The Two Ends of Beach Drive Are Having Different Summers

Ask anyone who has lived on Beach Drive SW for more than a season what tells them to grab their shoes and head for the water, and the answer is rarely the calendar. It's the tide chart. A Tuesday afternoon in the middle of a workday can pull half the street down to the shoreline if the number is low enough, while a picture-perfect Saturday with a mediocre tide barely gets a second look.

That rhythm held true again this June, when a stretch of minus tides brought out enough people that a resident texting West Seattle Blog described more foot traffic on the beach and more car backup on Beach Drive itself than they could remember seeing in a long time. The tide the next day was forecast even lower, out to -4.3 feet at 11:32 in the morning. That is the part of Beach Drive life that never changes. What has changed, this particular August, is what happens once you actually try to get down there, and it depends entirely on which end of the street you're standing on.

The Chart Everyone Actually Reads

For newcomers, it can take a season or two to realize that Beach Drive has its own informal clock, and it runs on minus tides rather than sunrise or weekend plans. When the water pulls back far enough, the rocky shoreline exposes sea stars, anemones, hermit crabs, and the kind of tidepool life that draws families, photographers, and dog walkers alike out of their houses at hours they would never normally be outside.

A few spots along the street do most of the work:

• Constellation Park, at the corner of 63rd Ave SW and Beach Drive SW, also known as the Charles Richey Sr. Viewpoint, is the most reliable stretch for tidepooling and the spot where Seattle Aquarium's volunteer beach naturalists set up during low tide season. They wear tan vests or hats, and a good number of them live in the neighborhood themselves.
• Emma Schmitz Memorial Overlook, in the 4500 block of Beach Drive SW, is the answer for anyone who wants the minus-tide view of the Olympics and the exposed shoreline without walking down onto the rocks.
• Lowman Beach Park, where 48th Ave SW, Lincoln Park Way SW, and Beach Drive SW meet, offers driftwood, a lawn for spreading out a blanket, and a flat pathway connecting south to Lincoln Park. A 2022 restoration removed the last section of seawall and the old tennis court, restored the beach itself, and daylighted a portion of Pelly Creek that had been buried for decades.

None of this is secret to anyone who has lived here a while. What is worth knowing right now, in the middle of August, is that the two ends of this same tide-watching corridor are living through opposite versions of the season.

The South End Is Mid-Project

Lowman Beach has spent much of 2026 under partial construction. King County's Wastewater Treatment District has been working through a sewer-pipe project near the park's northeast corner and along Beach Drive SW since spring, and as of this week it hit a real milestone: crews have finished installing liners in the pipes near the park, and as early as Monday, August 17, they'll move to the north end of the project area to install a valve under a metal hatch and restore the street panels crews have been working under.

For anyone walking or driving that stretch, the practical effects are straightforward. Part of the sidewalk on the west side of Beach Drive SW is closed through the end of August. Street parking is limited during posted work hours. Work happens on weekdays, 7 a.m. to 7 p.m., and the county has flagged that the noise of vehicles crossing steel plates over the work area is expected until the plates come out at the end of the project. Temporary fencing surrounds the active work zone at Lowman Beach Park itself, though most of the park, including the lawn and the beach access, remains open.

This isn't the only sewer work the street has absorbed this year. A second project, running about a quarter mile north on the southbound side of Beach Drive SW starting from the park, began in late spring and is expected to continue into fall, with restoration of the street and park coming only once that work wraps.

So if the plan this week is a Lowman Beach walk timed to a low tide, the honest expectation is a narrower sidewalk, tighter parking, and some construction noise layered over the usual sound of gulls and driftwood. The beach itself is still there. Getting to it just takes a little more patience than it used to.

The North End Finally Caught Up

Head the other direction, toward Constellation Park at 63rd, and the story this August is the opposite. For five months, the poles for a new pedestrian crossing at 63rd and Beach Drive stood without their flashing beacons, waiting on equipment that SDOT kept saying was on the way. As of June, the beacons are finally in and the crossing is finished.

That matters more than a routine infrastructure update might suggest, because 63rd and Beach Drive is exactly where the beach naturalists set up and where a large share of the neighborhood's tidepooling foot traffic crosses the street to reach the water. A finished crossing there means the walk from a parked car to the tidepools is measurably easier than it has been for most of this year, right as the low-tide season keeps drawing people out.

Where to Go This Week

Reading the Rest of the Season

The low tides that pull people out of their houses don't stop because a construction crew is on site, and they won't stop because the calendar turns to September. What's useful to know, if you live along this street, is that the corridor you use to reach the water has two different personalities right now. One end is easier to get to than it's been all year. The other is working through a temporary, well-marked, and time-limited inconvenience that should ease once the county finishes restoring the street panels and pulls the fencing at Lowman Beach.

Neither situation is permanent. The sewer work is expected to wrap by fall, at which point both the sidewalk and the park get restored. The crossing at 63rd is already done and will stay that way. For now, the practical move is simple: if the tide chart says it's worth going out, check which end of Beach Drive you're heading to before you check the tide.

If you're weighing a move to Beach Drive, or thinking about what your own place here might be worth in today's market, The City Team has spent years watching this street change season by season. Schedule a consultation whenever you're ready to talk through what that means for your home.