Downtown

August 9, 2025City Council, Downtown, General Interest

#125: Heal Olympia

Daniel Garcia is a planning commissioner and internet phenomenon (at least locally). He runs Heal Olympia, which is driving a vital conversation about the future of Olympia’s built environment. We […]
August 2, 2025City Council, Climate Change, Downtown, Housing, Transportation

#124: Parking or housing, pick one.

Host emeritus and city council-member Dani Madrone rejoins the podcast for a discussion about housing, parking, parking minimums and how we’re going to turn empty parking lots on the Westside […]
June 20, 2025Downtown, General Interest, Olympia History

#118: Olympia ’57 and the Arts Walk we always needed

In this episode of The Olympia Stanard, we reflect on how Arts Walk has quietly become the festival Lakefair was always meant to be, a celebration of place, people, and […]
January 10, 2024Climate Change, Downtown, Housing

#103: The Multifamily Tax Exemption and You

We conducted a couple of interviews about how the Multifamily Tax Exemption (MFTE) impacts the city in terms of growth, housing affordability and finances. We sat down with Darian Lightfoot […]
June 21, 2023Downtown, General Interest, Housing, Legislature, Transportation

#99 Where are all the state offices going?

In the first half of this episode, we sit down with Yvonne Knutson (Office of Financial Management) and Maurice Perigo (Department of Enterprise Services) to talk about how state offices […]
August 6, 2022Downtown, General Interest, Housing

#95 Olympia Strong and building an economically resilient city

You can lend your voice to Olympia Strong now by filling out the city’s survey here. Download the episode here.
June 23, 2022Downtown, General Interest

#94 OlyWA Days of Change

Between 1960 and 1980, Olympia and Thurston County went through a massive change. From a sleepy timber town with a state capitol building, Olympia grew (and continues) to grow by […]
February 2, 2021Downtown, General Interest

#82: Economic Crisis and Recovery

Right before the pandemic shut down our community, we spoke with Mike Reid, the Economic Development Director of Olympia, about how our local economy was faring (episode #58). Two weeks […]
April 15, 2019Downtown

#37: Downtown Olympia and City Government

To wrap up our series on downtown Olympia, we invited two city employees who focus on downtown planning. Amy Buckler is the downtown programs manager and Max DeJarnatt is working […]
April 1, 2019Downtown

#36: EGYHOP in Downtown Olympia

EGYHOP (Emma Goldman Youth and Homeless Outreach Project) has been around for over 20 years providing services to homeless people in downtown Olympia. As part of our series of perspectives […]