Due to space constraints in this week’s paper, there wasn’t enough room in my article on the turning Magnuson Park into commercial office space for everything that needs to be said. Here are three points I’d like to put back in, because my words come free on Slog (and you can scroll past if you are an asshole or a shut-in and think parks are boring):
1) Many of the buildings in Magnuson Park are eligible for federal historic designation, which will help preserve the buildings (to some extent) as far as restoration and use go. Lessees will get tax credits for rehabilitating some of the buildings (to start, buildings 11, which I focus on in my article and building 27, which is going to be developed into a sporting facility by Arena Sports), but they’ll also be held accountable for maintaining the historic integrity of the buildings. This means you won’t behold the leering visage of Chuck E. Cheese any time soon at Magnuson Park. Hopefully. Don’t hold me to that.
2) There is now a Magnuson Park Advisory Committee, and they are the new watchdog group representing community interests at the park. Rusty Williams, chair of this committee and former candidate for City Council, spoke with me about the committee’s vision for Magnuson Park. So far, here is a short list of their goals (the 13-person committee has only had one meeting):
(a) Create a dedicated space in Magnuson Park for artists.
(b) Preserve Building 41, which might be torn down to create space for tennis courts (parks and the lessee are saying the building is too expensive to refurbish)
(c) Form a community center for Magnuson Park.
More exciting Magnuson news after the jump!
3) I mentioned above that Arena Sports Magnuson Park LLC will be moving into Building 27, and they’re very open to hosting free public events. The LLC has already committed to reserving 55,000 square feet for free public events during its off-season weekends (April through September). They’re also providing the city with a free youth sports league that can accommodate up to 2,000 kids.
So, there you are. My article was mostly focused on the artists who have been promised a permanent space in Magnuson Park for ten years now (first the old fire house in 1999—until its roof collapsed—and recently, Building 30). Obviously, it’s easier to accommodate private interests that can pay for space (and renovation), but it’s past time to be held accountable to these artists, who have contributed so much to the park and the city.
That said, I don’t want to discount the positive changes taking place at Magnuson Park. Last week, City Council member Nick Licata told me, “My vision for Magnuson Park is dynamic, with workforce housing and artists’ space and select businesses…. We need to create a park that is interesting on a 24-hour basis.”
At least sports facilities is in line with this goal and can be accessed by the public, unlike commercial office space.
I was a tenant in hangar 2 for a few years, overlapping somewhat with Arena Sports. From what I saw, the sports operations probably caused more damage to the buildings and their contents than any other tenant. But they paid big bucks compared to the paltry rent that the nonprofits were charged, so the parks department turned a blind eye.
So forgive me if I’m skeptical of Arena Sports as the preserver of historic buildings at Sand Point.
in your anecdote, what damage did arena sports cause? i played soccer there a bit, and thought it was a decent use of the space. the fact that they are offering services to the community free of charge on top of agreeing to maintain the buildings seems great. this, in spite of my initial reaction that business shouldn’t be given more space there.
The MPAC committee mentioned above is made up entirely of the traditional NIMBY crowd at Magnuson that has opposed every positive development in the park. Bonnie Miller, Lynn Ferguson, Jeannie Hale, and Jeanette Williams (RIP; now represented by her closet-case son Rusty). These are the exact people who bitterly opposed the installation of public housing in the park & ran an implicitly racist scare campaign about crime and property values. They opposed the off leash area. They ran a decade long campaign against building ball fields in the park, which added millions to the final pricetag, they delayed the creation of the wetlands as a stalling tactic. Basically these folks have been viciously opposed to anything that will serve any part of the public that does not live in the adjacent neighborhood, cloaking their obstructionist agenda in whatever cause seems like it might be effective. Now they are want to designate building 41 (a 50’s era brick gas station of no great character) in order to strangle the progress of creating a Tennis Center in the park.
With regard to building 11 project, its probably a lousy deal, but not for any of the reasons listed. As crummy as the building is, its not as urgently deteriorating as 18 and its improvement is not as helpful as redevelopment of the west wing of 30 or the back side of 47 would be. The proposed tenants (with the exception of a possible restaurant) would add nothing to public benefit. That said, its not clear that most of the current tenants add much public benefit either… Micro Planet is a private for-profit energy technology company that the Nickels administration forced Parks to put in the building even though Micro Planet did not meet the criteria for being a tenant in the parks… and lets face it, the artists themselves are private for-profit entities, not non-profits arts organizations. With regard to Sand Point Arts and Culture (SPACE), Parks has been actually very aggressive about fostering the arts, but hasn’t had a viable partner, well, ever… Parks recruited and brought in Seattle Musical Theatre and provided a theatre space in building 47, created the artists colony in building 11 which is now so upset, provided workshop and storage and rehearsal space for Greenstage, Circus Contraption, and others, created a free summer concert series and been aggressive about trying to find funding to improve West 30 for…efforts which the art scene citywide has been somewhat disdainful of. Superintendent Tim Gallagher in empowering this Gang of Four has once again demonstrated his pathological unwillingness to learn local Seattle politics (anybody remember the smoking and spitting ban? The senseless war on public nudity? Why does this man still have a job? Hello, is anybody paying attention?)