What a fucking boneheaded idea!! The last damn thing I want to deal with in Downtown Seattle is a bunch of snot nosed, badly behaved monsters and their offspring that would go to this school.

I say MORE high priced condos and apartments instead!!

Sadly, I fear that somehow even if "they" pay for it, "we" will still pay for it. Doesn't mean we shouldn't do it.

elementary schools are fine, much better than middle schoolers. why do you think developers would ever want to do this for free? thats how they make money.

If they chip in even one penny, they will take that as all the reason they need to insist it be some sort of uber-charter-selective-students only school.

Seems like it would be way more cost-effective to bus whatever elemenatry school age kids that live downtown to schools in other parts of the city, which must be what they are doing now.

@2 Sweet. I see what you did there.

@6 Yes! The Gates finger-puppet astroturf organizations already yammer constantly about how they're the richies, so they know best and have to be constantly fellated by the school board.

(See Melissa Westbrook and Co's Save Seattle Schools blog for full details.)

@9, subtlety is the heart of wit

@11 That leaves me out. Half-subtle, maybe.

Actually downtown already has a public school. It's Center High School, operating out of the upper level of the Center House at Seattle Center.

My kids have a choice of traveling either 1.8 or 1.9 miles to school on a bus in the north end of Seattle.
Are those imagined children of the future traveling further?
If that is the problem "we" are trying to solve then shouldn't "we" solve that in more than one neighborhood?

Do any of the professionals living in one bedroom condos in South Lake Union have any kids?

Long overdue.

@15 yes. It's what happens when you have sex.

#16

Like I said...

@16, unless Rick Santorum is President, you are making an assumption on the result, and in the case of procreation assuming that people continue to live in 1 bedroom homes.

Completely concur with Goldy. We should build a downtown elementary school, and the necessary land should be donated by the corporate beneficiaries. This is indeed the American way (think of all the Carnegie libraries).

If that can't be achieved, the next best thing would be to secure the $30 million or so necessary to convert the old Magnolia School into a magnet STEM elementary and run a circulator bus to South Lake Union and downtown.

Now who will end up subsidizing the new Police precinct station house?

Better yet, have Vulcan or Amazon give over a couple of floors in one of their shiny new buildings for this effort and I'm sure the district will be happy to provide the infrastructure (principal, teachers, program, etc.)

But the thing that CAN'T happen is to hold up $32M of capital money for a new elementary that may or may not have enough students to open it. (You notice how that information is left out of every story.)

It can't happen because we have many buildings in SPS that are in poor condition or over-crowded or both. We need to help existing schools before we thinking about building for downtown interests.

In Feb. 2013 Seattle Schools will likely be asking for nearly $1B (that's billion) in taxes from Seattle voters. (This is between the capital levy and the operations levy.) They need everyone to support this vote for it to pass. It won't pass if they do not focus on getting done what needs to get done today rather than holding up money on a "maybe" elementary.

What do the population data show? How many children ages 0-7 live between Dearborn and Mercer streets and west of I-5?

Is there an upward trend in these numbers? If so, what future projections can be made?

Or is this all just wishful thinking based on a City Hall policy desire for children to be included in the downtown population some time in the future?