emphasis on public outreach. “There was a huge outreach process,” Tiffani said. “Years and years and years of outreach and engagement. Over 10,000 people participated just in the first year.”
Following this extensive engagement effort—and after incorporating valuable community feedback into the design and planning process—construction began in 2019 and unfolded in phases over several years. Each section brought new layers of functionality, beauty, and public value, including pedestrian promenades, restored piers, public art installations, and community amenities.
“We just opened up Molly Moon’s Homemade Ice Cream shop. And we have two more big openings before the park is fully open,” Tiffani shared. “It’s incredible to see it come to life.”
From Construction to Coordination: Operationalizing a Complex Park System
By the time the final construction phases were underway, it was clear that managing the newly opened waterfront would be no small task. No longer just a capital project, Seattle Center’s Operations team was transitioning into an operational environment, an active, high-traffic public park where oversight, responsiveness, and coordination were essential.
Unlike traditional parks, this new space includes dozens of unique zones, hundreds of infrastructure elements, and a wide range of public safety, maintenance, and stakeholder coordination needs. Managing a 20-acre urban park generates a constant stream of data, from safety interventions and maintenance requests to constituent feedback and contractor communications.
“We have park rules. We have violations. We have an emergency service unit team that documents their interactions with the public. We have constituents that write in with complaints,” said Tiffani.
To uphold the elevated standard of care set by City Council performance benchmarks, Tiffani and her small team needed a smart, centralized solution that could go far beyond simple task tracking. The system had to capture trends, log issues as they arose, report on performance, track complaints and violations, and store asset-specific information with full detail and context to support informed decision-making across all aspects of park management.
Without a centralized and reliable way to tie all that information together, managing the park would quickly become overwhelming. The alternative—using disconnected spreadsheets, scattered email threads, and verbal updates—was inefficient, error-prone, and unable to keep pace with the complexity of the space.
That’s where Consultation Manager comes in. As a leading stakeholder engagement and relationship management platform, Consultation Manager offers a centralized database, robust reporting tools, and configurable fields that provide the flexibility and structure needed to manage day-to-day park activity. It helps track incidents, document maintenance, log complaints, and analyze trends with ease. Built to scale, the platform supports the growing complexity of Seattle Center’s waterfront operations, enabling seamless coordination and informed decision-making across all aspects of park management.
“Most people think of Consultation Manager as a tool for outreach or engagement, but I use it entirely for operations, tracking everything that happens in the park day to day,” Tiffani explained. “Consultation Manager has become our data collection tool. If we didn’t have it, I don’t know how I’d manage all the information I need. It would be miserable.”
Consultation Manager gives Tiffani’s team a single source of operational truth. It supports both daily workflows and high-level reporting. It’s what she calls “data-backed operations:” a way to manage the park’s present while planning for its future, all through clean, accountable recordkeeping.
Leveraging Consultation Manager for Comprehensive Operational Insights
Consultation Manager has transformed how Tiffani and her team handle the vast volume of data generated by the park’s daily operations. Instead of relying on scattered notes or separate systems, they centralize every incident, maintenance request, complaint, and communication into one comprehensive platform. This unified approach ensures nothing falls through the cracks and allows the team to maintain a detailed, accurate record of everything happening across the park.
“We don’t just use the system to share information; we actively input all the data we collect,” Tiffani explained.
The platform’s robust reporting capabilities enable Tiffani to dive deep into park activity and monitor key operational metrics over time. This insight helps the team stay ahead of recurring issues and better understand how resources are being allocated.
“For example, I can quickly generate reports on how many times our emergency service unit has asked someone to leave for smoking at Habitat Beach or track the total number of exclusions issued throughout the year. I can also monitor if a particular stakeholder has repeatedly raised the same concern.”
Centralizing this information is critical. It prevents important details from getting lost in scattered emails or spreadsheets and empowers the team to identify trends, allocate resources more effectively, and respond proactively. This single source of truth makes decision-making more efficient, transparent, and accountable.
Beyond general operations, Tiffani also uses Consultation Manager to track maintenance at an individual asset level. “Let’s say we have 12 swings in the playground. Each swing is labeled and entered into Consultation Manager as a unique asset,” she said. “If the bumper on swing number one breaks five times, I can track each incident individually. Beyond that, I can upload photos of the damage, log warranty periods, note the manufacturer, and even reference submittal numbers from the construction team.” These submittal numbers link back to the original installation or repair documentation, making it easier to coordinate warranty claims or replacement parts with contractors and suppliers.
This detailed tracking supports everything from proactive maintenance planning to budgeting and replacement decisions.
“We’re managing park assets in ways we never could before. Consultation Manager is making a huge difference.”
Customizing Consultation Manager for Dynamic Operations
Throughout this transition from construction to operations, Tiffani emphasized the critical role played by the Consultation Manager support team.
“The team is incredibly creative and responsive. They really think outside the box beyond the tool’s original design to help us customize it for our unique operational needs,” she noted.
The platform’s flexibility has allowed Seattle Center’s Operations team to customize Consultation Manager by modifying field names, structuring datasets for operational tracking, and building workflows that fit the daily realities of park management.
“The team helped us add fields to track submittal numbers, contractor contacts, and replacement procedures. When a swing bumper breaks, I don’t just know something’s wrong; I know exactly who to contact and what part is needed, all in one place.”
This level of customization transforms the tool from a typical stakeholder engagement platform into a robust operations dashboard that supports efficient, accountable management across multiple complex aspects of park stewardship.
Looking Ahead: Building on Success to Streamline Park Operations
Consultation Manager has become essential to Seattle Center’s Operations team’s approach, serving not only as a repository of data but as a dynamic decision-support tool that drives continuous improvement.
With the final phases of the redeveloped waterfront now open to the public, Tiffani is focused on refining and expanding the system to make daily management more efficient and proactive.
“Having a comprehensive operational platform frees up our time to focus on what really matters: managing the park proactively and deploying resources strategically.”