Ballard Commons to receive ‘Portland Loo’ before next summer

Meghan Walker Ballard

The Ballard Commons Park will soon have a permanent public restroom — the Portland Loo will be installed at the park by summer 2019.

The plan for the new toilet first came up three years ago; after extensive community outreach, Seattle Parks and Recreation determined that the Portland Loo would be the best toilet design because of its graffiti-resistant stainless steel walls and angled slats that make it partly open-air, which are designed to discourage drug use. It’s equipped by solar-powered lights and has an outdoor hand wash. Seattle Parks say the toilet will be installed in the southeast corner of the park.

Last year, Seattle and King County Public Health told Seattle Parks that the park’s water feature requires a public restroom within 100 feet. So, the loo must be installed before next summer or the water feature will be shut down.

Seattle Parks is holding an open house (meeting poster) to inform the public about the new toilet — on Saturday, Nov. 17, Parks staff will be in Ballard Commons from 11am to 3pm with information about the project.

Photo courtesy Portland Loo

48 thoughts to “Ballard Commons to receive ‘Portland Loo’ before next summer”

  1. Great. Commons Park is now a multi-million dollar shitter for junkies. NICE PRIORITIES SEATTLE.
    NO SMOKING; HEROIN PUBLIC DEFECATION OK

        1. Catch them tagging a building? Like you would ever step away from the keyboard or set foot outside. You could though. Why don’t you? Carpe diem, loser.

    2. You did read the part about the Health Department requirement because of the fountain, yes? Also, you can either be angry about a public restroom, or about people reliving themselves outside of a restroom, but not both. What’s your pick?

      1. ” people reliving themselves outside of a restroom”

        How about the third choice you ignore: arresting people who can’t walk 15 feet to a Honey Bucket? I’d pay for that. If they can’t manage hitting the Honey Bucket, what are the chances the Portland Loo will be an easier target for the hobos?

      2. The also have the option to remove the water feature. As much as I hate to say it this is one of the least used spray parks in the area already and perhaps moving it to a more family friendly park is a better option than putting a public toilet next to it.

          1. It’s a weird spot for kids. Even on hot days there will be more addicts and mentally ill people milling around than kids playing in the spray park. Let’s face it, St Lukes won, their “congregation” in the park and along the sidewalks there owns that space. It’s a nice spray park, let’s move it somewhere else and install public showers where it was.

      3. The thing is, we have huge problems on the entire west coast with homelessness/addiction. This is way beyond just old fashioned hobos! We need people with some rational, effective ideas to combat those issues: more accessible drug treatment facilities, lots of community based mental health facilities, housing for veterans and mentally ill people, as well as firm enforcement of local squatter laws, especially in our neighborhoods. After we deal with the mentally ill, veterans, and addicts, perhaps we can figure out where all the heroin/crack is coming from and stop it from entering the country. And, maybe saving the $550,000 for the public bathroom is a start toward financing things that we really need.

    4. Dear Unironic Lenin Statue:

      I’ve been looking for someone like you for my whole life! Someone who is nasty and negative about everything all the time. It makes you so attractive to me the way you lash out at everything. So sexy! Don’t let the others tell you that you are a festering sore of a human being, wasting the only life you’ll ever have being cranky to strangers online. I mean, sure, that’s what you are. But it’s *HOT*!

  2. Question is, will we also need to re-potty train the hobos because even with TWO Honey buckets they seem to miss the toilet and spray the library like two year old boys.

    1. So true.
      It’s bad enough to gag a maggot as my granddad used to say.
      Stand on your right to situational gender selection and check it out (you too, JBITLBGTQ).

  3. Remember Seattle’s million dollar hobo-potties they removed because they were drug and prostitution magnets? Portland Loos seem to have a good fail rate too:

    “Crews yanked out of the ground early this week a Portland Loo public restroom that was a magnet for crime and one of the more notorious financial boondoggles in recent San Diego history.

    The loo, which operated for 13 months at 14th and L streets, was moved to the city’s storage yard and city officials say they have no plans to re-install it anywhere, anytime soon.

    In addition to a 130 percent increase in police calls to the area around the restroom, city officials say maintenance and repair costs were more than double initial estimates.”

    2. Simone that’s interesting, can you share a link? On the face of it, with effective law enforcement, a bathroom in the park makes all the sense in the world.

    1. Christ, the TWO Honey Buckets are right there. Even 5 year old boys can hit a toilet with minimal effort, yet the hobos manage to miss the buckets by 50 feet and hit the library.

    2. Hi, thanks for your support. We cannot force our most vulnerable community members to use a nice, new, furnished urban rest stop if they choose not to. That’s fascism, and fascism is only allowed if it’s in the name of social justice! Sure, the urban rest stop is supposed to provide services for working people and families experiencing homelessness, but it’s clear that our Commons Zombies aren’t working – unless you count selling drugs and chopping up bikes. These are survival crimes, perpetrated by our most vulnerable community members who are experiencing uselessness. Get woke, friend!

  7. Okay, just going to throw this out there. A good chunk of you men can probably shoot a gun and hit your target from a decent a ways away, but we all know most of you cannot hit a toilet without spraying it. Why? I don’t know. I learned to just stop questioning and just opted to give the three men in my house hold their own bathroom.

    2. Oh ok sexism against men is ok. Got it. You ever cleaned a ladies restroom?
      Wait is that “hate speech” now that Seattle doesn’t have separate bathrooms? I can’t keep up with this anymore.

  8. I thought the entire park was a Loo. Too bad kids can’t enjoy what was built for families. Clean the bums outta the park and this would be a great addition, otherwise it will be ruined within months. The porta potty at Lake City WAY AND 125th pocket park is used for prostitution, drug deals, and injection site. It lasted only a short while before door was ripped off. Sweep the bums out of our parks which would save us taxpayers money in the long run.

  9. Here we have it folks, the apotheosis of Far Left politics: a bazillion dollar automatic toilet for junkies.
    Any opposition to said toilet is fascism, and any reasonable criticism will be ignored.
    Have a Good Religious-Neutral Holiday Season!

    1. Hi, thanks for your support! Friend, are you experiencing Holiday-Naming Dysmorphia? We can provide you a safe space, one free ticket to claim yourself another gender, and perhaps you’d like to visit our Zombie Commons, home to our most vulnerable community members. Feed them at your own risk though, careful, they bite! And stab, with those smack-filled needles! Oops, pricked myself! Get woke, friend! And remember, Vote Salty, Vote Mike O’Brine 2019!

      1. You got my vote, Mike!!!

        Oh and how’s this:
        Happy Non-Binary Wiccan Savior/Victim Complex Chakra/Navel Worshipping Eve/Day/Menses

  10. So the city’s solution to the illegal encampments and the illegal drug use in a public park is to install a free-standing toilet (“the Portland Loo”), which will cost us taxpayers $550,000.

    Of course, I shouldn’t be surprised by this. After all, when the city removed the illegal encampments from the Ballard Commons one year ago this month (they came back, btw), I was there observing SPD and the Navigation Team assist those off the Commons and provide to them transportation to a shelter and storage space for their belongings.

    In attendance during this clean-up was a KIRO reporter, who approached me and asked me my thoughts on the clean-up being done.

    Me: “I don’t see the Seattle City Council doing anything effectively with our every-increasing tax monies to solve the homeless and open drug use problems here in our city.”

    Him, pointing to the Honey Bucket nearby: “Well, they did install that toilet over there.”

    Me: “So you’re saying that installing a toilet solves homelessness and open drug use?”

    Him: *blank stare*

    This, folks, is why Seattle is where it’s at today. We allow our elected officials to spend ridiculous amounts of money on so-called “solutions” that never, ever work.

    So, yeah. Let’s just buy more Portland Loos to the tune of a half million a pop. That’ll solve everything.

  11. A good place for the homeless druggy thuggies to shoot up and camp out in ! Keeping this restroom clean and safe is going to be very interesting to say the least !

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