Weird lagoon at Seattle's Pier 91

January 14, 2011 12:21 PM

At Pier 91 (aka Terminal 91) in Seattle, what is the rectangular body of water circled here for? Is it just an artifact of building out the parking lot? Or does it have a function?
posted by everichon to Grab Bag (5 answers total)

Response by poster: A GIS friend says the shape file for that says "Lake Jacob" for that area. Which yields nothing useful on Google.
posted by everichon at 12:52 PM on January 14, 2011

The parking lot wasn't there in 1980 (screenshot) but was there by 1990. Courtesy Historic Aerials, subject of a recent MeFi post.
posted by zsazsa at 1:04 PM on January 14, 2011

Best answer: It looks like about the right size for a runoff detention basin, basically to prevent rain from flooding the parking lot.
posted by anaelith at 1:09 PM on January 14, 2011

If it is a detention basin, it is likely there because they don't want parking lot runoff going into the natural water and mucking it up (more).
posted by gjc at 3:05 PM on January 14, 2011

Response by poster: I finally asked the guard at the gatehouse and it is, in fact, what he called a "catch pond".
posted by everichon at 3:58 PM on January 14, 2011