Reuters/SeattleSeattle’s latest tourist landmark, a 17-storey Ferris wheel billed as the tallest to go into year-round operation in the US, opened to the public on Friday, giving riders a new panoramic view of the city and its environs.The towering, white “Great Wheel” features 42 enclosed gondolas with space for up to 252 passengers total. The 175-ft-tall (53-m-tall) wheel cost $20mn and was constructed as part of a private-sector initiative to revitalise Seattle’s waterfront.While the 212-ft-high (66-m-high) Texas Star is taller, it only operates during the annual State Fair of Texas in Dallas.Seattle’s new wheel “is like a baby London Eye,” said 32-year-old co-owner Kyle Griffith, referring to London’s famed 443-ft-high (135-m-high) wheel along the Thames River.The London Eye is Europe’s tallest Ferris wheel. The tallest in the world, Singapore’s 541-ft (165-m) Singapore Flyer, is more than twice as high as Seattle’s newest attraction.The Great Wheel was designed to draw visitors to the Pacific Northwest city’s gritty waterfront, often framed by fog and drizzle, amid worries that a traffic-clogging construction project underway nearby would keep tourists away.That project, a $3.1bn, 1.7-mile (2.7-km) deep-bore tunnel, is being built to replace the Alaskan Way Viaduct, an elevated 1950s-era north-south artery. The new tunnel is scheduled to open between late 2015 and early 2016.“Our whole idea was to create an attraction that was a neat thing to make people want to come down to the waterfront,” said Griffith, vice president of Great Western Pacific IncThe wheel opened to the public after an afternoon ceremony attended by about 1,000 invited guests, including Mayor Mike McGinn and family of the developers.The University of Washington’s Husky Marching Band played for the crowd, and its musicians were among the first to ride the attraction.“It’s the bling that Seattle needed,” said Patty Chasman, 60, after taking her first ride.Said Anna Lynn Heine, 12, “I could see everything.”