Seattle Center Public Meeting on Redevelopment Tonight

Seattle Center is holding a "Fun Forest Redevelopment Public Hearing" in the Center House, Conference Room A, tonight at 6:30 p.m. Most of you dodged an earlier solicitation for public input, so they're doing it again, using the heated public reaction to the Wright family's Chihuly glass house proposal as a motivator.

While it's your golden opportunity to chime in about the Fun Forest space south of the Monorail, the Center is also interested in public suggestions for events, art installations, and community gatherings that could be held in what they're calling the Center Square, the three acres north of the Monorail, where the Fun Forest's larger rides used to be.

The only hitch is that the use is temporary--at the end of 2011, the Center will need the Center Square back for their 50th Anniversary celebration in 2012. Otherwise, redevelopment of the north space is all planned out: Center spokesperson Deborah Daoust says there'll be a large tent for concerts, a 3,500-sq.-ft. children's garden, a basketball court, and a hay bale maze. They're also taking over the Center Square Pavilion, a 7,000-sq.-ft. building adjacent to the Center House's east side that I remember mainly for having an ice cream shop with exactly the same choices as those inside the Center House.

For the south area's redevelopment, Daoust says the future of the 1.5 acres is being opened up to an RFP process, to see if members of our outraged public can come up with a better idea than the Wrights'. Meanwhile, the Fun Forest's "kiddie rides" will remain in place until Labor Day 2010.

Daoust reminds the "But it's a public park" contingent that while it would be nice to think so, the city's allocation of public funds has not historically been a major driver of what gets done on Center grounds. Since 1990, the Center has enjoyed about $700 million in redevelopment spending, of which $440 million came from private sources, with public levy funding accounting for about $62 million.

I remember, when the Seattle Center Century 21 Master Plan was adopted by the City Council in a unanimous vote, being shocked by the unanimity on a $570-million price tag, until I realized that it was largely a feel-good gesture on the part of the City Council. The relevant wording: "The plan will be supported, as redevelopment has in the past, by a mix of private and public funding." Translation: "We're behind this plan a full 9 percent, public funding-wise. Now git 'r' done."