Well, you know, when you get a BFA the professors beat into your head from day 1 how hard it is to pay the bills as an artist and how you really need some kind of realistic business plan, such as a trust fund, or a day job, or quitting if you don't have art collectors lined up around the block to bid on your work.

On the other hand, those of us who went to college to study having your house burglarized were never told that the Seattle police don't have enough cops to get your stuff back or track down the ones who did it. I know I would not have chosen to be a crime victim had that been explained to me in crime victim school.

And you can get a masters degree in losing a limb in Iraq and suffering from debilitating PTSD and substance abuse, and never once do they explain that there aren't enough services to keep you from freezing to death in the winter. And those who have spent years earning a PhD in wanting to get rid of their car and take rapid transit instead are never offered one single unit of study on why the fuck Seattle can't afford real rapid transit for the whole city.

So suck it up, artists. You were warned.

The more commercial they get, the more dangerous the neighborhood will become ...

Just hug it out, elenchos.

I don't mean to make you angry, Cienna. Just commenting.

I don't quite understand how the artists feel "used." Is there something inequitable going on that I'm not seeing? I personally feel more for the thousand *other* artists who didn't get the golden ticket of studio space in a public park.

It's probably going to be tough to rent that out as commercial office space. There's a glut of office space on the market right now being offered at fire-sale prices.

And what an inconvenient location for an office. Good luck getting there by bus without at least one transfer. And where the heck would you get lunch?

It would be a shame if they end up making less trying to commercialize it than they did off the artists' rent.

@6 + 1

nice to see you back in the stranger fold, cienna. you are a smarty.

We need more dedicated funding streams for arts and parks. How about a real parks and arts levy. One that commits a decent amount of revenue toward them?

Cry me a river, artists. And cry me a river, Licata.

What happened to all those athletic fields that were part of the original plan? Waaa. The neighbors were worried about the lighted fields.

Right, why bother using a park as a park? But woe the hippie who can't play arts and crafts on the public dime. Hell, let them work from their fucking kitchen table. It's a shorter walk to display their crap on doors of their refrigerator.

Looks like a broken business model, and it just did not "pencil out", Nick.

To the comment about taking a bus there, welcome to the "other" Seattle, Nick.
This goes right back to the topic, the assumption that Nick expects that planting "artists" outside of walking distance of a downtown wine bar as a viable and self sustaining solution is comedy.

Am I the only one who questions the logic of this renovation? I'm sure it made sense before the economic fall out, but it doesn't seem to now. Currently Seattle has an over abundance of unused commercial space, how is adding more going to help?

I know it sounds nice to make money off of renting commercial spaces, but the reality is that this isn't working very well for a lot of people at the moment.

Perhaps the thing to do would be to save the renovation money until the economy picks up and there's some chance that it'd get used. Perhaps they could use that money on fixing other parts of the park instead.

Mmmm, they gave away the 5000sf retail space that was the Sonics Team Shop to the Storm to use as anything they want, rent free, free, no rent, for ten years. And that is right next to Seattle Center.

So, no, you are not the only one that thinks paying to develop MORE of something the state economist described as spiraling down with no known bottom as a stupid thing to blow money on.

If you want to find cheap space to rent, look anywhere in the city. Property owners are losing their shirts left and right - NOW IS THE TIME TO NEGOTIATE.

These artists should just find somewhere else to work. I have no problems with that, and I even like artists. I would rather the money help people who actually need help to live.

@4, you didn't make me angry--you just seemed a bit worked up. That's why I said hug it out.

The artists in bldg 11 are not utilizing tax dollars by renting space there, they are paying rent to the city for workspace in an industrial bldg/boathouse that works fine for the current occupants. What we should be really upset with is how the city is basically "donating" one of the last undeveloped pieces of Lake Washington waterfront property to a developer who will be collecting and keeping the rents for 30+ years on Class A commercial office space without adding anything back to the community.