How dare that terrible socialism woman bring FUN to Seattle!

Bring on the posts of outrage from the toadies of the wealthy. How dare people want to save a building!! Historic preservation is why rents are so high!!!!

this is the dumbest thing in the world. the stranger should be approaching this absurd situation with way more skepticism than they're approaching it currently.

we could have had a new apartment building (which we need, fight my nimbys), a new showbox on the ground, and $5 million in MHA dollars to build subsidized affordable housing, but now because of Sawant and Herbold's dumb brand of left NIMBYism, we now have a 1 story retail building, a parking lot, a music venue run by a multinational, and a $40 million lawsuit we'll surely lose.

Preserving the Showbox might be feel-good nostalgia preservation, but it is not historic preservation. Better to make a deal for a new space in the bottom of a 42 story tower and quit whining about change.

There we go! I knew the toadies would show up!

If anyone thinks that the sort of parasitic rich that would live in this 42 story tower will allow a music venue on the main floor, I’ve got a bridge to sell you.

Whenever I cast my ballot for councilmember, it’s important to me that I support a pretty good music promoter.

@4 exactly.

@6 - we're talking about well established property ownership laws. What the Seattle council did is effectively steal property. The lawsuit will get things fixed. It's just really odd to me that you seem to be ok with property theft.

@Catalina Vel-DuRay: the developer, onni, was gonna do that though per the reporting, but sawant and sad boy ben gibbard blew that option up. idk what you mean by 'parasitic rich' here, because the developer is the one who could have made that decision unilaterally... because it's their apartment building.

unless you think all developers are the 'parasitic rich' which is a classic nimby trope.

Will all the proceeds from this free show go toward the $40M (or whatever it ultimately becomes) the property owner’s lawsuit will take from our civic treasury? :-P

(Also, my dear Mrs. Vel-DuRay, I suggest you soon schedule a visit with your fine, caring medical professional, and have him up your dosage of benzodiazepines. Defending our City Council’s declaration of two parking lots as “historical”? That’s hysterical! Literally.)

@8:

Well, private property IS theft - I mean, it's not like humans have perpetually claimed ownership of various plots of dirt around here since the beginning of recorded history, right? No, it was either "purchased" from the indigenous peoples living here for basically glass beads, whisky, and sharp knives, or it was outright stolen from them with not even that ridiculously small amount of recompense. Same goes for just about everywhere else; it's just we've been living with this paradigm for so long, we've mostly forgotten the circumstances of how it originally came about: a process which generally involved one group of people taking land occupied by another group of people (most commonly either through chicanery or force), whether they claimed ownership of it or not. Then of course it was sold to/conquered by yet another person or group of people, and over time what once belonged to absolutely no one became "private".

You can argue that the system has been in-place for far too long to change it now, but you can't deny that's how it came to be in the first place.

@11 - I agree with most of what you write about the problematic history of property ownership. I'm not sure however we can say that any form of property ownership is theft. That's a bit of a leap, regardless of the troubled history.

@11 - the part that isn't in question is that the Seattle city council violated the law. They will either lose the court case outright, settle out of court, or reverse their decision (like they did the head tax).

No matter how we feel about the Showbox, no rally or concert is going to change the fact that the council broke the law.

@11

when will you be giving back all your private property and possessions?

@12

the junkies and street urchins will get free backstage passes.

zach I, long time visitors of Our Dear Slog know that I am eager to have the zoning changed so that we can literally sell off our front yard, (which I suppose makes me a YIMFY!). I also have established myself on many occasions as not being a fan of CM Sawant, so just calm yourself, dear.

I am on the side of The People who, like Seattlelies before them, stood up to parasitic rich and mindless bureaucracy to oppose things they didn't like. That's why we have the Pike Place Market - which was slated to be demolished in favor of a hotel, office and apartment complex, which you probably would have loved - and why we don't have a highway running through the CD and the arboretum, which you would have thought was swell. The citizens responded to this proposed land use, and they deserve to be heard. I know that people like you find democracy to be tiring (you were doubtless one of those tiresome children who knocked over the game board and locked yourself in the bathroom when you saw you were losing) but, as I'm sure you have been told many times, it's not always about you.

You can hang onto the dream of a new Showbox in a luxury apartment tower - naiveté is charming, after all - and your understanding of how development and developers work in downtown Seattle is absolutely precious. Yes, every developer is just a mom & pop organization that is being hassled by the gubbermint. Promise me you'll never lose that youthful zeal.

And Tensor dear, we are in accord about the parking lots. There's nothing historical about them. So maybe you're the one who should be looking at her dose?

@18: “...we are in accord about the parking lots. There's nothing historical about them.”

Baby steps, dear. Keep working hard at it, day after day, and soon even you’ll be able to bring yourself to admit there’s nothing historical about the adjacent cinder-block building which used to be a furniture store, either. (Assuming you can ever get enough benzos, that is.)

Oh — and do please tell us you really can discern the difference between Lake Washington Boulevard, the Pike Place Market, and a cinder-block building. Please, before we really start to worry over your fragile mental state.

Oh tensor: Dear, bitter, trusting, dense, tensor.

People like you are always stuck on dreary points that you think are important details. Maybe it's a cinder block building (I don't know that it is, and I surely don't trust you to know what that means. It's probably something that someone told you, and in any event, it doesn't matter).

And the "fact" that it was once - horrors! - a furniture store really is a non-sequiter (look it up, dear), even for you. It's what the space was used for in later years. The memories that makes it special to people who made memories in it - and judging by the response, that's a lot of Seattleites. It's not their fault that you stayed home every Saturday night for the last two decades, trying to master the multiplication tables, while they were out having fun.

And I don't know why you're dragging poor old Lake Washington Boulevard into this (it was Empire Way, dear, that was going to become a highway), and while I can just imagine grumpy old Granpaw Tensor being as confounded as you are as to why we would want to save that old Pike Place Market, there's a point where you have to reject your ancestor's doltishness, and think for yourself.

This is your moment!!!! Carpe Diem!!!!

@20: Still gobsmacked that some people somewhere signed a meaningless petition that required nothing of them, dear? (Maybe some of them even reside in Seattle — you have absolutely no idea, although you’re certain that you do.) How amusing! Your world must truly be very, very small.

You’re also quite certain no one of means will pay to sleep high up in a building while musical acts perform in a large space on the main level. I’d suggest you acquaint yourself with the concept of a downtown luxury hotel & ballroom. Why, even little old Seattle has a few! (You really, really should get out a little more, dear. Fresh air would do you a world of good.) Hint: they’re just a short walk away from that old cinder-block building in which I’ve seen so many good shows over the years.

Anyway, good luck on getting out more and learning about your city. You’d soon see there’s a lot more to it than old buildings nobody will miss.

@21 - Don’t be too unkind to our exquisite Mz. Vel-DuRay! It is her excellent comments which keep bringing me back to Slog -- in fact, I found this thread by searching the site for her latest & greatest commentary.

@15:

That's the point: they didn't get the land from anyone, and so didn't conceive of the idea that they owned it. One of the core beliefs of most indigenous cultures, particularly those in this part of the world, is that they share the land in common with the plants and animals, and thus have a responsibility to respect, protect, and nurture it and all the other living things that reside on it.

@16:

Sure, I'll be right there in line behind you...

Hmmm, did not learn anything from the head tax debacle. Can't wait for the new CM's next year.

Tensor dear, I'm sorry you don't understand the difference between a hotel and an apartment building, or the basic operating principles of hotel event planning. Luckily, I have several years of experience doing event planning in hotels, right here in Seattle (Sheraton, Westin and the Four Seasons Olympic) so I can speak to that.

Hotels concentrate on corporate and social events that have an invitation only-audience. They are overwhelmingly sedate affairs that are generally over by ten or eleven. They make a conscious effort to avoid events that are open to the public. And they are very conscious of disturbing other guests. An example: The Seattle Sheraton has a ballroom on the second to top floor (back in day, they used to do a lovely Sunday brunch!). They only use it for daytime meetings - no receptions or anything with live music - because guests on the floor it is on, and the floors directly below, complained about the noise. I hope I don't need to remind you that hotel guests typically only stay a few days. Renters are long-term.

Clubs like the Showbox are open to the public. Generally speaking, their crowds are louder and more raucous, the shows start later, and the attendees line up outside the venue. They have security issues, and often have crowd dispersement problems when the show is over. "Upscale" people do not want that in their building. A new development may very well open with a club, but it would not have the sort of bookings that Showbox currently engages.

You keep harping on the illegitimacy of the on-line petition, with a strange obsession as to whether the signees were Seattlelites. Of course, the entire city of Seattle did not sign the petition, but there's no way of knowing how many did, and the sheer number of signees impresses the political class, as does the organizing behind it (the petition does not exist in a vacuum. There are affiinity groups and I'm sure there is lobbying going on, and citizens being urged to contact their council person.) You may find that ridiculous, but no one in City Hall asked you.

@25: '"Upscale" people do not want that in their building.'

Persons who can afford to live in a downtown luxury residential tower can afford to live pretty much anywhere. If they do choose to live right downtown, then that means peace, quiet, and a lack of crowds can not be high on their list of priorities in choosing a residence. (Not that this matters with modern building engineering anyway -- any new building must meet our stringent seismic codes, which means sounds will be well-muffled by the structure.) The developer will use the music venue in advertising come-ons for prospective residents, in the same way as proximity to the Pike Place Market will be used -- "Live right here with historic Seattle culture!"

"A new development may very well open with a club, but it would not have the sort of bookings that Showbox currently engages."

Spend a lot of time booking bands for the Crocodile, do we?

(I've attended raucous parties, complete with loud rock bands, in a major downtown hotel, and I wasn't staying there. These affairs need not be as sedate as you seem to believe.)

"You keep harping on the illegitimacy of the on-line petition, with a strange obsession as to whether the signees were Seattleites."

That's because I'm amused by how gobsmacked you were by this utterly meaningless publicity stunt, dear. And it's not "strange" to ask if a petition meant to influence a local government was actually signed by anyone who resides within that government's jurisdiction. That is in fact the first and most important question to ask in a democracy.

Let's recall the background here has nothing to do with that old, seismically-unsafe, former furniture store. It originates with our Council's stunning defeat by Seattle's citizens over the EHT. Our Council had no idea tens of thousands of citizens had signed Referendum petitions to recall the EHT, and this news came as a hugely unpleasant shock to our Council. They suddenly saw that a well-financed group which opposed Council policy also had a huge mailing list of local, registered voters. Council Members are taking this "Showbox" petition seriously not because it deserves respect, but because they're desperate to create the same level of support for themselves as they have created in opposition to themselves. They're hoping some significant number of Seattle's voters signed the petition, without knowing if that is true or not.

CM Sawant has been completely clear about how she intends to use the support of these signatories:

'"We need to come back to organizing, so please stay in touch with us," Sawant said. "We will succeed in saving the Showbox but... this could be the catalyst for the future struggle for affordable housing. Maybe we can win the Amazon tax that was repealed, maybe we can win a tax on big businesses. Why should we stop with just saving the Showbox?"'

(https://www.thestranger.com/slog/2018/08/13/30710670/city-council-temporarily-blocks-demolition-of-the-showbox)

If she really expects a one-time group of single-issue signers from god-knows-where to give chronic support for her Seattle plans, she must really be completely desperate.