[this was my email, I cc it here]
Landmarks Preservation Board Members,
For the Seattle Center site, I prefer to have the Paul Thiry buildings identified as landmarks, including KeyArena. They express our architectural ideas to the world. Please, recommend preservation and if possible, recommend that remodeling incorporate some of the original architectural design elements.
Developers should at least attempt to keep the inside of that arena from being the arena equivalent of a strip mall by alienating exterior historical design elements.
Going forward, if a new arena is selected for construction in SoDo then part of the one time and/or incremental tax revenue must be used to bring the seating scale of KeyArena brought down to the original Seattle Coliseum size, 13,000, with as much of the original designer's intent. It would be a unique size to this area.
In the 2015 AECOM report, Identification and Evaluation of Options for the Future of KeyArena, Scenario C (https://assets.documentcloud.org/documents/2433954/key-arena-report-june-2015.pdf), as a guide for scaling KeyArena down closer to its original size. This size was within the range recommended by Seattle Center Director Robert Nellams's to city council on 9/13/2012 (https://www.seattlechannel.org/mayor-and-council/city-council/2012/2013-government-performance-and-finance-committee?videoid=x22936 , => 28 min, 15 sec) to scale down to a capacity range between 5,000 up to 15,000 for KeyArena in the event that a sports arena were built elsewhere in the region.
Please consider, the city council could choose to remodel KeyArena into a modern version of its modern self, a split 11878 seat / 2905 seat with no competition for the 11878 seat theater, serving everyone that can get there without a car.
Legislation and an active MOU already directs a portion of the $200 million in public financing (2012 clerk file http://clerk.seattle.gov/%7Epublic/meetingrecords/2012/gpnf20120913_1a.pdf) toward mitigating impacts a new arena would have on KeyArena. The SoDo arena proposer is now declining much of that tax revenue. The city should extend a portion of the MOU legislation if they choose to approve vacating a portion of Occidental. Do not lose this potential revenue stream for remodeling KeyArena.
Have a great day,
Mike Baker
Mike Baker
Seattle, Wa
