Radio station KEXP and the artists behind Open Platform, a proposed exhibition space and park, shot back against a panel’s recent recommendation to plant a Chihuly glass museum on public land at Seattle Center. Now the groups, which are bidding on that land together, want the public’s help to scrap the glass museum.
Open Platform said in a statement that if the museum were permitted, 30,000 square feet of open space would be “walled off and the public will be charged an admission fee to enter.” Instead, the group vowed to push officials to “select our plan so Seattle gets the public open space it deserves.” KEXP, meanwhile, announced it will “await a decision from the mayor.”
On September 17, the panel appointed by Seattle Center to evaluate eight proposals for the 1.4-acre site announced its choice, praising the Chihuly museum’s “organizational readiness” and saying that “no other proposal was as successful in meeting the… criteria.”
The recommendation will soon reach the desk of Mayor Mike McGinn, who can draw up a lease agreement for the Chihuly museum or select another project. “I am not predisposed to any option at Seattle Center,” McGinn said at a press event on September 10, while the recommendation was still pending. “The public loves Seattle Center, and we would do what meets the public’s expectations.”
As for the “public’s expectations,” sentiment has long been against a Chihuly museum. Seattle City Council member Sally Bagshaw, chair of the Parks & Seattle Center Committee, has received 64 e-mails supporting KEXP/Open Platform and against a Chihuly museum in the last six weeks. She has received only 25 in favor of the museum. And in April, Bagshaw’s office received over 500 e-mails about the museum, with three-quarters against the plan.
The panel’s arguments for the museum may not quell the public opposition. For instance, the panel says the museum’s “organizational readiness” played a primary role in its decision. But gauging the project by that metric suggests a predisposed outcome. The Chihuly museum had a year to craft its proposal (beginning behind closed doors), while other projects—KEXP, Open Platform, a Native American cultural museum, and four other proposals in competition—had only six weeks to create their proposals (a bidding process opened only after public outcry about the glass museum’s apparent backroom deal). And while the other proposals are less shovel-ready, they have assets the Chihuly project lacks, such as periodic changes to the installations and free admission. Announcing a winner based on the museum’s upper hand only exacerbates concerns that the project has long been predestined by the company that owns the Space Needle and Seattle Center, which has backed the project since the beginning.
“This was not a setup,” insists Bill Block, the panel’s leader. “We came into the process open-minded.” Block also says the panel carefully considered public concerns when evaluating the museum project.
But several of the museum’s flaws seemingly weren’t on the panel’s mind when making its recommendation: (1) the static, one-artist focus of the museum for 20 years—although Chihuly proponents say Pilchuck glass students and emerging artists could potentially exhibit in the space, Block admits they never stated how large a role they would play; (2) the lack of local participation (the museum estimates its audience will be 70 percent tourists); and (3) the eight-foot-tall fence surrounding it—the panel was satisfied with the “visibility of the art through and rising above the fencing.”
Of course, the Chihuly project has one clear advantage over the other proposals: funding. It offers higher rents and is throwing in a $2 million park-and-maintenance package to sweeten the deal. Oddly, the panel went out of its way to dismiss that advantage, saying that it evaluated the proposals based on how much they could potentially cost Seattle Center, not how much they could make. 
There is now a Facebook page to register your opposition to this undemocratic, private taking of public land. Please go to http://www.facebook.com/group.php?gid=16…, join the group and post your comments. Thanks
I am in support of the Chihuly project. It will create jobs for Seattle workers. The playground will be great too. There is a also a Facebook page to get more facts and information…
http://www.facebook.com/?ref=logo#!/chih…
Yay, Ciena wants office space for a radio station – a media form losing 1 million listeners per year nationally. 90% of the building would be offices. Pretty fricking exciting.
@1
This project was recommended by the Century 21 committee (the same group of citizens who wrote the Master Plan for Seattle Center, something I’m sure you took into consideration when calling this an “undemocratic” action.) Also, the Fun Forest area has always been leased for commercial usage. The proposed Chihuly project would lease the land from the public, at top dollar rent, for increments of 5 years, up to 20 years.
So KEXP and Open Platform want to partner up? Chihuly actively sought out partnerships with the Seattle School District, Pratt Fine Arts Center, Pilchuck and ArtsFund.
Cienna, since you are so close to the mayor’s office, could you please update your stats on how many phone calls and emails his office has received in favor of Chihuly?
It safe to assume the most popular reuse of the area retains some kids entertainment venues. The current reuse of the northside of the Fun Forest isn’t anywhere near what the public wants.
The building should be razed because it’s out of proportion. And it’s a damn warehouse. No decorating its exterior walla can hide the fact. It uncomfortably narrows the space between it and Center House. It leaves the south side with the appearance of where the trash is taken out and it degrades the amphitheater.
A new building there is better built up a few stories with its foundation reduced in size and less wreck-tangular. A multi-story building could host multi-venue uses: a Chiluly Gallery on the top floor; a kids venue video game hall and grand installation of select carousels on another floor combined with an open dining area; a functional bubbleator elevator; ground floor informational kiosks, offices; formal restaurant; boutique shopping; basement utilitarian purposes; etc.
Seattlers suck money and exhale cultural poverty. The Chiluly crowd will create more enemies than win fans with their scheme.
The kids who hang out there now will not hang out at a Chulhuly museum, end of story. They will be busy stealing the rims off your car while you admire some douchebag and the glass his minions blow for him.
Chihuly’s work is gimmicky gimcrackery. Why create a shrine on public land for his piles of glass gewgaws? Hotel lobbies are where his work belongs.
The Seattle Center has always been a blend of private money in a public space. We still don’t understand how the Century 21 committee expected tax payers to fund the estimated capital costs of 567 million to remodel the entire center grounds. Where would that money come from?
To me, the most obvious advantage of the KEXP proposal is that they can hold mini concerts for what has previously been the in studio segments. Think about having weekly free lunchtime concerts in the summer… that’s way more valuable for civic life and the citizens than duplicating an exhibition of glass that we already have down in Tacoma.
Radio stations have held concerts at the Center for decades. Seems like there’s nothing preventing KEXP from promoting concerts at the Mural Amphitheater.
Chiluly’s art is already dated and very soon will be completely out of style. Any talk of a future revenue stream from this art for the center is completely misguided. The owners of the spaceneedle are attempting a land-grab on what should always be open space for all residents & visitors to enjoy. I hope the public can rally to kill this bad idea before it gets started.
KEXP is 33rd in the ratings here (from a June list I found). KUOW is 10. KPLU is 21. Don’t tell me this isn’t about money for them too. They may be a public station, but they have staff and expenses and they want a bigger profile.
I’ve lived in the Seattle area my whole life and I’ve never listened to KEXP. I’m sure they are a wonderful station but at some level, this is a revenue proposal for both Chihuly and the station.
I have no beef with the museum and quite frankly I find this incessant bitching a head scratcher.
KEXP is 33rd in the ratings here (from a June list I found). KUOW is 10 and KPLU is 21st. Don’t tell this isn’t about money for them too. KEXP may be a public station, but they have staff and expenses and hopes of growth.
I’ve lived in the Seattle area my whole life and I’ve never listed to KEXP. I’m sure they are a wonderful station, but I fail to see how giving them the land is some sort of feel-good mission.
This is ridiculous. Even if the Chihuly Museum wasn’t going to be at Seattle Center, KEXP doesn’t “deserve” space at Seattle Center by a long shot.
Cienna hits the bulls-eye with the point about the Chihuly’s advantage in having at least a year longer to prepare its proposal than the other bids. Another thing that contributes to a built-in bias is the Panel’s declared preference for proposals that could open to the public by April, 2012, 50th anniversary of the World’s Fair.
Is it being too suspicious to raise the question of whether language in the Master Plan itself might not have been tailored to favor the Chihuly proposal? Seven of eight Review Panel members were also members of the Century 21 Committee. The Panel’s report repeatedly mentions its adherence to principles of the Master Plan, for example: “Most important, we strove to stay true to the Planning and Design Principles of the Master Plan that we developed in 2008 and which should guide the Master Plan’s implementation in this decision and well into the future”. The disavowal by Bill Block that Cienna reports—“This is not a setup”—in reference to the Review Panel’s final choice, is priceless. The Seattle Times in March, 2010, reports Jeff Wright (Space Needle LLC) as “not hitting on the idea of a Chihuly exhibition” for the south Fun Forest site until early 2009, months after the Master Plan was completed. On its face, this would certainly rule out a Chihuly exhibition hall waiting in the wings for a green light from the Master Plan. The Review Panel’s report closes with this from the 2008 Master Plan: “New ideas and opportunities, which can’t be imagined or planned for now, are likely to be presented to Seattle Center sometime in the years ahead”. Call it good timing. Given the history of the selection process, including the earlier move to install Chihuly without open bidding, plus the Panel’s deliberating in secrecy, and the neatness of the way the pieces come together, it’s only natural to wonder.
However that may be, it’s positively ludicrous to think of the Chihuly proposal actually squatting in the center of what, according to the Master Plan, should be open space, a green link between the perimeter of the Center and the interior. But KEXP in a renovated Pavilion in the same place would be almost as bad, frankly. From the standpoint of realizing the open space goals, both projects as currently sited are a dog in the manger. As was pointed out by Iain Robertson on WEEKDAY the other day, not all open space is created equal. The site in question is a key link to the interior, playing an important structural role in the layout of the Center and the movement of visitors. That’s why the Pavilion has to come down. On the same program, Maria Barrientos from the Panel, talked of open space as though it were yard goods, whose value could be estimated by the square foot, the same here, there, and everywhere. She suggested the community shift focus to the multi-purpose open space to come from the projected Memorial Stadium re-do.
Hopefully City Hall will question the deadline imperative and take a longer-range view on behalf of the Center and the Master Plan. When times are tough finances-wise, leadership is challenged. You would think minimal criteria for locals’ putting up with the privatizing, charge-for-admission Chihuly would be that its physical impact on Center grounds would be minimized; that the project would “redeem” itself with generous additional revenues for the Center; and that the project would accommodate itself without a fuss to the open space vision of the Master Plan. The Chihuly as proposed fails on all counts.
Put simply, between the Master Plan and the Panel’s analysis, it takes some artful maneuvering and a deadline to get to the Chihuly. The Mayor as negotiator-in-chief is in a position to straighten it out. But if carpetbaggers ultimately do carry the day, with tourist traffic as the getaway vehicle, then the deal needs to be sweeter for the Center than what’s on offer now. Even if all the lease rents and tax revenues associated with the Chihuly were slated for the Center without offsets from the general fund, the deal would need to be sweeter. Passing a levy to implement the Master Plan is temporarily out of the question owing to the weak economy, not to mention other big-ticket items in the region. Hence it stacks up as jump at the Chihuly, or wait it out with less, World’s Fair anniversary be damned. Extending the Fun Forest lease year by year might not be the most compromising choice. In the meantime, KEXP could relocate in some less prominent space on campus.
XYZ: the fun forest cannot afford to continue there – they’re just not making the money to keep it up.