(Image: Seattle Convention Center)
Seattle’s possibly unnecessary but still pretty damn gorgeous $2 billion convention center expansion debuts this week. CHS reported here on how the project has reshaped one of the key connections between Capitol Hill and downtown Seattle.
Friday will bring a rare opportunity to wander the brand new facility with free public tours “for community members to see the anticipated new convention center and learn about its beautiful architecture, public benefits, sustainability efforts and much more” —
When: Friday, January 27, 2023
1:00 – 6:00 p.m.Where: Summit | Seattle Convention Center
900 Pine Street
Visitors are encouraged to register for the event here.
Its developers say the new addition makes the facility the nation’s “first high-rise convention center” with the new Summit and original Arch building now making up a 1.5 million-square-foot campus across Pike and Pine and a new shape for the gateway to downtown.
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Such a gorgeous building.
Was it needed? Maybe. Probably.
Was it far too expensive? Yeah. We need to start talking in this country about infrastructure costs and why our overall construction costs are always multiples of what they are elsewhere (spoiler: it’s rent seeking and corruption, we need better government not bought-and-paid-for by corporate interests).
That said, let’s talk about this gorgeous building sitting next to the F*CKING DISGUSTING CAR SEWER.
And an **open** car sewer at that.
We need a lid over I-5.
We need a lid over I-5 asap.
And we need to stop the very Seattle thing of taking 20-30 years to talk about, study, and then finally build this lid.
There’s no reason 2-4 years of planning couldn’t come up with a reasonable plan — spoiler, there will be a mix of surface streets and parkland on top — ending with construction in 5-6 years.
This isn’t rocket science, Seattleites, it’s literally pouring concrete and putting in rebar.
We finally got rid of the ugly, unsafe viaduct, and the lesson from that experience was “it took wayyyyyyy too long.”
Let’s not repeat this mistake with lidding I-5.