Seattle Center delays decision on SeaSk8 replacement

We reported yesterday that the Seattle Center staff and the Century 21 Committee would be presenting their recommendations for the SeaSk8 replacement site to the City Council in today’s PELL meeting. After 2 hours of waiting, we discovered we were sadly mistaken.

The City Council has long been saying that the skatepark replacement needs to be completed in the short term, and should not be a part of the Century 21 re-design. In fact, there is a proviso that states construction on the replacement park must be underway before the parking garage currently being built on top of the old skatepark site, is officially open for business. A plea was made by Seattle Center staff to roll the skatepark into the Century 21 process many months ago, but the Council stuck by their word and refused to accept any delay.

So why is the Century 21 Committee making a recommendation at today’s City Council meeting? Maybe it’s because Seattle Center staff came to the party empty handed….

The skatepark replacement discussion was presented by the Seattle Center and several of the C21C members. Seattle Center staff presented a long-winded summary of the actions they have taken to accommodate the City Council’s demands to identify a replacement site that must begin construction by 2008.

But what was left out was the entire public outreach and design process for the ill-fated Elliot Ave site, recommended by the Parks Department as the best replacement site after “looking at” every other option within the vicinity of the Seattle Center. He also managed to omit the 6 month study commissioned by Mayor Nickels, in which a consultant was hired to look at every single piece of public property within 2 miles of Seattle Center and still recommended the Elliot site *halfway to Ballard* as the best place for the only skatepark in the city’s urban core. There was also no mention of the meetings with skateboarders after he took over, that included a walking tour of the entire campus and an explanation for why every single available space was not suitable for a skatepark. All of this seemed to be setting the stage for what has become a transparent effort by Seattle Center staff to keep steady pressure on the broom handle when it comes to sweeping the skatepark replacement issue under the rug.

What he did recount was how the Century 21 Committee had begun it’s process to re-design the entire Seattle Center campus, and how the skateboarders had done a great job in presenting that committee with a case for what makes a well-sited and successful skatepark. Then he introduced two members of that committee, who proceeded to deliver their recommendation: the pavilion between the buildings and Key Arena at 2nd and Thomas, but only in 4-5 years when the building is torn down. In the meantime, they want to build temporary SeaSk8 (temporary park #4!) at the “pocket park” on Mercer. Let’s not overlook that this leaves the skateboarding community with no permanent park for 5 years, and drains half the budget on yet-another temporary modular park in a bad location. The kicker: these people are not even supposed to be involved in the skatepark site selection process.

To their credit, the C21C folks complimented the SPAC for its ongoing support in the replacement process and praised their dedication. But following these praises, the downward spiral was initiated (and never turned back).

Scott MacColl, City Council central staff, asked the group how much ingress/egress is required by fire code in front of the Pavilion and the Key Arena. Seattle Center responded that 20 feet was required. Richard Conlin then asked whether the courtyard space could be used as is for a skatepark to meet the expedited construction timeline (i.e., 2008). Seattle Center responded that the courtyard space is intimately linked with the ongoing Pavilion use and that cutting the courtyard off from the Pavilion would adversely affect the Pavilion use. Basically they were saying that the courtyard cannot be converted to a skatepark while the Pavilion is still being used.

So this begs the question…Why did they even offer up this site as a viable alternative when the City Council directly stated that construction of the replacement site needs to initiate in 2008?

Councilmember Drago was visibly frustrated about this. She then asked how much of the 12,700 square feet within the courtyard could eventually be used for a skatepark. Seattle Center staff could not answer this question. Councilmember Drago became more frustrated and asked how the City Council was suppose to make a siting decision if the site the Seattle Center/C21C identified does not meet the construction timeline and the amount of skateable terrain in the courtyard has not been identified. Nellams took full blame and stated that they were in the process of figuring out these numbers and proposed to have the answer (referring to “the last 3 questions” that the City Council asked them to answer in this meeting) by the end of the month. Visibly agitated Jan stated that this issue would be discussed at the next PELL meeting in July.

The upshot here is that from the fifty-thousand-foot view, the skateboarders are still without a skatepark almost 2 years after the sale of “lot 2” to the Gates Foundation was announced on February 28th, 2005. Demolition dates for the old concrete park were deliberately kept secret to avoid any negative heat on Seattle Center and the Mayor, while all efforts to move forward on building the replacement park have been slowed by a transparent lack of commitment from the Seattle Center staff to do the right thing by the skateboarding community. Seattle Center staff have admitted to skatepark advocates that past issues with pedestrian/skateboarder conflicts and some grinding damage has created an internal bias against skateboarders, which is acceptable because they’ve only experienced it in the context of a bad site under less-than-ideal conditions. What seems evident though is that they are holding on to this bias even though they’ve been mandated by the City Council to move forward with rebuilding the skatepark on the campus. At every step they seem to stall, dodge, and shift.

It also feels like the C21 group is having more influence on this process than we thought, which is concerning primarily because once the skatepark gets pulled into the global re-design project we are looking at 5+ years of delay. It’s also not lost on us that the C21 group is primarily comprised of representatives from the tenant businesses at Seattle Center, and are thinking more about financial sustainability than providing recreational access to the public.

One has to wonder what role Mayor Nickels is playing in all of this, as the Seattle Center staff report to his office, the C21 committee was appointed by him, and it’s really starting to seem like he is not in support of the City Council’s effort to relocate the skatepark in the Seattle Center campus.

Watch the video here (Realplayer)

Advocates @ 2:30
Council action @ 34:00