What a load of baloney.

The Intelligentsia of this town has been waging a 30 years war on the Center turning it from a Tivoli Gardens inspired place of fun and relaxation into the mess it is now. They took a temporary weakness in finances in the late 70's, due largely to oil shock recessions and the Boeing Bust hangover along with other Government created venues stealing tenants, to impose what we have now. In the process they destroyed what was reported to be the third most visited venue of its' type behind the two Disney parks.

Look at the firestorm of protest over the Chihuly plan and yet this is what we get. This has nothing to do with what we want. It's all about the Space Needle owners extracting a few more pennies from the Cruise Ship tourists.

We don't want just a park. And no way should we sell more city property, just look at the mess created by Nickels selling off parking lots on the east and west sides of the Center (killing revenues and making it harder for citizens to visit).

Can you point to any poll or vote that indicates what we want from the Center? The public hearings were a farce representing interested parties and not the general public. I can point to 30 years of declining public interest and attendance. It's no wonder that it is said Seattle is waging a war on families.

The Robinson proposal really helps clear the air. We need to find a way out of the steady downward spiral of the Center, which doesn't have the funds to fix up declining buildings, to purchase the Memorial Stadium from the School District, or to execute its long-range plan. The nostalgia and civil idealism that the 50th anniversary will create will not be enough to overcome these hard economic facts.

One course is to continue piecemeal solutions like selling off parcels to tourist-oriented venues like the new Chihuly museum, or free-advertising gambits like KEXP. Another, as Tony Robinson suggests, is to make some hard decisions on major sites such as Memorial Stadium and KeyArena and Center House. I used to favor a large park at the Center, but I no longer think the city has the desire for that, nor the funds. (Its heart is now set on the Waterfront Park.) So it might be better to have a modest, 10-acre park, focused on the Memorial Fountain area, and then to bring the city back into the fabric. That would mean re-opening some streets, allowing some commercial uses and housing to creep back into the grounds, and building good linkages to lower Queen Anne and the growing commercial development to the east.

Jane Jacobs' point about avoiding single-use zones like cultural centers is that you want to use magnets like theaters to create numerous urban neighborhoods with a focus and a draw. She contrasts the rich urban life around Carnegie Hall with the suburbanized campus of Lincoln Center. Nearly all European cities practice this model of dispersed cultural attractions. The American model, which is an un-urban vision, springs from old ideas of urban renewal and the desire to create sanitized, Disneyland-like oases in the cities, hoping to draw in suburbanites who feared the cacophony of urban spaces. No one would build such cultural campuses anymore. So why should we continue to invest in this failed model?

Theaters need to be either clustered or near someone else's parking garages, even with good transit. That means Greater Downtown.

The blank walls of theaters would do more harm in the average mixed use district than they do at the Center. The center does fine with quiet times. Mixed use districts are actively hurt by black holes, and if the district isn't large enough, the pre/post event crowds can be too dominant.

I like Seattle Center as it is, generally. The theater/opera/Storm crowd doesn't overwhelm the neighborhood like Sonics crowds used to. The Center is a good mix of activity and park. A bit more park would be good but not at the expense of the active stuff. (Please, lots of shade trees in the new parts! http://www.djc.com/blogs/SeattleScape/2008/07/28/everybody-under-the-sun/)

I'm very happy that they got rid of some of the vacant lots next door (still wishing my firm had gotten to built Gates!). Surface parking has no place in a city center.

Well said and on target.

From a simple users viewpoint:

We have season tickets to a theater at the Center. We usually meet friends about 6 or so and have dinner nearby. We park on the street convenient to the restaurant.

It seems that the tipping point of one more thing may change our habits. This one more thing is feeding a meter until 8 instead of 6. I can't say for sure, but one more hassle may change our whole commitment to season tickets and a dinner out. We could take a bus, but that makes a 10 minutes trip into an hour plus each way and is no less expensive.

Having said this, if this commitment involved going downtown and its attendant hassles, we would not be there in the first place.

I think Mr. Robinson needs to look a little further back into the history of Seattle urban planning for the roots of the problems of which he speaks. This is short-sighted and simplistic.

And, I frankly don't believe this approach from this man is coincidence when we are on the cusp of losing Intiman and a church is a likely candidate for occupying that space if the theatre does indeed fail.

And shame on Brewster for commenting. You already run the paper, David, and don't need to reinforce your viewpoint in the comments section unless being specifically addressed. Leave that space to the readers, please.

And to add insult to injury, the City Fathers received a plan by Disney to refurbish the Center with shock and outrage. "How dare such a tawdry commercial enterprise deign to suggest to The City of Seattle how we should manage this grand urban venue! Who do they think they are?! We will not lower ourselves to even considering their Mickey Mouse plan!" Etc., etc., etc. Well, we all know who Disney is - they are the experts. The city threw away a golden opportunity and are now left with a white elephant. All hail the glories of urban planning.

Where to start with this?

First, you say that the current arrangement doesn't work, and then cite literally no facts to support your opinion. You don't have a clue what the performance organizations' usage numbers are and you didn't even pretend to try to find out.

Next, you propose "encouraging theaters" to relocate their enormous multi-million dollar facilities to sites "proximate to light rail". Such as? Chinatown? Beacon Hill? Othello station? There are so many reasons why that idea won't work that I hesitate to call it an "idea".

Third, you say that the current arrangement is bad for Lower Queen Anne. Ask any restaurant or bar owner in the area how they feel about relocating the theaters and see what kind of answer you get.

Fourth, did you know that there already is a decentralized theater scene in Seattle? Search for "Theater off Jackson," "Langston Hughes," "Ballard Underground," "ArtsWest," or "Taproot" for more information.

Fifth, David Brewster (in comments) purports to agree with you and then starts taking about Memorial Stadium and Key Arena -- facilities that have nothing to do with theater!

Finally, who wrote that headline? Are you talking about making Seattle Center a park, or selling it to condo developers?

Wow that was an awful article.

"If people do go, they pay a premium for parking. It all adds up to limiting theater to the 'haves' and cutting out the 'have-nots.'”

That is becoming more and more true about the entire city, not just Seattle Center. Placing theaters near light-rail (slow-rail) will not help. Only the "haves" can afford to pay exhorbitant theater prices anyway, and most "haves" do not and will not use public transit. Most "have-nots" would prefer not to use public transit either - 99 to 1 would prefer to have a good-paying job and a car. And, they will not be waiting in line with their children to give up their month's rent or car payment for admission to the Chilhuly Museum.

Are we really willing to give up on urban public spaces just because the auto traffic is too bad and parking too expensive? What a cynical viewpoint!

Why not try to solve those problems? For example the deep bore tunnel is going to funnel huge amounts of new traffic right to this area, making it much worse. The surface/I5 option would help with auto traffic much more, add transit, and would be much cheaper.

If we just turn it into a park, there will still be the bad auto traffic and expensive parking and no one will use the park. You might as well turn it into a parking lot.

Tony, you can do much better than this.

"99 to 1 would prefer to have a god-paying job and a car."

This made my morning! ;) Ah, America... This could be a motto for the tea party.

If you want an example of a Robert Moses failure, it was the billions of dollars spent trying to the smelly and smoky Corona ash dump into a park with two world's fairs ('39, '64). Flushing Meadows/Corona park would love to have the viable, vital legacy that Seattle Center has, and as a park it has never jelled and efforts to remake it are ongoing. The fact is, there is no single successful formula for former fair sites: some work as cultural centers, others as theme parks or business hubs, still others as parks, or some (as in Paris) are integrated into the city itself (parks, palaces, boulevards, housing). Some have vanished entirely (Omaha). Shanghai is clustering both cultural, government, open space, and housing at the site of the latest and largest expo held last year. The range of approaches building on what we have are many.

I love the Seattle Center just the way it is! What we really need is more mass transit to there. My son goes to school near the Seattle Center and there is only one bus that goes from the Northgate Transit Center directly to the Seattle Center and it meanders through many neighborhoods. This is a major transit hub but there are no direct fast bus routes to the Seattle Center. Every quick route requires a transfer at the bus tunnel and who wants to be there after dark?

Great. One more problem for the big theaters in this town. Move them downtown? That almost killed ACT, in case you don't remember. And whether you think Intiman should live or die, a discussion for elsewhere, its location is not the source of its problems. Mr. Andrews is right on with most of his comments, so I won't be redundant, but will echo his point that there are MANY more theaters than the few at the Center. Does the Center need work? Yes. But it does not need to be completely redesigned or rethought.

Is there anything in this city that we are not willing to sacrifice on the alter of transit?

It seems what you are suggesting is to either have the city come up with the necessary economic support to condemn the land for, then build and maintain the facilities for at least the Opera and the Settle Rep and Seattle Children’s Theater , or that city just throw those institutions out of their current facilities and let them fend for them selves in the downtown real estate market. (And this doesn’t even begin to deal with mid sized organizations such as Book- it or Seattle Shakespeare, or the other countless small groups that use the Center House) In essence, you are arguing that transit and current urban planning ideology trump the value of an established cultural urban life.
Its too bad that most of the patrons who visit the Center to partake in the cultural activities offered there don’t live in walking distance of the Center. Its too bad that a quickly failing transit system cant provide reasonable access to the center, or that the half century old Monorail is a rickety technological dinosaur. It’s too bad that Seattle isn’t New York City. I guess we just have to deal with it.

Yes, the land that the Center sits on will one day, when or if a bull real estate market re-emerges, offer exciting potential to private developers. The city might realize more short term economic gain by filling the center with convention centers, hotels, overpriced condos and trendy townhouses. Yes the city might instead raze everything but the Space Needle and create an urban ecological oasis, the white spires of the Needle sprouting out a rain forest canopy of Douglas Firs, trained eagles performing for the diners pleasure at the top. Anything is possible, given the will.

If Seattle’s cultural environment is a result of “Mosses style urban planning”, then it must have worked! Why else would Seattle be the cultural envy of so many other mid sized cities? Would the forced redefinition of the Center to fit contemporary planning dogma be any less authoritarian that the original urban planning of the early 60’s? I don’t think so. And with the lose of the organizations involved, the city would be a much less enticing place to live.

I just want to show support for Rhonwyn's comment.

I live in north Fremont, five blocks south of the zoo. Whether I take the #358 or #5 to go to a play at the Center (which I did this past Tuesday, to see The Brothers Size), I have to schlep about 10 blocks from Aurora Ave. to the theater, and on the way back I need to walk along the Mercer St. underpass on a narrow sidewalk with four lanes of cars whizzing by right next to me. Not a pleasant experience. The other option is to take the bus all the way into Belltown and transfer to another local bus that goes directly to the Center. Also not pleasant.

I have a car, but I don't want to pay the high cost of parking, so I'm willing to make do with Metro. But I don't blame anyone for not joining me. I'd love to think that if you made it more convenient for bus riders to get to the Center that they would take advantage of it, but the track record in this car-centered culture doesn't support that dream.

I actually don't mind walking the 10 blocks, that's no big deal, but I would dearly love an overpass from Aurora directly to the Center that at least gave me a sense of being above/away from the grime and the dense traffic. Could that be a compromise?

Heaven knows we wouldn't anything at the Center that would draw people. We go to the Rep and Intiman because there's parking and they're easy to get to. Move them downtown and we probably stop going. If Intiman is suffering it's more likely because their season is so uninteresting.

Tony is better when he sticks to "religious life and leadership." On the other hand, leaving "urban planning" to experts was never a good idea even prior to the altar(s) referenced herein.

As ddmiller aptly commented in a recent Crosscut thread, Seattle's world famous Comprehensive Plan of 1994 promised urban villages all linked by frequent transit and urban centers (including the Seattle Center/Uptown Urban Center) all served by high capacity transit. The "Plan" (a state requirement) has been watered down to mush, the villages are not linked by any identifiable frequent transit, the Center has no mass transit, no ordinary (web-like) transit, and its parking blocks have been expended. Let them eat Cake.

"Thus indeed, are the ordinary people betrayed by those they trust to run their lives"—Peter Hall, London 2001, 1989, p. 17—words one reads that ring in one's ears ever after.

Seattle's ordinary people will need to take to the street, a la Egypt, if serious about stopping the ordinary (web-like) transit they keep politely requesting over and over from being translated by electeds, abeted by experts (or vice versa) into a linear rail line located a half line a decade.

For the record, the Center got a large parking garage recently, in addition to the one already built when the Coliseum expanded. I don't drive, but if parking was adequate to sell 22,000+ seats on Sonics/opera/theater nights, it should be ok with today's maximum routine crowds of half that.

But yeah, it'll be way better when rail connects from Ballard, West Seattle, and Link. The upcoming pedestrian links at Harrison, Thomas, and John and the improved link at Mercer will be huge also. The other side of 99 has additional transit routes as well as parking that goes underused at night.

Well, I think the unspoken plan right now is to drive the site into the ground until the vast majority of fans don't care if you plow it over and finally put up more condos.

Once you sell off parking to the Gates Foundation you pretty much tell the tenant of the arena, and pretty much everybody else that you have to get out so Queen Anne Hill real estate can oooz down the hill.

Btw, the people that don't live within a stones throw of the Seattle Center just might resent Queen Anne being gifted a neighborhood park. Hopefully you folks won't bullshit the voters again with a "parks" level, only to use the funds to dump into upzones for billionaires.

Whatever the rest of Seattle can do for real estate developers you just keep it to yourselves.
Thanks.

The Mercer West plan widens Mercer to 6-lanes plus bike lanes plus one left turn lane southward, builds 10' wide sidewalks on both sides.

But it's still a trench.

An overhead pedestrian way would have a splendid view, is possible and an elegant design could become iconic. It's fairly certain that funneling traffic into-and-through Queen Anne along Mercer is a huge mistake along with the other even huger roadway mistake. Your Mayor is right.

The building Chiluly will rebuild is to large for the site. Adding a faux exterior makes the footprint problem worse. The space between it and Center House is too narrow. On its south side, the pathway there, also too narrow. For the time being, it's a suitable venture for the 50th Anniversary. The ferris wheel will be great fun. A new Memorial Field above underground parking is decent land-use and park expansion.

Broad St will be closed between Taylor and Denny Way.
The intersection of John & 4th Street will form a turnaround.
The two triangle shaped half blocks where Broad once was will be mostly landscaped as park expansion.

The Circulator monorail plan opened up the space between space needle and ferris wheel by moving the station to basement level under the Thomas roadway. All-weather access to Center House and Fisher Pavillion. One monorail track threading the EMP Museum needle, plunging underground immediately below this new open space mostly landscaped. Reuse the awnings.

One of six monorail cars in the fleet stops every 5 minutes.
Next stop KeyArena Plaza. Station stop atop Mercer garage. A station at Memorial Field lot. And the double-track station at KOMO for return trip transfers. This monorail access to five Seattle Center stations is high capacity to and around the park and the reason why I haven't given up.

I think anyone with a pencil and a map will discover that it’s time to stop worrying about poor old Seattle Center. If you consider the billions of tax dollars already pledged and gifted by past administrations for corrections of elevations between SLU and the Center, and straightening Mercer to accommodate Vulcan and the SLUT trolley to nowhere and the hobby tunnel that terminates within a block of the Gates Foundation’s discount parking garage, etc. you’ll realize that it all fits into a very nice, very expensive package of amenities.

And…I can almost make out yet another affluent entity floating down from the sky and, wait a minute…is that an NBA team under his arm? Do you think we could get him to play somewhere in the Center??!!!. Clap everyone…oh clap…just like saving Tinkerbell…if we clap I think we can make this dream come true!

This is still America (I think) and there is nothing wrong with anyone advancing their interests if they pay for them. But it is irresponsible for elected officials to cede taxing authority and give away tax dollars and administrative favors to people who least need them. In fact it’s shameful in these difficult economic times.

Seattle Center is going to be something but no one on this string is going to decide what that is.

Shorter Robinson: Nobody goes to Seattle Center these days - it's too crowded!

The traffic down there is horrible in the evenings after work. We had season tickets to Intiman for years, but it was a nightmare getting there in time to park, grab a bite to eat and make it in time for the start of the performance. Taxis were the best bet, but added too much cost to our evenings.

And that was 12 years ago, it is worse today. So, a fair question si how many season ticket holders have dropped out because of location rather than economics?

David Brewster’s idea of scaling down to a park around Memorial Fountain sounds like a realistic holding pattern, appropriate for now. Robinson’s suggestion of reviving the idea of an urban park, but with a different paradigm for development and safekeeping, chimes with this long-range. It’s too bad Chihuly & Company couldn’t be asked to kick tires at Warren and Republican instead of taking over the Pavilion—thirty years of Chihuly Museum is a long, long, time when a fresh vision and another funding scheme could become realizable sooner. As it is, the dystopia at the Center extends further than “theater row” on Mercer. The whole place feels programmed and purposed down to the last square inch, a place of buildings and paving one goes to attend events, not to visit as a park.

This made my morning! ;) Ah, America... This could be a motto for the tea party.

— andy

What is the motto of the anti-tea party - "I prefer welfare subsidized by tea partiers".

I think this article is terrible. The cluster of theatres at the Seattle Center are part of the backbone of a cultural community that Seattle prides itself on. To displace one or all of them in leiu of Urban Planning would be a big mistake. It would hurt the theatres and hurt the community.
Being a transplant from the midwest, I see the real value in the Seattle Center. I don't find it hard at all to get to, by bus or car. The parking can be trickey when you are going for a large event, but take the bus.
The area is not at all univiting to pedestrians! What do you want, padded sidewalks? I have attended many events and plays at Seattle Center. Although it could use some updating, its use is wonderful. It's like a town square, where communities gather to celebrate what makes Seattle such a great place to live. The last thing Seattle needs is a generic space cluttered with overpriced condos and chain restuarants. Community and culture are the heart of this city and that Seattle Center is just that.
And lastly...leave the theatres alone! The arts need funding and support, not to be moved "elsewhere".