Mayor Mike McGinn announced in a press conference at Seattle Center this morning that the city and Center will be moving ahead with plans to build a Dale Chihuly ‘glass house’ exhibition space at the Center’s former South Fun Forest site.
Images courtesy of the Mayor’s office.
In addition to the glass house, the Center will also be accepting two of the nine other submitted ideas for the space: KEXP will also be joining the Seattle Center community, coming on as a non-profit tenant, and a family-centric open playground will also be built at the Center in the North Fun Forest site.
The press conference is still in progress. We will update this story as soon as it concludes.
Update 12 p.m.: After the city announced potential plans for building a 44,000-square-foot ‘glass house’ to showcase artist Dale Chihuly’s work on the Seattle Center campus last March, debate erupted over whether this was the right decision for the Center. After some public backlash, the city solicited alternative plans for the space at the South Fun Forest site, taking into consideration the 5oth Anniversary celebrations of the 1962 World’s Fair that brought the Space Needle to Seattle.
Of the nine proposals that were submitted, the city today announced that it intends to move ahead with three of them—Chihuly’s glass house, the KEXP studio, and a childrens playground—with the commitment that it will pursue other ideas as plans for the continued development of Seattle Center unfold.
“Our goal here is to make the Center more vibrant—more music, more art—we want to make it more kid-friendly, which is why we have the playgroung, and we want to make it more financially viable,” Mayor Mike McGinn said at the press conference. “So we can finance all of the great things that are free and of no charge to the general public.”
The city and Center are pushing ahead with deals with the Wright family, who own the iconic Space Needle and have been backing plans for the Chihuly exhibition space, stating that it will be a big tourist attraction and economic stimulus for the Center. After complaints from many in the community who would rather see the South Fun Forest used for public open space rather than a pay-for-entry exhibition, the Wright family tacked on several provisions to sweeten the deal, including joint programming with Seattle Public Schools, and financial support for the outdoor play area.
As part of the agreement, the Wright family will be donating $2 million toward the play area—$1 million for the initial construction of the public playground, and another $1 million to support its maintenance needs over the next 20 years.
“This project will bring 255 new jobs to the Seattle Center. And there will be no public funds needed to fund it or build it. We’re also proud to be joining in partnership with the Pratt Fine Arts Center, Pilchuk Glass School, and others,” Jeff Wright said. “It will maximize open space and it will give us opportunities with the Memorial Stadium.”
In additional to the Chihuly exhibit space, the Center will also become the new home for KEXP, which will be moving its broadcasting studio on campus and connecting with many of the other Center tenants, including the Vera Project, to built out the city’s musical programming.
Through the deal KEXP, a non-profit, will bring more live, free performances to Seattle Center, and will partner with Seattle Public Schools, the Seattle Public Library, the Seattle Channel, EMP, UW and a number of other local organizations to make music more readily available to city services and residents and develop multi-platform musical programing for the public.
“KEXP is more than a radio station—we are an arts organization and we make a different in people’s lives by championing music,” said KEXP executive director Tom Mara. “We are on our way to becoming a music center—a place that will bring vitality to the Seattle Center and economic development to a neighborhood, Queen Anne.”
The KEXP studio, which would be located in a 27,960-square-foot space in the Center’s Northwest rooms in the corner of Seattle Center, is still two years down the line. According to Mara and Mayor McGinn, the organization needs time to raise the funds to refurbish the building and outfit it for its needs.
“We’ve agreed that the earliest we can have access to this building is right on the heels of the end of the anniversary celebration, which is November 2012,” Seattle Center Century 21 chair Bill Block said, adding that the organization will soon be conducting a feasibility study to determine exactly how much they will need to make the “significant improvements in both the shell of the building and the interior” needed.
Mayor McGinn says that once KEXP is moved into the center, they will provide an “appropriate level of revenue and support” for the campus through the organization’s non-profit dues, and the promotion of the Center via KEXP’s daily broadcasts, events, and other promotions.
“We were arguing over this whether I was allowed to say they were the coolest music radio station in the universe—so I’m not allowed to say that, but they are very, very cool, and they represent Seattle’s spirit too,” he said. “The idea that we’re going to have them here in Seattle Center with the deal that they will be a non-profit center—they will be promoting Seattle Center nationally and internationally day after day.”
The timeline for the childrens play area is also is similar to that of KEXP, though it already has the financial backing of the Wright family. The playground site will be located in the North Fun Forest, which from April 2011 to October 2012 will be housing a 200-foot observation wheel, part of the Center’s The Next Fifty–Seattle 2012 anniversary celebrations. The playground itself is slated to open in 2013.
When asked if the city and Seattle Center would be pursuing any of the other proposed plans for the Fun Forest sites—which included Northwest Native Cultural Center, and Center Park—down the line, Mayor McGinn responded, “the short answer is yes.”
“It has more to do with the evolution of their ideas,” he said. “Chihuly and KEXP were further along in the development of their ideas, but we want to partner with other organizations in pursuing other ideas.” He added that the city will be putting together a task force made up of the Seattle Center Foundation, 4Culture, and a capital campaign led by Jeff Wright, to guide the further development of the north Fun Forest and Memorial Stadium. This task force will be charged with moving plans forward for:
- An open, competitive process to design and develop the north Fun Forest as open space along the lines of the vision put forward by Open Platform,
- Moving forward on the vision for the new Memorial Stadium, including removal of the southern wall, and
- an overall $10 million capital campaign commitment to improve open spaces in the Fun Forest area and where it integrates with Memorial Stadium.
“We’ve come up with something here that we hope really speaks to different parts of Seattle’s spirit,” said Mayor McGinn. “We want to make it something that speaks to the best of Seattle, and makes it an inspiring place.”
The tone echoed by each of the speakers was that this plan is not the be all end all of Seattle Center, but rather just the beginning of the Center’s revitalization, as the city works to solidify it as a focal point for Seattle’s arts and cultural scene, and the heart of the South Lake Union to Elliot Bay loop.
“It’s not Chihuly or KEXP, it’s Chihuly and KEXP and this great family center,” said City Councilmember Sally Bagshaw. “It’s going to connect South Queen Anne and Uptown and the Center here in a way that we’ve never seen before.”
“Today is a testament to what Seattle Center means to the community,” said Seattle Center director Robert Nallams. “That’s the beauty of this place—it’s something for everybody, not everything for everybody.”
Mayor McGinn reiterated that the work is not done yet—the Center will have to break ground on the new exhibition space soon if it expects to complete it in time for the 50th Anniversary celebrations.
“Chihuly and that exhibit is going to be ready to go before the 2012 celebrations. The City Council will be reviewing this, of course, but I have to say we are uniting on this and it’s going to happen,” Bagshaw said.
“Nothing about this was pre-ordained. There were negotiations, and more negotiations,” Mayor McGinn said. “We have some very firm things we’re doing today—Chihuly, KEXP, the playground, and the opportunity for open space. We have more work to do…We’re doing out best here to make this the kind of place where people want to be.”