Alki Beach Park is located in the Alki Beach neighborhood at 1702 Alki Ave SW, 98116. It is 135.9 acres.
West Seattle Parkway, never realized, was an ambitious plan to connect the northwestern portion of West Seattle to Beacon Hill and Lake Washington. At one point, John Charles Olmsted worked out an alignment in the area of Schmitz Park that, with many turns, would have achieved an acceptable gradient to descend near to sea level. A spur of this parkway was Schmitz Boulevard, built in 1909, which turned north to terminate at Alki Beach.
In 1910, the City acquired 3,400 feet of this salt water shoreline to “give Seattle a public bathing beach second to none on the coast and … to equip it with modern bath-houses, recreation piers, natatorium, etc.” Besides providing aquatic facilities, Alki Point Bathing Beach exemplified Olmsted’s emphasis on parks with a “command of fine distant views, and association with extensive water.” Although Alki Beach Park is not identified or called out in either their 1903 or 1908 reports, the Olmsted Brothers in 1910-11 provided design advice on site improvements and bath-house location and configuration.