Public Space - Ballard Alliance

Clean Streets

The Ballard Alliance provides cleaning services year-round throughout the Ballard Improvement Area including the removal of litter, sharps, and bio-waste from sidewalks and alleys. The Alliance maintains a robust fall leaf removal program that focuses on both sidewalks and streets in the district. In addition to this work, the Alliance also works with city departments like Seattle Parks and Rec., Seattle Department of Transportation, and Seattle City Light to address infrastructure needs like repairing newspaper stands, street lighting, tree maintenance, and more. This work helps maintain the neighborhood’s beauty while making it safer for visitors and residents alike.

Neighborhood Ambassadors

The Ballard Alliance Ambassador program provides an additional layer of safety support to local businesses and an enhanced visitor experience. Wearing blue Ballard Alliance branded uniforms, locals and visitors alike will notice the Ambassadors working in pairs throughout the core of Downtown Ballard. The ambassadors focus on four core functions: quality of life interactions, business assistance and support, visitor-focused hospitality interactions and wayfinding, and engagement with unsheltered individuals. The program is supported by the City of Seattle’s Office of Economic Development. The Alliance has contracted Spear Security LLC to provide the trained ambassadors.

Private Security

The Ballard Alliance currently provides limited overnight private security throughout the Ballard Improvement Area. The security service works to prevent commercial and residential vandalism and theft and supports the Seattle Police Department’s actions within the district. This work helps promote and maintain the neighborhood’s safety for its business and property owners and its visitors and residents. As the Alliance moves forward with the renewal of the Ballard Improvement Area, the organization hopes to expand this service and potentially include an Ambassador program.

Flower Planters

The Ballard Alliance created an annual flower planter program to help add pops of color and greenery to the neighborhood during the spring and summer months. The planter globes are installed on the sidewalks at key intersections throughout the BIA. The goal of this street beautification project is to brighten the Ballard streetscape with vibrant flowers and greenery. The self-watering planters will be in reinstalled and in full bloom each spring and will remain in place until early fall. The Ballard Alliance partnered with Uplift NW to provide a bi-weekly watering service. A special thanks to Kristie Kisbye, owner of Annie’s Art and Frame, for helping with plant identification and design of the planter arrangements. And a thank you to our local volunteers who lovingly cared for the plants this summer. Sponsorships of these planters will be available soon to help support this project.

Public Art

The Alliance strongly believes that incorporating art into the public realm has numerous benefits. Beyond adding an element of beautification to the street, it develops and promotes neighborhood character, while fostering a sense of community identity. Public art turns ordinary spaces into recognizable landmarks, promotes community dialogue and most importantly, it is accessible to everyone. The Alliance uses public art projects to display Ballard’s unique spirit and to foster the changes that the community desires to see.

Light Pole Banners

A series of light pole banners were installed August 2024 along NW Market Street and Leary Avenue NW. There are a total of 50 vibrant banners that welcome visitors and residents to Ballard, featuring three unique designs created by artist Paige Pettibon. The project was funded by the City of Seattle Office of Economic Development’s Neighborhood Economic Relief Fund. The Ballard Alliance was awarded the grant, in part, to help enhance Ballard’s public realm though banners that welcome visitors, celebrate the neighborhood’s Indigenous and Scandinavian history, and complement the Visit Ballard brand. The Alliance, Pettibon and representatives from the National Nordic Museum collaborated to develop the three designs. The Ballard Alliance managed all aspects of this project from identifying the need for placemaking signage, to art direction, to the actual installation of the banners.

Holiday Lighting

The Ballard Alliance illuminates approximately 200 trees along Ballard Avenue and Market Street from October through February each year with more than 5,000 feet of lights. This yields an impressive count of more than 100,000 twinkling LED bulbs donning the trees in the Ballard commercial core.

The holiday lighting program started in 2013 and was previously funded through the Ballard Chamber of Commerce and donations from Ballard area businesses. Today, the program is managed and funded by the Ballard Alliance in an effort to safely illuminate the sidewalks along Ballard Avenue and NW Market Street in a festive fashion during the fall and winter months.